posted by @HeyItsKamo

Have you ever wanted to kill your friends? Well here’s your chance…sort of. Let me explain.

During last nights episode of The Walking Dead, AMC ran ONE MILLION commercials, most of which were about… The Walking Dead. I’ve noticed this trend lately- networks will run commercials for television shows while the show is actually airing (I first noticed this during the Patton Oswalt episode of Conan last week). This is really strange to me, but whatever, I’m sure there’s a reason behind this (right, marketing executives!?). So one of the commercials that ran was for the new AMC The Walking Dead Social Game on Facebook.

Normally, I’m not one for Facebook games- I’ve never played Farmville or joined up with someones Mafia or tried out any of the other games we’re always getting invited to on the social networking site, so this was kind of a big step for me. I figured, what the heck, it’s worth at least a look- I’m glad I decided to be bold and try something new, because this game fucking rules.

This game plays like a point and click action RPG- you create and control a character (I tried to get my guy to look as close to Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force as I possibly could) and go on missions for people at your camp. As of right now, I’ve only done about seven missions so this could change, but the time frame this title is set in is during season one, just before Rick met up with the rest of the group at their makeshift camp.

After creating your character, you meet up with Shane for a traditional “this is how the game works” mission. He instructs you on how to move and how to engage and kill the zombies littered throughout each level of the game. Then he sends you on your way, and you meet up with other survivors at the camp.

You can choose a variety of weapons to help you in your mission to take down the walkers and secure supplies for the camp: baseball bats, axes, knives, irons, frying pans, pistols, shotguns, and rifles. There’s also a tab in the selection screen titled TV Items, where you can unlock weapons from the show. Daryl’s crossbow, Rick’s revolver, Glenn’s machete and others are available for purchase once you have enough loot to do so. In this store/attribute selection screen, you can also buy energy and stamina upgrades, ammo (of course), and other supplies. It’s also here where you can upgrade your characters attributes (using Skill Points earned by completing missions), which will come in handy as the levels get more difficult. Vision, Stamina, Movement, Striking, and Shooting can all be upgraded- I went with vision and stamina first just because you can’t really see far in the beginning stages, and I was just using the baseball bat to fuck up the zombies so I had to be able to get the fuck out of there quickly.

On to the game! The missions I’ve done so far have been your typical “find and retrieve” type levels: the camp needs more tents, go get some. The camp is low on food and water, it’s up to you to find enough for everyone- stuff like that. You then click your way through each level, taking cover behind anything you can in order to hide from the walkers, and every now and then engaging them in combat. You earn experience points (XP) for killing zombies and completing missions, so try and kill as many baddies as you can. The fighting is turn based and is done by clicking on the enemies. So, if you engage an enemy, you will see a moving crosshair- when the crosshair turns red above the enemies head, click the mouse again to kill them. I’ve tried this with hand weapons (baseball bat) and fire arms (shotgun) and so far I’ve had an easier time with the hand weapons.

If you’re not quick enough when clicking the crosshair, it’s the zombies turn, and they kill you pretty quick. When you die, you actually have to begin the entire level over again, which isn’t that bad but it can be kind of a pain if you get all the way to the end of a mission and get attacked and killed.

On top of these unique story lines that give you a bit of back-story about the show, you can play TV Missions. The season three “breaking into the prison” premiere is one of the playable missions, as is the series premiere  when Rick was in Atlanta and met up with Glenn and the gang. I haven’t tried these yet, but they look pretty cool so I’ll be sure to check them out once I level up a bit more.

So this game is on Facebook, how do you interact with your friends? Well, I’ll tell ya how! There are options to invite friends to the game, where I guess they’ll help you somehow? I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m assuming you get some ammo or something for inviting your buddies and having them sign up to play. You can also see which friends of yours are playing the game by way of a list near the bottom of the game window- it shows their profile picture, what level they’re at, and their name. The really funny aspect in this game is how they also try and incorporate your friends- your Facebook friends are the fucking zombies. That’s right, folks! Some zombies have pictures of your friends above them, and when you kill them you can choose for the game to post a short message on their Facebook wall, letting them you that you killed their zombie ass. Pretty neat, if you ask me :)

Another cool feature in the game is a random tab along the top bar labeled Watch and Earn. If you select it, you get a reward after watching a short commercial (think Hulu)- I was given five Ammo as a reward for each commercial I watched, despite still not having a decent gun to shoot the said ammo with… but whatever, I guess I can just use it later. Also, there was an another option to share the reward with your friends (hahahaha!). I viewed five total ads for stuff like: Verizon, Verizon, some shitty Bingo game, Verizon, the same shitty Bingo game. A cool thing about this feature is I’m pretty sure it was endless- I watched five ads and could have kept going if I chose to do so.

If you’re like me, you don’t use Facebook very often. This game might change that for me- it’s one heck of a fun undead time!

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