So I walked out of THE ROOM, crossed THE BRIDGE, and was surrounded by THE WALKING DEAD; One Less In The Backlog Review.

Notorious for getting games on the cheap, here are three that I finished up within the last few weeks. The Room was a buck on the phone and had seen game play months ago and really wanted it. So I let it ride out til the price cut and snatched it up. Same goes for the The Bridge but it was on the Xbox 360. The Walking Dead I had been slowly collecting the episodes as they went on sale, so as to get the entire season and binge play it as a whole game.



The Room is an eerie puzzler, where you enter a attic room with a large safe and have to crack it. Your colleague has disappeared but not before leaving you clues to enter the attic and solve his disappearance.The safe cracking is not in the traditional sense of safe cracking, where you spin a dial...the safe is the dial. The safe is covered with clues and small little mechanical puzzles that you open in sequence to open other parts and sections of the safe. A puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle etc, etc. With patience and a watchful eye for the small details the game is great fun. I played it on my phone, my tablet is currently being bungled around for warranty repairs. I think it would play a little better on a tablet but it has crisp graphics and it should, considering the tiny details you need to find. The story takes you on a nice ride to the paranormal. Great game. Solid GOLD INU. Room 2 was just released,...thus begins the wait to the price drop.

The Bridge was another of those I had watched game play months ago and I bought it on the cheap. If you like Limbo and Braid, The Bridge might be right for you. The game is done up in the drawing style of M.C. Escher; is that staircase going up or down guy? You enter little rooms with a door within the puzzle, you are drawn into the puzzle, are able to walk and then able to spin the entire room puzzle 360 degrees. Many times trying to reach a key to unlock the door, or using the Menace, a grimaced faced rolling ball of instant death, to hit a switch for you. You must overcome the puzzle, the obstacles with the puzzle and the environment. Starts simple, then a little harder and finally you are flicking off the TV every time you complete a puzzle after a couple of hours. I will admit, after four hours on the final puzzle I cheated and looked for a solution. Quirks are added every chapter that make the game increasingly difficult. Though short, as the "regular" game goes at 20 levels and 4 chapters, the added challenge of the mirrored mode is added after completing the game. Once again a fun game, if you like puzzlers. GOLD INU.

The Walking Dead. Love the show, as many of you do. The game is like being a participant in the human drama that makes the show so great. Did you like Choose your own Adventure books in your younger years? Or a current comparison, on a grander scale is Mass Effect, where your immediate decisions have long standing consequences further down the road. This isn't the the popular AMC show cast you are playing as but another group of survivors, but a Herschel facsimile counterpart, and Glen do make a cameo before he breaks for Atlanta. Neat touch. You play as Lee Everett, on his way to jail at the start of the zombie outbreak. The sh*t hits the fan, and the game begins. The season is set out over 5 episodes each with important, far reaching and dangerous decisions. I won't get into the story, one, it would ruin it if you do get it, two, the roller coaster drama changes on the way you play it. The game has a nice little rewind feature where you can skip back a bit to change this decision or that.

The game play is point and click, with some action sequences with weapons and QTE throughout. The first episode felt a little jank with some action sequences, though were fixed in following episodes. My biggest pet peeve is the inability to invert the Y-axis, also having to aim, then use the A button with the same thumb. That was fixed with RT, later, thankfully. I bought Beyond Good and Evil and yet to finish it because of the Y-axis issue. It's very difficult to unlearn what I have learned Master Yoda. Old school like that.

The game is all about the drama and how you react to situations with your actions or conversations. People remember what you said, and what you did. They will hold a grudge until the last episode,...when and if, they make it that far. The story arc is amazing, the emotions run high and I did well up during one scene. First game to ever, ever do that. You get attached to the people you save, the innocence, the situations and the choice you are given. GOLD INU.

Season 2 is currently running through its' paces and just as before, I will wait solemnly until I get the season on the cheap, though it is worth the current season pass of $15, savings of ten dollars, CALL TODAY! I jest, I jest. Telltale has got a great series on there hands, and from what I hear, more to come. The Wolf among Us, a retelling of the Big Bad Wolf, based on a comic series. The Tales from the Borderlands and a Game of Thrones series as well.

Old school point and click with great story, drama and you at the helm.

SWS out.