Telltale Games proved that The Walking Dead can deliver a fantastic gaming experience by sticking to its guns and taking the narrative route. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, however, proved that even a wealth of backstory and promises to explore one of its more prominent characters cannot sell a smoldering pile so hideous that even the series' iconic Walkers appear more personable by comparison. Despite being canonically interwoven with amc's hit series and its source comics, Survival Instinct doesn't know what it is. It wanted to be a shooter, it wanted to be a mature story with karmic decisions, and it wanted to be a stealth game. It is none of these thing; just a repugnant reminder of the soullessness of most licensed games. Far from the grandeur of its brand, it is better described as The Little Engine That Didn't Even Freaking Try.