Gamers spent $992.5 million dollars on consoles, peripherals, and new physical video games in March — a number that’s 10 percent less than a year ago mostly due to slowing console sales.

Financial tracking firm The NPD Group just released its report for the video game industry for March 2013. That $992.5 million is down 10 percent from $1.1 billion last year. As always, it’s important to note that these figures don’t include digital sales on Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, or any other digital-distribution platform.

Hardware sales took the biggest hit. Gamers only spent $221.6 million on new consoles. That’s down 32 percent from $324.7 million in 2012. A saturated market and news about next-gen systems from Microsoft and Sony are both impacting sales.

We’ll take a look closer look at hardware in a second, but first, let’s look at the software chart:

Software

Here is a list of the best-selling games in March 2013:

1. BioShock Infinite (360, PS3, PC)
2. Tomb Raider (2013) (360, PS3)
3. Gears of War: Judgment (360)
4. God of War: Ascension (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, Wii U, PC)
6. Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS): 365,000 units (415,000 with eShop)
7. MLB 13: The Show (PS3, Vita)
8. NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, PSP, PC)
9. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (360, PS3, Wii U)
10. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 (360, PS3)

xx. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates To Infinity (3DS) – (145,000 retail + eShop)
xx. Fire Emblem (3DS) – (64,000 retail + eShop)

If you include home consoles, portable consoles, and PC, physical-game sales were actually up 2 percent from $592.2 million in 2012 to $602.4 million.

Those numbers were up despite approximately 20 percent fewer new games compared to March 2012.

“March 2013 launches generated close to 70 percent more dollar sales per SKU than last year,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement. “The performance of new launches was a major driver of the overall software growth for this month, with games launching in March 2013 selling over 40 percent more units than new launches in March 2012. There were positive trends for new launches that were seen across consoles, portables, and PC.”

In February, Sega’s big stinker, Aliens: Colonial Marines, cracked the top 10 list. In March, it’s Activision’s awful The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct making it all the way to No. 9. That’s not bad for a title that only scored a 55 out of 100 in its GamesBeat review.

As usual, this is an Xbox 360-dominated chart, with a few PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS games sprinkled in here and there. No Wii U or Vita exclusive made the top 10, as once again those systems didn’t really have any significant releases throughout the month.

The 3DS did have a very strong month, though.

“With solid performances of new games like Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, 3DS software sales increased over 50 percent from last March,” said Callahan.

Finally, both BioShock Infinite and Tomb Raider set new opening-month records for their respective franchises. Clearly, the positive reviews, marketing push, and anticipation was enough to pushy BioShock Infinite over the top. Meanwhile, Tomb Raider has competely a successful comeback. Now it’s up to publisher Square Enix to capitalize on that.

Hardware

The Xbox 360 sold 261,000 units last month. That’s down 29 percent from 371,000 in March 2012. This makes the Xbox 360 the best-selling home console for the 27th consecutive month.

As usual, Nintendo and Sony didn’t share any numbers telling us how their hardware performed. But estimates have put Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U, at sub-100,000 sales for the last two months. The release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate could help improve those numbers slightly, but that franchise isn’t a system seller like it is in Japan.

In total, gamers spent $402 million on Microsoft hardware, software, and accessories. That’s more than 40 percent of the total consumer spend in March. That’s going to leave Sony and Nintendo in a race for a distant second place.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, GamesBeat was at the 2013 Game Developer’s Conference, bringing you previews and interviews. Harmonix announced that it is working on three new games. And legendary developer Brenda Romero (formerly Brathwaite) quits the International Games Development Association after the organization threw a party with hired female dancers.

You’ll also find reviews for BioShock Infinite and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct as well as previews for the Ouya console, Dive Kick, Battlefield 4, Infinite Crisis, and Space Hulk.

Game Developer’s Conference 2013

• In a ‘love letter to gamers,’ Ouya launches its console at a crowded GDC event (video)
• Game designer Brenda Romero quits IGDA following party with hired female dancers
• Women bring down the house at GDC
• YetiZen explains hiring of gamer models, not dancers, for its GDC party
• California’s second lady: Games need to ‘think bigger’ about portrayals of women
• Free-to-play publishers & game developers throw down at GDC

News

• The DeanBeat: Will Battlefield 4 or Puzzle & Dragons reach $1B in revenues?
• Epic launches new content and a title update for Gears of War: Judgment
• Intel in talks to acquire gesture control firm Omek Interactive
• ‘Programmers loathe’ developing games for Android, says Geomeric founder
• Marketing, reviews, and mobile may all determine if your game is a hit or a flop
• Total War series gets a League of Legends-style spin-off
• Playdek nails down $3.8M in funding for more digital board games
• Lab Zero Games ends Skullgirls crowdfunding campaign with $830K
• GameStop: One-third of BioShock Infinite buyers also purchased a Season Pass
• GameStop profits up despite dipping revenues, expects a ‘challenging’ 2013
• 505 Games shoveling Terraria to PlayStation Vita this summer
• A winning wager? Experts see a $20B market for gambling in games
• The Rock Band played on: Harmonix working on 3 new games
• Japanese telecom buys majority stake in Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo
• Surprise! The Phantom Pain is actually Metal Gear Solid V
• Nintendo demos improvements due in April Wii U update
• Tecmo Koei slices off a few new details about Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z
• EA has a lot riding on Battlefield 4, and it’s stepping up its investment in a big way
• In Africa, devs struggle to create modern games for 3K cultures
• EA sets the stage for Battlefield 4 launch
• Minecraft developer chipping away at April release for Scrolls beta
• Facebook tells developers how to win at games in 2013
• King.com saw its Facebook desktop player numbers blossom after Candy Crush Saga’s mobile launch
• Unity Technologies forms alliance to create better games on Facebook
• Plants vs. Zombies shuffles to Facebook; sequel due in summer
• Sony steps up for indies with funding for PlayStation games
• Kuato teaches kids to code via Hakitzu educational game
• It’s a final fantasy for Square Enix president after restructuring
• Square Enix restructures and sells four free-to-play titles to Sleepy Giant (exclusive)
• PlayStation 3′s Rain may be the next Journey
• EA squashes potential Origin exploit
• Zynga chief information officer takes top job at cloud-storage company
• How The Unfinished Swan moved from student project to PS3 downloadable game
• Game retailers better than movie theaters at enforcing age restrictions
• Zynga flexes its marketing muscle to support third-party partner games
• Facebook updates developers on local currency pricing
• Roku should worry: GameStick adding XBMC media support
• Turbine working with DC Comics on League of Legends-style game
• Epic Games’ alliance with Oculus VR means virtual reality gaming will be coming to you
• Kickstarter campaign begins for a spiritual successor to Ecco the Dolphin (exclusive)
• EA and Insomniac Games will launch Fuse on May 28

Mobile news

• Clash of Clans mobile gamemaker Supercell is raising more than $100M at an $800M valuation
• Casual-game developer Big Fish celebrates 10 years and 2 billion downloads
• App marketing costs fall back to Earth after holiday highs
• Candy Crush Saga developer reveals two new Facebook games
• Fish Out Of Water! is the next mobile addiction from Fruit Ninja’s developers
• The future of mobile graphics: Better, faster, cheaper, & way more 3D
• Fetch wants to help smartphone users find games that they love
• Prepare your panzer: Wargaming is taking World of Tanks mobile
• App Annie reveals massive success for GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons
• Verizon launches games portal using PlayPhone technology
• Joyride’s voice-activated mobile apps ‘turn cars into starships’
• Com2Us rides the Kakao mobile games wave and expands to the U.S.

Previews

• Ouya looks pretty but lacks killer games so far (preview)
• Space Hulk translates the board game to digital … with changes (preview)
• Infinite Crisis proves that superhuman brawls never get old (preview)
• Battlefield 4 goes for a human feel in the middle of its incredible carnage (preview)
• Divekick and Sportsfriends turn friends and strangers into rivals on the PlayStation 3 (preview)
• Everybody was kung-fu fighting: Age of Wushu comes to America (preview)

Reviews

• BioShock Infinite’s a fascinating ‘what if’ tale of American conservatism with a few flaws (review)
• The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct leaves you feeling empty (review)

Interviews

• Ahoy, transmedia! Warner Bros. sails into digital games (interview)
• Jade Raymond’s growing empire at Ubisoft (interview)
• David Ko sees mobile as critical for Zynga’s comeback in 2013 (interview)

Pieces of Flair

• 10 new Grand Theft Auto V screenshots (gallery)
• Battlefield 4: Check out the first screenshots
• BioShock Infinite guide: The best Vigors and Gear to make Columbia burn
• HarmoKnight: Finding the 5 ‘pinklefs’ and unlocking the secret world

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Robert Kirkman has a twisted mind. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his psyche lurked tales of hacking off limbs, gouging of eyes with spoons, and pinning down male genitalia with nails. And this doesn’t even have anything to do with what the zombies do. He just has to let all that shit out. That’s the only explanation I can think of for The Walking Dead, the writer’s ongoing black-and-white comic book story that has expanded its reach to television and video games.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (out now for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC) isn’t your typical first-person zombie-shootin’ game since you can’t mow down the undead with a generous supply of bullets. It takes place in the early days of the zombie apocalypse from AMC’s version of The Walking Dead — the popular TV series based on the comic — and puts you in the role of Daryl Dixon, the show’s crossbow-firing antihero.

In keeping with the fiction’s rules, gunshots and explosions attract way more zombies (via sight and sound) than those they actually kill, so it’s best to stick with melee weapons and close encounters to ensure Daryl’s safety as he fights through Georgia in search of his older brother, Merle. Developer Terminal Reality wisely emphasizes a survival aspect that zombie-focused games usually ignore, but it’s not enough to elevate Survival Instinct (as played on a PS3) from being more than just a mediocre experience.

What you’ll like

Struggling to survive

Unlike the undead shooting gallery seen in Left 4 Dead or Call of Duty: Black Ops II’s outlandish zombie mode, Survival Instinct has a distinctive gameplay loop of exploration, scavenging, and hunting down walkers (The Walking Dead’s parlance for zombies). It all comes together really well in the first few hours — you need to look for gas cans so you have enough fuel to travel from town to town; you explore that area for food, munitions, and possible survivors to bring with you; and when you’re done there, you drive over to the next place and repeat the process.

Zombies aren’t just cannon fodder since it only takes a handful of them to kill you. The best strategy is to break them up into smaller groups or isolate them individually, and then sneak behind and smash or stab their heads with weapons like a baseball bat or a machete. It’s impossible to account for every single corpse roaming around, so I always felt nervous when exploring an infested town. But it’s all the more thrilling when you do manage to outsmart them by picking them off or when you successfully hide from a huge herd that’s coming after you.

The road is fraught with danger as well. The chances of your car breaking down or finding a pit stop to search for supplies depends on which of the three routes you take. Driving down the back roads use up a lot of fuel, but you’ll pull over more often for supply runs. Regular streets take up a little less gas and gives you a medium chance to find new areas. And highways need the least amount of fuel, but you’ll also have a high probability that your car will stall.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct screenshots

Grounding this risk/rewards system in some sense of realism makes your experience unpredictable. I thought I was doing well when I had a surplus of food and guns … but the next area I traveled through (and the herd of zombies I met) nearly drained me of all of my resources.

It’s a solid system that would’ve worked well with better level designs and mission objectives. But repetition began to set in halfway through my 8.5 hour playthrough thanks to a bunch of problems, which more development time could have fixed.

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This sponsored post is produced by Dealzon.

It’s official. You really shouldn’t bother buying a Triple-A game on release date because the publisher is just going to slash prices by 50% the following month. Amidst all the SimCity drama and CEO resignation, EA launched a new deal this week, funnily enough calling it a “Player Appreciation Sale.” There are some decent titles in the mix for EA’s sale, but two titles that immediately stand out are Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3, both now at $30 with free shipping across all platforms.

Fans of action RPGs should really check out this week’s just-introduced “Humble Bundle Weekly Sale,” where individual titles are up for grabs at the $1 minimum price. For this week, the popular indie game Bastion is on sale. Pay more than the current average and you’ll receive additional goodies such as the soundtrack, art pack, sheet music, and cell phone ringtones.

Since last Thursday, Gamefly rolled out a “Spring Break PC Sale,” which will have new titles on sale each day until Friday. Titles of choice for the day are Deus Ex Human Revolution for $5 and Hitman Absolution at $12.50.

Note: We update our GamesBeat weekly deal post every Tuesday with the latest deals. For last week’s deals, check below the “Last Thursday” headline.

Tuesday New Deals

Crysis 3 (PC, 360, PS3) — $29.99 at Origin. For the price, the console versions are decidedly good deals, considering physical copies of the game are rarely on sale.
 

Dead Space 3 (PC, 360, PS3) — $29.99 at Origin. While we prefer the first and second Dead Space installments over the latest, this is a solid price for a recent release.
 

Bastion: Humble Bundle Weekly Sale — Pay What You Want. Pay more than the current average of $2.65 to receive additional digital goodies such as the soundtrack, or pay the $25 flat rate to get the game along with physical merchandise.
 

GameFly Spring Break PC Sale. Titles of choice: Deus Ex: Human Revolution for $5 and Hitman: Absolution for $12.50.
 

Last Thursday

If you think you’re done playing Assassin’s Creed 3, you’re not thinking like a game publishing executive. (Fact: DLCs will never end.) Happily for those looking for more content on AC3, the Season Pass is on sale this week at Gamefly for $24 after coupon. Five DLCs are planned with two released thus far: “The Hidden Secrets Pack” and “The Battle Hardened Pack.” Next week we’ll see the release of some actual gaming add-ons (in our opinion) with the first installment of the episodic The Tyranny of King Washington. If you plan to play through the entire 3 episodes and didn’t pre-order AC3, the Season Pass is worth considering.

On the console front, PS3 exclusive God of War: Ascension was released earlier this week. The only “deal” we’ve seen thus far is strangely at Gamestop for $5 off. While the $5 discount isn’t much to write home about, you’ll find that PS3 exclusives are rarely on sale so soon after release, with Newegg previous-year pre-orders being the only real savings we’ve seen. So if you didn’t pre-order 6 months ago at Newegg and you’re thinking about getting Ascension, Gamestop is the place to go (did we seriously just recommended buying something at Gamestop?!).

Recent Releases

This Tuesday’s release: God of War: Ascension (PS3) — $54.99 at GameStop after coupon. Yes we know $55 is just $5 off MSRP but everywhere else legitimate is selling this PS3 exclusive at full price. So it goes for console gaming deals.
 

This Tuesday’s release: Dead Space 3: Awakened (PC DLC) — $8 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Reviews so far are a mixed bag. List is $10 so at least you’re not paying full price here.
 

Upcoming Releases

Assassin’s Creed 3 Season Pass (PC Download) — $23.99 at GameFly after coupon. The season pass will give you access to all 5 DLCs (3 already released), the latest being the upcoming Tyranny of King Washington.
 

March 19th: Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360) — $59.99 at Microsoft. Yes that’s full price but it comes with pre-order bonuses: free Xbox LIVE 1600 points ($20 value), the Alex Brand playable character, and the Hammerburst weapon.
 

March 19th: The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct (Xbox 360, PS3) — $37.49 at Amazon. The comic-based game is excellent. We’re slightly iffy about this TV-based one. Everyone loves Daryl, but Merle? Meh.
 

PC Download Deals

Battlefield 3 Premium Edition (PC Download) — $24 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Activates on Origin. Usually around $40 to $50 at most places. Comes with base game, Premium Service, and Head Start Kit.
 

Crusader Kings 2 (PC Download) — $7.99 at GameFly after coupon. Steam activated. Fans of grand strategy titles will want to check this one out.
 

Saints Row The Third (PC Download) — $7.49 at GamersGate. Next best is $32 at Green Man Gaming. Steam activated. The industry is wack when you have studios that can produce solid titles like these and still have the publisher go kaput.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PC Download) — $6 at Green Man Gaming after coupon. Activates on Origin. Usually around $20. Another decent title from a now defunct studio. Sorry for your loss, Rhode Island.
 

Combo Buying Deals

Best Buy:Buy 2 Pre-Owned Video Games, Get a 3rd FREE. Your average buy two get 1 free. All those pre-owned titles people trade in to Best Buy? They gotta offload them somehow.
 

GOG.com: Pick 5 Games, Save 80%. 20 games to choose from for this Good Old Game deals. Some decent titles including Alan Wake and King’s Bounty: Crossworlds.
 

If you enjoyed this week’s GamesBeat gaming deals, check back next Thursday, same bat-time, same bat-channel for more gaming deals.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Well, that was fast.

Activision plans to release The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, the first-person-shooter adaptation of The Walking Dead television show, on March 26 in North America for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC. AMC, the cable network that airs the show, announced its release date on its blog.

Players take the role of Daryl Dixon as he works with his brother, Merle, to survive the newly zombified Atlanta.

Here’s the teaser trailer:

This game has little to do with the Telltale adventure game that won our Game of the Year award a few weeks back. Activision based Survival Instinct solely on the show, where The Walking Dead from Telltale works mostly from the comic book series that the show is based on.

So far, all things The Walking Dead have found major critical or commercial success. The books are still among the top-selling black-and-white comics every month, the cable show often has more viewers than the majority of broadcast television, and Telltale’s The Walking Dead earned numerous accolades during gaming’s award season (including GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year nod).

Survival Instinct has a lot to live up to.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, GamesBeat celebrates the biggest games and news of 2012 with several retrospective features. Even though the year is almost over, that doesn’t mean we’re completely out of news yet, however. You’ll also find stories on Nintendo patenting a specific use for the Wii U’s dual-screen functionality, Microsoft releasing an iPhone and iPad game with Xbox Live Achievements, and where to buy the documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang without digital rights management.

Best of 2012:

The DeanBeat: Game industry predictions for 2013
Here’s the scorecard on our 2012 predictions for the game industry
The biggest gaming trends of 2012
The news that shook the game world in 2012
Kickstarter game projects raised $79M in 2012
GamesBeat’s 2012 Game of the Year: The Walking Dead
The best games of 2012 (GamesBeat staff picks)
The worst gaming trends of 2012
The best MMOs of 2012
12 of the best games for your new mobile device
The best video game trailers of 2012
The biggest gaming disappointments of 2012
The best video game soundtracks of 2012
The biggest gaming surprises of 2012
Top 15 mobile games of 2012
2012′s most innovative game ideas
Top gaming technologies of 2012
5 of the best original games of 2012
The best indie games of 2012
The video game industry’s 2012 holiday cards

News:
Blizzard: ‘We are going back to the drawing board’ for team deathmatch in Diablo III
International Game Developers Association appoints new executive director
This week in The Nintendo Download: Wii U discounts, Lost Levels, and Mega Man
Nintendo uploads tip videos for New Super Mario Bros. U to YouTube
Nintendo secures the patent for a specific use of the Wii U’s dual-screen functionality
How to gain early access to the Dead Space 3 demo
Microsoft launches first game for iPhone, iPad with Xbox Achievements
Where to buy Minecraft: The Story of Mojang documentary without DRM

Previews:
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is an ambitious shooter that’s faithful to the show (preview)

Pieces of flair:
How Canada has become America’s mobile app guinea pig
A tale of two zombie games: The Walking Dead vs. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
5 worse BioShock Infinite covers
How major MMOs are celebrating Christmas in-game (gallery)
The many major missteps of Far Cry 3
Outlandish factoids from Street Fighter’s expanded universe (gallery)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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One is an episodic adventure game that earned our Game of the Year award. The other is a first-person survival shooter coming out in 2013 that’s based on the AMC television show. Both are a part of the growing multimedia empire of The Walking Dead, which began with Robert Kirkman’s long-running series of mature graphic novels set in a zombie apocalypse.

The world is big enough to handle Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead: The Game and Terminal Reality’s The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, but will fans of the games/comic/show embrace them in the same way? And what makes them so different from each other? Here’s a quick look at what these zombie-killing tales have to offer.

Who you play as

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
You aim your crossbow and slice off heads with an axe as Daryl Dixon. In the current season of the TV show, he is an indispensable fighter in Rick Grime’s group of survivors, learning to put their needs above his own. Since Survival Instinct takes place before season one, however, the game shows us another version of Daryl as the reckless man who’d rather beat up someone he’s arguing with than talk it out.

His older brother Merle is partly to blame: He’s just as dangerous and as disgusting as a white trash stereotype. Developer Terminal Reality wouldn’t get into specifics about how it’s making Daryl a compelling character for the player to care about, but the show implies that Daryl really is a good guy who’s brought down by some bad people in his life.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Lee Everett is on his way to prison for murder when his police escort crashes into a walker, freeing the convict but sentencing him to a fate worse than anything the court system could come up with. The first survivor he encounters is Clementine, an orphaned little girl who shapes Lee’s (and the player’s) decisions throughout their adventure. Lee struggles to reconcile his past transgressions with this new world, and it’s up to you to either reveal or hide your crime from Clementine and the other people you meet.

Gameplay

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Don’t expect to blow through walkers like you do terrorists in Call of Duty. You should only use guns as a last resort since the loud noise just attracts more of the undead. Your best bet is to go in quietly with melee attacks, but that leaves you vulnerable for zombies to grab you. Terminal Reality’s record for the most zombie kills without dying is seven, according to the studio.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Traditional point-and-click mechanics, where you move a cursor around the screen to highlight objects to interact with, take up most of your time. The game strays from this formula in tense combat scenes, which require precision and timing: You hover the cursor over a specific point (usually the zombie’s head) before pressing another button to strike. If you react too slowly, you’ll die and repeat the segment.

Timed decision-making is also a crucial component. When characters speak to Lee, you can choose from four different responses, including the option to sit out and remain silent. These dialogue choices can affect plot points and how other characters think of you in later episodes.

Adherence to the source material

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Terminal Reality is working closely with the AMC screenwriters to make Survival Instinct an accurate reflection of the tone and theme of the show, which is carving a path separate from the one written by Kirkman in the graphic novels. This leads to a realistic but stylized aesthetic, with the brutality and the gore kept intact. Actors Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker reprise their roles as Daryl and Merle, respectively.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Telltale worked with Kirkman on expanding the storyline in the comics, with mostly new locations and characters (except for brief cameos) not seen in previous issues. The Walking Dead: The Game has a cel-shaded look to honor its heritage though it ditches the uniform black and white drawings in favor of some color. It’s a striking combination that’s both beautiful and terrifying with its buckets of blood and chopped off limbs.

An ensemble cast

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
Daryl and Merle meet a variety of people as they trek across Georgia, and you can choose to take them along with you. You’re only limited by how many seats are in your car. Terminal Reality hasn’t shown what some of these folks look like yet, but it promises they have their own stories and personalities. Once they join you, you can send them out on fetch quests for ammo, fuel, or other supplies.

The Walking Dead: The Game
A huge part of Telltale’s choice-driven narrative is defining Lee’s relationship to the other survivors in his group. Each of these men, women, and children have distinct personalities, ideas, and motives, which often leads to conflict. As Lee, you can attempt to act neutral and try to compromise with everyone, but eventually characters will notice and pressure you to pick a side.

You also face some tough god-like decisions of who lives and who dies. Whoever comes out at the end of those harrowing situations will continue with you with his unique dialogue and perspective on what’s happening in the story. But as you play, you soon find out that one character’s safety is never a sure thing.

Branching storyline

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
You have a choice of which towns you visit in Georgia, and some may contain survivors to recruit and missions to complete. Scenarios called Road Events randomly occur as you drive to and from these areas as well, leaving you exposed to even more walkers in the countryside or isolated locations. It’s currently unknown how much of an impact these choices and events will make on the overall storyline.

The Walking Dead: The Game
While the ending is more or less the same no matter what decisions you make, it’s the smaller details based on your choices that make your playthrough feel like your own personal journey with Lee and Clementine.

Children

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
When GamesBeat spoke with Glenn Gamble, the principal effects artist and senior combat designer on Survival Instinct, one of the things he talked about was the technology behind the walkers and how Terminal Reality has a dizzying number of heads, clothing items, and body types to differentiate them. But don’t expect any pint-sized zombies in your crosshairs as Gamble said it was a “conscious decision” to not include children in the game.

The Walking Dead: The Game
Without giving away major spoilers, you do meet a few walkers that were once kids — these instances serve as pivotal emotional scenes for certain characters. Killing them is optional as you can delegate that grim task to another person in your group.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Daryl Dixon isn’t the most sympathetic guy you’ll ever meet. He’s got a short temper, is prone to violence, and doesn’t care much for other people besides himself and his racist older brother, Merle. Like it or not, these are the two main characters you’re stuck with in The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.

Set for release sometime in 2013, Survival Instinct (for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC) is a first-person survival game that serves as a prequel to season one of The Walking Dead TV show on AMC, based on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic books. Actors Michael Rooker (Merle) and Norman Reedus (Daryl) reprise their onscreen roles in a tale that follows the two brothers during the early days of the zombie outbreak in the state of Georgia. They travel across different towns and cities to scavenge for supplies while meeting other survivors along the way.

Developer Terminal Reality certainly has its hands full as it tries to maintain the franchise’s phenomenal success across comics, games, and television shows. The show’s viewership has steadily increased with the airing of each season, with 10.5 million people tuning in to the midseason finale a few weeks ago. And Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead — an episodic adventure series that branches off from the comics — is a hit for fans and critics alike, winning multiple “Game of the Year” awards, including our own.

Focus on storytelling

“The first challenge of making the game is we didn’t want your standard first-person shooter because if you watch the show, even three walkers [what the characters call the undead] are dangerous,” Glenn Gamble, the principal effects artist and senior combat designer, told GamesBeat. “We didn’t want this typical running and gunning gameplay. We knew story was an important element. We want to flesh all that out.”

Terminal Reality is working with the AMC screenwriters to make sure that Survival Instinct “feels more like a story arc and less like an individual episode,” according to Gamble. For those who follow the show, this can have some very interesting implications when it comes to Daryl, who’s the only character you play. Fans know that the hotheaded Daryl from season one is vastly different from the cooler second-in-command Daryl we see in season three. Without offering anything too specific, Gamble said Terminal Reality is planting the “seeds” of that dramatic change with this prequel.

However, I didn’t find any hint of that during the hands-off 15 minute demo, which takes place about halfway through Survival Instinct. Daryl and Merle were looting supplies from a small town filled with walkers, and most of their dialogue consisted of ordering each other around or commenting on things they found.

“Never trust a dead body.”

While you’ll find guns and ammo, you don’t want to use them unless you have to as the walkers will immediately head toward the source of the gunshot. Instead, you want to rely on melee combat to finish off the undead quietly. Gamble used an axe as his primary weapon to split heads and a knife for special execution attacks. He managed to sneak up behind a walker, shoving the sharp blade through its jaw and out one of its eyes.

In addition to seeing or hearing you, walkers can smell you if you stay in any one place for too long. It only takes a handful of hits for one of them to kill you and much less if a few of them decide to join the feast. And if they get close enough to grab a hold of you, you have a small window of opportunity to push them off and run.

Perhaps the most dangerous members of the undead are the ones off the screen. Lurking in alleyways or behind doors, these walkers take advantage of your blind spots by launching surprise attacks. “The idea is to never give the player a chance to get really safe and comfortable where they’re at,” said Gamble.

Daryl’s characteristic weapon — his crossbow — was conspicuously absent from the demo. Gamble laughed when I asked him about it, saying they have something special in store for Daryl’s “Excalibur moment” later in the story.

It’s dangerous to go alone

As Daryl and Merle drive through Georgia, they come across different survivors (new characters who aren’t on the show), and you can choose to add them to your group — more than a dozen possible candidates with their own stories, strengths, and weaknesses. But it’s impossible to recruit them all at the same time since you’re limited by the number of seats in your current vehicle. You can also dismiss them to make more room.

These extra hands are pivotal in helping you find supplies. You can order them to search the level for stuff you might need like ammo, food (a shared resource among all members), and gas. Even if you don’t decide to take these people with you, some of them can reappear in later missions and help you out when you need it, but this depends on how you treated them in your first encounter.

And with others, you might never see them at all during your initial playthrough. You’ll have a choice of which towns and locales to visit on your map, and these places may or may not have a survivor to recruit. Randomly generated side missions called “road events” further endanger your group as you travel, leaving you exposed in the middle of nowhere. Two examples Gamble gave involved visiting a gas station if you’re running low on fuel or running into a pile of cars that are blocking the highway. You either have to push some of the cars away or drive around them, which uses up more of your gas.

No matter who you decide to bring with you, it doesn’t sound like these optional characters will have a significant impact — whether they’re alive or dead — on the story. That makes sense as the first season of the TV show has both Daryl and Merle cast their luck with a different group of survivors — the same people who eventually find series protagonist Rick Grimes.

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While The Walking Dead adventure game from developer Telltale Games continues to rack up critical acclaim, Activision is hoping for similar success with its first-person-shooter adaptation of the television adaptation of the zombie comic book series.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a first-person survival game set prior to the events of AMC’s popular TV show. Activision announced today that actors Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker will voice the characters they play onscreen, Daryl Dixon and Merle Dixon, respectively. Activision will release the title in 2013 for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Naturally, gamers will have a chance to use Daryl’s signature crossbow to silently take out the undead walkers.

Reedus’s Daryl is one of the most popular characters on one of television’s most watched shows. Rooker only just returned to the show after missing nearly two years. Rooker is also well versed in both voice acting and working with Activision, having just voiced a major character in Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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