The Walking Dead: A New FrontierSome of the options available are separate sliders for volume, music and brightness. Subtitles are optional, and OFF by default. A nice added touch is the ability to choose the font size. There is a chapter-select screen where you can restart a chapter if you wish.
Unlike the previous Telltale games that I've played, you CANNOT pause the game by hitting the space bar... if you need more time to make a decision, you're going to have to hit the menu button.
I tried not to look at much community feedback regarding this game, as I was afraid of seeing spoilers. The little I did see was negativity saying that this installment simply did not do the series justice, and to not even bother. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and as for me...?
I loved it.
There was something magical about the first season. Anyone who's played it can tell you what that special something was, but of course I'm not going to spoil that here, juuust in case someone reading this hasn't played the first two games. If you are one of those people, do yourself a favor and go play the other games first. You'll be missing out on a LOT of if you don't.
A New Beginning, though... despite how much I LOVE Season 1 (especially), this third season one may be my favorite of the series - and I'll explain why - but let us start at the beginning.
When you enter the game, you are given the choice to continue your story with the options you chose from the previous games, or you can start fresh and make it a randomized experience. The endings for the second season were wildly different, and those differences are all handled via flashbacks scattered throughout the episodes. Things that made Clem who she is, and how they affected her.
There seemed to be more movie in the beginning of the game than I'm used to. It was quite a while before I had any choices. Overall, there was less walking around looking at things, and a whole lot more action (Quicktime Events). As long as you can follow the instructions on the screen, you should be able to play it all right - even if you're dexterity-challenged... although there is one place where if you don't click quickly enough, you'll probably die (couldn't say for sure - I didn't have a problem there.)
So what is it that made this installment so enjoyable for me? The story. The folks at Telltale are masters at telling a story, expertly weaving together timelines, characters, action, and graphics into something that I didn't want to look away from for a second. The facial expressions in particular are amazingly evocative, and include nuances that I don't think I've seen anywhere else.
Beautifully done!
After having played all of the previous Walking Dead games by Telltale, I was seeing a pattern that I didn't like, and happily,
A New Frontier did not play out in the manner I was expecting. Predictability will kill a story for me, as things can get stale and boring in a hurry! In addition, I liked all of the characters, and even the antagonists had something likeable about them. Depending on the writing, you can have a despicable character that you love to hate, or you can have one that makes your skin crawl and makes you literally feel sick. I prefer the former, as the latter makes me dislike not just the character, but the story itself. Case in point would be the antagonist from Russell's story in
400 Days. I despised that guy so much that I will never play
400 Days again. THIS story though does not suffer from the same fault, and is one that I'll definitely be re-playing... probably multiple times ;D
At the end of the game, not only do we get a review of our choices, but a rundown of
- Spoiler:
the type of relationship we had with select people. Not only that, but we find out what kind of person our choices have guided Clem to be.
The text above is nothing story-specific, but some could consider it a spoiler, hence the spoiler tags.For me
A New Frontier was incredibly enjoyable, and is a brilliant addition to a favorite series.
Absolutely recommended to anyone who loves story-heavy games~!