➤ The law of the wanderers 🎮

On the occasion of the review of the first two episodes of this third season of The Walking Dead, we said goodbye with an important hope: that the first two chapters could represent the opening words of a new Telltale series that lived up to expectations.

It is true that repeating the success achieved with the first, unforgettable season, could not be particularly simple but we cannot hide that A New Frontier actually seemed to have taken the right path: certainly a tortuous path but that could make us forget the missteps made with the second series. And instead, apparently, the two abundant months elapsed between the debut with the double episode and this third chapter were not enough for the developer to package an episode capable of confirming the crescendo of the experience. Above the Law, this is the title of the third chapter, in fact marks a setback in our opinion, almost on the verge of a sensational reversal. Let it be clear that we do not want and cannot go into too much detail because, exactly as we did with the previous review to which we refer you for all the details on the gameplay, we do not want in any way to risk spoilers, but some hints to the contents we will necessarily have to do them in the course of this quick review.

The third episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier marks a sharp change of course

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Processore: Intel Core i5 4690k a 4.0 GHz
Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit

Minimum requirements

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.4 GHz
Memory: 3 GB of RAM
Video card: NVIDIA GTS 450+ with 1 GB of RAM
Disk space: 8 GB
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit with Service Pack 1 or higher

Previously on The Walking Dead

As always happens with Telltale's episodic titles, the chapter opens with a quick summary of what happened in the past and picks up exactly where it left off. Javier and Kate are on their knees in front of the entrance to the stronghold of the mysterious and ruthless group of the New Frontier and their eyes are wide with an old acquaintance that reveals itself in front of their faces once the great metal gate is opened. From here begins a slow episode, at times even muddled which, unfortunately, is occupied for most of its time by dialogues. Let it be clear that these are always very interesting gossip and discussions that do everything to involve the player and force him to respond sometimes with inelegant, disturbing and sometimes too caustic phrases, but it is still a matter of choosing one of the four that the game offers us, evaluating the one that appears most appropriate and best suited to the attitude we want to pursue. In fact, more than ever in this chapter the consequences of having a very sharp tongue seemed very evident and often the results of the conversations seemed obvious to us, sometimes even on telephone calls.

And it's a shame since it will take us at least two thirds of the entire episode to respond to the conversations set up by old acquaintances and a couple of new meetings around which much of the plot of Above the Law will focus. The livelier gameplay, the one in which the pad is used not only to choose the preferred response, is also present in this episode but in a way too limited to be noteworthy. And so next to the usual and inevitable quick time events, we will find ourselves wandering freely with the character on the screen in a single piece of gameplay. Really too little for a title that, at least on paper, should carry on the concept of graphic adventure and, in particular with The Walking Dead, should aim to overcome what was built in the past and maybe even innovate considering how long the rebirth of the genre is anchored in a style of play that is starting to smell old. Basically the only big problem of this third episode is all here: for more than half of its duration we will be entangled in dialogues which, although interesting and with rather tantalizing implications in view of the rest of the series, are still very simple dialogues. For the time that remains we will have to deal with the usual action moment to try to stem the advance of the walkers and with a single more relaxing exploration section, which will take us to the inevitable cliffhanger at the end of the episode. All in just 80 minutes of gameplay. It is true that in this third season Telltale is trying to do a little more on the replayability front by introducing, since the recent Batman-based series, some alternative scenes that can only be faced by making certain choices by forcing the player to retrace his steps to try. other options in case you want to see all that a chapter can offer, but now we are reaching the paradox of a title that touches the border of the interactive film, even lasting less than a feature film. Nothing negative to say on the acting front, also thanks to the renewed graphics engine that continues to give that extra boost to a project otherwise very much in line with the developer's archetypes. Also excellent dubbing and more generally all the audio effects. Among other things, even this episode seemed to us really very well optimized and completely free from bugs or other problems.

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Digital Delivery Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store, App Store, Google Play Price 4,99 € / 29,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.0

Readers (5)

7.1

Your vote

The third episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier marks a sharp change of course that reverses the trend of the first two chapters. It is not so much a problem to have too many dialogues, also because as long as they are written so well it is always a pleasure to follow them. It is rather a problem of proportions since if the talk is raised, very little remains of the episode. The gameplay is reduced to a minimum, perhaps it is even restricted even compared to the canons of Telltale, and in a moment you will find yourself watching the final twist, ready to go back to hibernation for another month waiting for the next episode. And we hope that at that point the developer is back on track and is ready to offer us the appetizer of a truly memorable epilogue.