I now have a much better idea of what Clem’s been up to since I last saw her, and it was a pretty surprising revelation. Both Javier and Clementine received the treatment this time around, and it answered some important questions I had about the both of them. The other area where the episode really shines is how it continues to use flashback sequences. Tapping the button and seeing those prompts get crossed off while zombie heads were exploding is an awesome slice of power in a game that rarely feels like an ego trip. One memorable sequence has Javi mowing down a handful of zombies with a pistol, and the screen just displays one small ‘B’ button prompt after another. This makes the quick-time event action scenes a lot more fun to participate in, and Telltale is doing a good job of displaying prompts in a more stylish manner than they did in their early titles.
Unlike Lee in the original and Clementine in season two, Javier is a zombie-killing badass who uses his baseball skills to knock the heads off of zombies. Most importantly, A New Frontier continues to deliver tension-filled action sequences. These are elements that have been used many times before, and A New Frontier isn’t putting a very interesting twist on them.ĭespite some portions of the story feeling a bit too familiar, there’s still a lot to like in episode two. An unpredictable character that the entire crew thinks might snap at any moment? You bet. A mysterious loner that the game asks you to trust? Of course. A widowed lover who blames you for the loss of their significant other? Check. So many of the plotlines and themes of Ties That Bind can be traced back to previous seasons of The Walking Dead. Sadly, that sense of a tired narrative is weaved through the entirety of the second episode. It was emotional when they had me dig a grave back in 2012, yet this episode starting off with such a scene didn’t manage to garner a similar reaction. I didn’t feel like crying, I just felt annoyed that the game thought it could lazily force the same emotions out of me. I’m tired that Telltale keeps reusing the same ideas since the impact is extremely lessened the second time around. After two seasons of witnessing gruesome passings, I’m no longer shocked.
From the startling scene on the farm in the very beginning to Lee’s heartbreaking end, it seemed like the game was constantly trying to top itself for the most shocking death. I ended up being very wrong and felt dumb for not realizing that it would happen.Īfter all, shocking death scenes is what made the first season of The Walking Dead a hit for Telltale. This occurred right after the game had seemingly teased a rare happy ending to a bad situation, and I had felt pleasantly surprised that Telltale Games had the restraint to not kill one of their major characters within the first episode. The first episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontierended with one of the series’ signature shocking deaths as Javier’s niece Mariana was shot in the head.