It's not that The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is a bad game. The problem is that the first Walking Dead game set the bar very high in terms of storytelling, characters, and atmosphere, and none of the following seasons have recaptured that spark. Of the first three seasons, A New Frontier is probably the weakest. Even so, a rough-cut diamond is still a diamond. If you played the previous two seasons, I would definitely recommend playing the third. So where does A New Frontier fall short? The most striking difference is that the third season plays a lot more like an interactive movie; much fewer exploration and puzzle segments than in either of the first two seasons. Action sequences have been overhauled, but not necessarily improved. You may need to move the reticule over the zombie to attack (as per season one), you may need to move the cursor in the direction shown on-screen (as per season 2), but a lot of the time you just need to press the key/button that appears on screen. It takes away some of the immersion and viscerality of the previous seasons. There is something satisfying about feeling like the character is responding to your actions, which is dampened when you simply press a random button to succeed or fail. Puzzles feel both shorter and simpler than in the previous games. The lack of exploration cuts down on the tense feeling that you might be attacked at any time. The atmosphere feels both less bleak, and less like a horror game. More like an interactive drama with some dark moments. The game does not perform as well on older computers; while the previous games played smoothly at the highest settings, A New Frontier stutters badly on the lowest settings. I was not overly fond of the direction taken with Clementine; it did not feel like she was the same character from the first two games, and like my decisions had not mattered. Your choices from the previous seasons don't amount to much. It's not a bad game, I was just hoping for more.
Shadwen is a third-person stealth/action game with time manipulation mechanics. You play as an initially nameless protagonist as they guide a young orphan girl, Lily, through a series of levels undetected. To do this you use various movable objects like crates, jars, and bales of hay to create distractions. Wooden objects can be grappeld at a distance using a grappling hook, and pulled to distract (or sometimes kill) a distant guard. The grappling hook also allows you to climb to overhead joists and rafters, and swing from them to reach elevated platforms. The protagonist can perform stealth kills by sneaking up behind guards, or dropping on them from above. Hidden throughout the levels are chests containing schematics and materials for crafting tools, which can be used to distract but mostly kill enemy guards. There are consequences to allowing Lily to see you kill someone, or discover a dead body. Finally, both the protagonist and Lily can hide in haystacks, and will not be detected as long as they remain there. Bodies can also be hidden in haystacks. Time in Shadwen only passes when the protagonist is taking action, such as moving or grappling objects. You can rewind time should you make a mistake, and will be forced to rewind if you are discovered, as this immediately ends the game. You can also force time to proceed, such as when you need a patrolling or suspicious guard to move away from you. The enemy AI is not very good. There have been points in the game where Lily has run directly in front of guards, once loudly pushing a crate in front of her, and the guards ignored her. At one point Lily passed through a guard undetected. Sometimes Lily refuses to move forward and it isn't clear why, and sometimes Lily will run to the end of the level with nearly no effort on your part. Success mostly involves taking advantage of poor AI. Shadwen has interesting ideas, and is pretty to look at, but is repetitive and not very good as stealth games go.
