It’s been 10 years since the end of the world or shall we say the beginning for the kids coming of age in the apocalypse.

When you’re barely old enough to remember the world before it fell, does it make it easier to forget what’s lost or still just as hard to survive and hold onto what’s lost?

The Walking Dead: World Beyond begins to tell its tale with these ideas firmly in place. It follows main characters in their late teens that were just small children when the world fell. In the lead are sisters Iris and Hope who are somewhat opposites but still manage to meet with each other on an even playing field. From the first two episodes, we as viewers know we’re going to be taken on a journey of good and bad, morals questioned and choices made that will determine whether these sisters hold close to what they know or merge into someone they never thought they’d become.

The third series set in the Walking Dead universe after the 2010’s the Walking Dead and 2015’s Fear the Walking Dead, we know from the get-go that World Beyond is only going to be a two season limited series. As someone who devours any new Walking Dead content, it’s easy to see World Beyond as simply a show that fills in the gaps for the main show. Sure, this may be the case.

We all love Rick Grimes and will take any new information on his whereabouts or how he’s doing and I’m sure World Beyond will tease us throughout the series with satisfying Easter eggs and crossover moments that make us gasp. At the same time though, World Beyond instantly makes its own mark in the first few episodes and has so much going for it so far than I think viewers even realise before going into it.

The heart of the Walking Dead universe lies with family, survival, and hope. World Beyond introduces viewers to its biggest settlement yet with 9,671 people living in Portland, the home of Iris and Hope. When you’ve come to know various small groups across the other TV shows, the significance in this number is staggeringly high. You always know there’s got to be a catch but the hope for survival is present and maybe, just maybe humanity can live on.

It’s also the first time since mention the development of a cure is still in progress or at least that’s what they’re attempting to do. If I recall, the last time this was really focused on was in Season 1 of the Walking Dead and Rick and the group got refuge in the Atlanta CDC only to discover that all hope was lost and everyone was dead.

Iris and Hope’s Father is in New York developing a cure, or so we’re led to believe based on his cryptic messages. He’s with the biggest group of all: the Commonwealth. Are they good, are they bad? As someone who hasn’t read the comics, I’m not sure, but I’m so excited to find out.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond sets the stage for a unique limited series that will not only be beneficial to the rest of the Walking Dead universe but also carry its own torch. I for one wish I could binge the entire series right now to keep learning and discovering along with the characters.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond premiers exclusively on Amazon Prime on the 5th of October, 2020.

The post The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Amazon) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Skybound Entertainment, the creator-focused multiplatform entertainment company founded by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and David Alpert, has partnered with Skydance Interactive, a division of Skydance Media, to develop a number of original virtual reality video games based on the expansive world of The Walking Dead universe. The Walking Dead VR game will be the inaugural co-developed title from both companies.

In a multi-year strategy, the two companies are collaborating to produce an unparalleled gaming experience that will offer millions of fans and gamers the opportunity to engage, interact, and immerse into the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead and its characters in virtual reality. The first game will feature an entirely new setting and cast of characters, which players will experience through an innovative contextual interaction system – a first-of-its-kind for The Walking Dead in VR.

“Skydance’s ability to build worlds and tell compelling stories matches with our goal to bring The Walking Dead fans new narratives and ways to engage with the world Robert Kirkman created, while staying true to his original vision,” said Skybound Entertainment CEO David Alpert and Skybound Entertainment Managing Partner Jon Goldman in a joint statement. “Skydance Interactive is the ideal partner for the team Dan Murray has created for Skybound Interactive.”

“The Walking Dead is an iconic phenomenon and it is absolutely thrilling to work with Skybound to bring its incredibly diverse cast of characters, settings, and storylines together into a complete VR game package,” said Skydance Media Chief Executive Officer David Ellison and President and Chief Operating Officer Jesse Sisgold in a joint statement. “Our goal at Skydance Interactive is to honor the visceral world that Kirkman has created while giving The Walking Dead‘s fans something to really sink their teeth into with robust games that take the franchise to a completely new level.”

The Walking Dead has expanded from an Eisner award winning comic book series to captivate audiences around the world as the #1 show on television, a blockbuster game franchise, licensing business, and ongoing publishing success.

Skydance Interactive, a division of Skydance Media that launched in April of 2016, recently announced that its first original VR title, Archangel, will be available across all VR console platforms starting in July of 2017. Skybound Entertainment recently released its first original VR game, Giant Cop: Justice Above All with partner Other Ocean.

The post Walking Dead Coming to VR appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

The first season of Telltale’s A Walking Dead was stunning, fresh and a must play for anyone who loved excellent storytelling and zombies. The second season was the inevitable follow-up that was excellent that didn’t quite live up to its fore-bearer. Telltale’s newest entry has perhaps a harder task. Something in between a reboot and sequel, this series of five episodes needs to demonstrate that it has legs and can maintain interest beyond the original storyline.

It’s a task usually more closely associated with prequels or fourth entries (see Star Wars: A Force Awakens, for example), but Telltale have decided now in the third season is the time to take this challenge on. So far, after the first two (linked) episodes they have been successful, but only insofar as they have made a good “Telltale” game, which may not be enough anymore.

To start off this new series the developers have released two episodes, rather than the normal one. But these two episodes are part one and two of the same mini narrative, ending in a somewhat predictable cliffhanger that nevertheless sets up the last three episodes for the usual path of drama and intrigue.

It begins with your new main character, Javi. He, and his family, are introduced on the night of the zombie outbreak, and the first half hour of their story is brilliantly done. It plays interestingly with dramatic tensions, cinematography and dialogue in a way that their recent Batman series could only hope to achieve. In the first five minutes I was more invested in the Javi’s family than throughout all of Batman. This third season offers the chance to enter in fresh without the narrative baggage of the previous two seasons by focusing (so far) on Javi rather than Clementine. Yes, Clementine is a main character but you do not play as her and she, again, so far, has mainly been as a narrative device rather than a main character in her own right.

These types of game, including the likes of Life is Strange and Kentucky Route Zero are soap opera for gamers and so they must adhere to the same set of rules. Never let anything build up hope through shared experiences and conflict, don’t settle down for too long in one place, lest the audience lose interest, betrayals and high stakes are essential means to heighten tensions and build (or lose) trust in your characters. The problem arises when we’ve seen and done this story arc too many times before. It’s a problem also facing the TV adaptation. Be on the road, find shelter, shelter falls apart from an internal or external threat, leave shelter, rinse and repeat Characters are constantly introduced and then discarded, and we’re left with the feeling that almost none of it matters. After seeing this so many times it can all feel a bit rote.

But there’s usually a core of characters who really matter, and it’s for them that the story is being told. Fortunately, Javi is well written, and the story does take a fresher approach than most recent Telltale series. Clementine is there but by the end of Episode 2 she remains on the outer fringe of the group and the narrative. I strongly suspect this will change in the coming episodes, but for now I feel it’s an approach that fits better with a fresh start than simply gathering new friends around Clementine, just waiting for them to be killed off one by one. If you have played the first two seasons, you can import your save from them, influencing Clementine’s character and reactions. If you don’t have your save sitting on your hard drive – or your started on one platform (say, Xbox 360) and finished on a different one, then there’s a way to simulate your choices.

There’s a substantive upgrade to the lighting system without the same hitches, pauses and other technical issues that besieged the Batman episodes. Episodes also are noticeably shorter than what we have come to expect, at around one and a half hours each, down from two hours. I feel this is a good change, as I was pleasantly surprised when they finished, rather than being stretched to fill a rather arbitrary two hours.

If you haven’t yet tired of either The Walking Dead or the Telltale formula, then you will enjoy this entry too. The genre is starting to feel a little tired, but in moments of brilliance it can shine. The story is good, but not exceptional, and the gameplay is all too familiar. After so many entries, it is truly time for Telltale to be a bit more adventurous with the series’ core mechanics. Walking Dead: A New Frontier is the old style of series refined to a keen knife’s edge, but it’s an old blade, one that needs to be replaced and updated wholesale if the studio wants to continue to be leaders in the storytelling field.

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The post The Walking Dead: A New Frontier – The Ties that Bind (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

There was something about Fear the Walking Dead that got me excited from the get go. Pushing aside television’s reputation for lackluster spin offs or prequels, Fear the Walking Dead held its own ground mainly due to the fact that it neither fell into the spin off or prequel category. Of course, Fear the Walking Dead may exist in the same universe as The Walking Dead but don’t expect to see Rick in his sheriffs uniform galloping his way through Los Angeles.

Atlanta Georgia, the original setting and location for the first season of The Walking Dead is miles away from Los Angeles and it would realistically never work for the two worlds to meet. Saying this, it’s easy to see why this was a good thing. I have to admit as I was introduced to new characters, new settings and new storylines I couldn’t help but imagine the timeline equivalent of The Walking Dead from back in 2010.

Luckily, these thoughts were soon pushed aside and I found myself engrossed by Fear the Walking Dead. As easy as it is to jump from television show to television show in our everyday viewing schedules, I shut out one story about a zombie apocalypse and opened up a new one.

Travis Manawa played by Kiwi actor Cliff Curtis takes the reigns as an English Literature teacher alongside his girlfriend Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her children Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam Carey). To make matters more complicated, Travis also has an ex wife in the midst Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and a son Chris (Lorenzo Henrie).

Unlike The Walking Dead, when the zombie apocalypse hits, it comes in quietly, like the calm before the storm and I do mean calmly.

Unfortunately for Fear the Walking Dead, Episode One may been seen as a little too slow for fans that have come over from The Walking Dead.

Saying this, one has to understand once again the differences between each show. Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead comics has explained that in the universe, fictional stories and popular culture of zombies doesn’t exist, these characters aren’t meant to know or possibly be able to fathom what is going on, what has caused this and what it means for their world. As we shout at the screens for the characters to aim for the head or to stop talking to the walker because its humanity has long gone, our patience will be tested.

Don’t worry though, these characters are smart and by the end of the six episode season remnants of ignorance have left and have been replaced by knowledge and experience.

One thing the writers did like to do in the build up to the zombie apocalypse was throw in the irony. Episode One trickled irony left right and center. Irony, in this case would also be considered foreshadowing. From the opening sequence a drug addicted Nick believes a zombie slaughter in the church to be the drugs talking, everyone else around him does too.

Little things like the old man breathing in the hospital bed next to Nick mimicked the sound of a walker. Travis’ lesson for the day: How to build a fire. Obviously in the classes’ eyes this is metaphorically speaking but it brought an odd degree of humour to the stage and almost made you feel sorry for the characters because they had no idea what was about to happen. I had to admit though, when Alicia texted her boyfriend because he failed to show up at their rendezvous point “Where are you? You better be dead”, it might have been taking it a little too dramatically.

If you managed to push yourself through the first episode, then I applaud you and push you to stick around for the rest of the season. As quick as the world evolves, the story evolves and things will no doubt continue to get more exciting as season two hits our screens in April (2016).

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