The Wolf Among Us: My Thoughts

Back in 2012 I reviewed season one of Telltale's 'The Walking Dead'. Here's what I had to say:

'The Walking Dead', while not necessarily the first or last game to do this, proves once more that video-games, if given more attention in their script department, can meet or even exceed some of your best entertainment experiences. The fact that it is the first game to focus solely on the story and not rely on any tangible gameplay mechanics like shooting to increase the experience further puts it in the spotlight. Oh, and guess what? Having played all five episodes over an eight month period I can now say that it succeeds in doing what it set out to do: It's a story driven adventure game that tailors it's experience to the choices you make. No more, no less. But the fact that it's really, really f*cking good at investing you into the story and the characters makes 'The Walking Dead' one of the best games this year.

And guess what? They've done it again with 'The Wolf Among Us'! Once again Telltale has earned their status as master storytellers when it comes to interactive entertainment. 'The Wolf Among Us' is an entirely different beast to 'The Walking Dead' (pun intended), so if emotionally driven apocalypse stories aren't really your cup of tea then check this out.  

Based on the on-going series of graphic novels 'Fables' by Bill Willingham 'The Wolf Among Us' is a prequel set in 1980's New York. It's essentially a noir detective thriller with an ingenious hook: everyone is a fairytale character. Exiled from their homelands the various fairytales of old have formed a community called Fabletown and hide in plain sight. You play as Sheriff Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf of old who tried to eat Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. He's desperately trying to put his past behind him but as expected a horrible crime is committed and it's up to him to solve the case. Depending on your actions throughout the series you can decide the fate's of several characters and choose to either be a lawful human being or let the wolf inside of him come out and play. To say more is a spoiler I'm afraid, but let's just say that across the five episodes NOTHING is as it seems and there are quite a few crooked forks in the road *HINT* *HINT*.

"Yeah....this happen's a lot."

Aside from Bigby you'll encounter a whole host of interesting and complex characters, all of them painted with a very thick coat of grey. Snow White is a shining glimmer of hope, she desperately wants to fix the grimy underbelly and flawed bureaucracy of Fabletown but often let's her emotions get the better of her. Colin is one of the Three Little Pig's, he likes to hang around Bigby's apartment smoking cigarettes, he's a bit of a party animal. The Woodsman is a depressed alcoholic who admits he only saved Red Riding Hood because he was hoping to rob her grandma's place. Toad (from Wind In The Willows) is a broke trickster who despite everything seem's to want what's best for his son TJ. The Little Mermaid is a stripper with a troubled past who desperately wants to tell you something. No matter what the character, Telltale does a fantastic job of making them incredibly compelling and putting a twist on their stories. The voice acting is once again flawless for all of them, I mean jesus they all do an excellent job. Snow White in particular is a highlight, she's an incredibly strong female protagonist and like Clementine from 'The Walking Dead' your actions will be influenced by her presence. As a player I found myself constantly feigning for her affection and often caught myself thinking 'What would Snow do?' when she wasn't present. So yes, add Snow White to the ever growing pile of strong female character's in video games, it's getting larger every year.

A lot of the charm in 'The Wolf Among Us' comes from it's exquisite art style, once again going for a hand drawn, cell shaded 'comic book' look. It's a beautiful game, and unlike the WD's bleak colour palette Telltale embraces the colours this time around. It got me the second the game sent me to Bigby's apartment, the neon tinged glow emanating from the windows mixed with the chimes of the soundtrack cast such an incredible noir atmosphere that persists throughout. There's a lot more detail this time around too, if the WD was more of a sketchbook-y style then 'The Wolf Among Us' is drenched in ink, it really enables the designs to pop. The character designs are all great, and the cartoony visuals help with the fairly simple but effective facial expressions. Put it this way, if Snow is angry towards you you're going to notice. 

Snow White's worried face worries me :-o

As far as gameplay is concerned this is largely a repeat of 'The Walking Dead'. It has two mechanics: 1) the dialogue trees, which presents you with four possible choices and 2) the quick time events which come into play during action scenes. Normally this wouldn't fly in other games, but seen as Telltale's games are 100% story driven the simple act of pressing Y to punch an annoying guy in the face feels immensly satisfying, especially during the fight scenes. They're extremely well choreographed and are viscerally thrilling, even if a three year old blindfolded could beat them. The action is a welcome change of pace though, 80% of the game is a conversation simulator and the dialogue trees are really good at presenting you the option you want. If I wanted to be kind to someone, I could be. If I wanted to I could also choose to be sarcastic, angry or just remain silent (this option in particular is useful during arguments). The storytelling is malleable and you tailor the story to how you want the conversation to go down. The choices you make will have an impact, although some have larger effects than others. Be nice to someone and they will back you up down the road, but if you're given the chance to only choose one out of three locations then you'll miss out on whole scenes. Think of it as a colouring book that you can paint in whatever colour you want. Either way the game does a good job of not punishing you, with one notable exception during Episode 1. Look, all I'm saying is....go to see Toad last. You'll thank me for it. 

The game isn't perfect unfortunately. Like other Telltale games on the 360 there is quite a lot of stuttering at the start of a new scene. After episode 2 I found them to become less frequent though. The load times are also a bit of an issue, they're quite long and break up the rhythm of the story. Hopefully this will disappear when they start to publish their games on the PS4/Xbox One but the technical limitations are for the time being quite grating. Other than that there were a few instances of audio clipping in episode 1 and the lip syncing could be better. Telltale games are very much a diamond in the rough, they could all use a bit more polishing.

Guess it's time for some baseball practice...

So that's my opinions for it overall, but how did the individual episodes go? 

Episode 1: 'Faith' kick's thing's off running with a fantastic opening scene. To be honest it rarely stops there, it's probably the best paced episode of the season. It's just the right amount of character interaction, investigating and action with two brawls and one chase scene. It also benefit's from a wickedly evil twist cliffhanger which chills your blood. 9,5/10

Episode 2: Smoke and Mirror's is in many ways the weakest episode of the season, which is disheartening considering first time players like me had to wait four months in-between episodes 1 & 2 to play this. It has a great beginning though, thanks to a few more 'WTF?' moments. From then on the episode slow's to a methodical crawl, and very little is revealed compared to what we already know. It also lacks a good fight scene, with the one featured being more of a scuffle than a full-on brawl. If you play the episodes in succession to one another I expect you'll like this one a lot more, it's just a shame I had to wait so long for this one. 7/10

Episode 3: A Crooked Mile shakes things up considerably. After the reveal at the end of Ep 2 Bigby is on the hunt for the lead suspect and has to find his whereabouts before it's too late. And once you do....oooh boy do things get interesting. The ending to Ep 3 derails all your previous assumptions and considerably up's the scale. It's great and moves along fast given it's swift 1h30 run time. 8/10

Episode 4: In Sheep's Clothing is a lot of build-up for the finale. It's like a powder keg just before it explodes, you know sh*t is going to hit the fan soon but you have to straighten some things out first. From start to finish it's a gripping experience and despite it's brief hour run time it's even more compelling as you uncover just who is behind all this mess. Expect another great fight scene, a few goodbyes and a nail-bitingly good cliffhanger. 9/10

Episode 5: Cry Wolf is pure genius. Easily my favourite episode (which is always good for a finale) it's amazing from start to finish. The first half is mostly epic action, but a lot is resolved and tied up along the way. The mysteries set in motion from Episode 1 will be answered here. The last fight scene is just outstanding, and reminds me a lot of a certain scene in 'The Matrix: Reloaded'. After fulfilling our desires to beat the living hell out of all the bad guy's the episode takes a more unconventional approach by basically showing the aftermath of your decisions during a trial scene that could go two very different ways. It's delicious seeing your every action being observed under a microscope by everyone you've met in Fabletown and then having to defend them. Depending on how you play your cards it could end on a high or low note, so be careful not to make any rash decisions no matter how tempting some of the options will seem. Either way it will feel satisfying and meaningful as an ending to the story. The last twenty minutes or so is a rather neat epilogue which employs circular storytelling to great effect (one of my favourite storytelling devices). There is a lot of finality here, so much so that I'm wondering if Telltale is going to do a second season. And those last thirty seconds......DAMN YOU TELLTALE!!!!!!! What a perfect finale to this tale. 10/10

Pro's:

+ Gripping narrative
+ Fantastic art style/visuals
+ Excellent voice cast
+ A few thrilling action set-pieces
+ Lot's of intrigue, mystery
+ Great dialogue options/choices
+ Play's like an interactive T.V show

Con's:

- Episodes 1 & 2 are VERY stuttery on my Xbox
- Long load times
- Audio clipping 
- Some bad cases of lip-syncing 
- Combat system could be more involved

Overall score: 9,5/10

A good analogy for playing a Telltale game is this: you're the co-writer/director for a T.V show, a really good one, but you don't know how the story or the character you're portraying ends. You can decide what character you want to convey, choose what set to visit and how to choreograph a fight scene. In short you get to craft your perfect version of that T.V show. I mean have you ever watched a T.V show and thought to yourself "Hey, I wish the protagonist would say that...." well in a Telltale game you can as long as it makes narrative sense. If you like the idea of this, then for heaven's sakes go buy 'The Walking Dead' and 'The Wolf Among Us' NOW. They're both amazing and unlike any form of storytelling you've experienced. I know I'm coming off as a Telltale salesperson but they're really THAT good and I can't wait to see what they do next... 

*LOOKS AT ONE OF TELLTALES NEXT PROJECTS*  

Wait what? They're doing a 'Game Of Thrones' game?!!! OH. MY. GOD.