The Wolf Among Us, is Tell-Tales Game’s 2nd foray into gaming after the ground breaking Walking Dead last year. But does the Big Bad Wolf live up to the expectations set by Clementine.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a_St9DTuO0]
The Wolf Among Us, is based on Fables (a comic book much like the Walking Dead) by Bill Willingham. It follows the reformed Big Bad Wolf (nicknamed BigBy) of Red Riding Hood fame keeping other fables (characters from different fairy tales, living an undercover life in New York) in check. The game is set in somewhere in 1980s, and follows BigBy solving a murder mystery.
Just like the Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us follows a episodic structure. The game-play is once again pretty similar to Walking Dead. It’s a point and click adventure game, with strong emphasis on player choices. As is with most point and click, there is no real urgency in most decisions.
Though the game tries to force the pace especially in action sequence, you usually have enough time to plan out what to do next. There are no difficulty settings and most achievements bar one can be had by playing through the game just once.
Gameplay-7/10
The whole game has a cell shaded effect to its graphics, and well known characters like BigBy and Snow White, look very much like their comic book versions. In fact, the only thing missing from the complete setup were comic panels, with text like “Meanwhile”. There were frame rate issues, and the game did stutter a bit, but with the game not being big on well timed QTE, it wasn’t much of a hindrance.
Graphics-6/10
The first episode: Faith, has Bigby stumbling across a murder. The story is intriguing enough, and has enough to pull in both new-comers and Fable readers alike. There are a host of characters, which are not prominently featured in the comic books (allowing Tell-Tale to have something new for everyone). The story is of course building up with just Episode 1 out yet. Though I am sure Tell Tale will do a good job. However, regular readers might be disappointed by the cliffhanger at the end.
Story- 8/10
The game bends and swerves according to your choices. However, to really see the differences your choices made, you would have to play the game again. When you do, you would realize that your choices can create 2 very different narratives, which hold the same thread, but take you through different holes. The narrative doesn’t hiccup because of your choices. None of it looks out of place. Each play-through seems seamless and none looks un-natural.
Mojo-8/10
I got to know of the Fables comic book when the intial trailer for The Wolf Among Us launched. In the time upto its release, I have read most of the Fables comic series, and have really enjoyed myself. I really looked up to playing BigBy, and his on screen persona matched his literary version well. I look forward to the next Episode of Wolf Among Us.
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