As part of my New Year’s Nerdolutions, I’ve decided that I’m going to play more games this year. I’m doing pretty good so far, since I just finished A Wolf Among Us. This is a Telltale game set in the world of Fables, a Vertigo comic series. Just imagine Once Upon a Time had a baby with Taxi Driver and you’ve got Fables. I had read the first couple issues of the comic, so I was already familiar with the back story and main characters.
The Story
You play as Bigby, also known as the Big Bad Wolf. He’s the sheriff of Fabletown, which is just an underground community of fairytale characters in New York City. One day he busts up a fight between the Woodsman and a call girl named Faith. Later on in the evening, Faith’s severed head is found on the doorstep of Bigby’s apartment building. With the help of Snow White, Bigby must crack the case to find out who did it. Was it the Woodsman, or did someone set him up?
Gameplay
If you’ve never played a “Point and Click” game before, the way it works is you control the choices that the main character makes in order to drive the plot forward. For instance, you make a lot of dialogue choices. You can be nice, you can be intimidating, or you can say nothing at all or anything in between. The characters you interact with are smart, though, and can form opinions based on your actions that might have consequences later on in the story. For instance, my relationship with Toad got off to a bad start early on in the game, and later when I needed him, he had plenty of choice words for me.
Since this is a murder mystery, there is a lot of clue collecting and scene investigation that you click your way through. Sometimes you control Bigby’s movement. There is also some combat that is controlled by quick time events.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics reminded me of Borderlands because of the cell shading and rough outlines. It really makes sense for the game, since it is based on a comic book. The colors are bright and vivid, but I still got a sense for the gritty, dark environment that the Fables live in. The voice acting was amazing, which led me to become attached to and really care about the characters in the game
What’s Next?
The Wolf Among Us is an episodic game, much like The Walking Dead, which is also made by Telltale Games. As a reward for finishing the game, you get to watch a preview trailer for the next episode of The Wolf Among Us entitled “Smoke and Mirrors.” Although there is no official release date, Telltale Games considers episode 2 to be nearly finished with a possible release at the beginning of 2014.
