The Wolf Among Us

[bovine]

Another Telltale adventure game. This one is based off of the Fable comics (or graphic novel? I dunno). It dropped today, and I cruised through it in about 2.5 hours.

I had a pretty great time with the Walking Dead, so I wanted to see what the follow up would be like. Well, it played nearly identically to the Walking Dead. The only big difference was that the time that you were actually navigating the character around felt few and far between. It seemed like the story was really moving, and my interactions were mainly dialogue choices and a couple of action scenes - and these action scenes had the gameplay divergence in them. Action was you navigating a reticule to a location and then pressing the indicated button. I didn't finish a single one without missing a few, but my mistakes seemed to only affect my own personal pride and not the outcome. If I had failed a few more times, perhaps the outcome would have changed or maybe it would have reloaded a checkpoint? I didn't experience this, so I do not know.

Anyways, I found the story to be interesting even if I hadn't read any of the related fiction. I don't want to talk about the story at all, but it felt like a dark tale in a grounded but fantastical setting.

It's a five episode run with each episode landing at $5 a piece. You can pick up the last 4 episodes on a $15 season pass, and this is probably what I am going to do. I was really impressed by the Walking Dead, and I found this initial episode to be intriguing enough to hook me for another round of storytime with Telltale.

Anyone else interested in this? I remember a couple people enjoying Walking Dead and others deriding it.

[Shrinweck]

I don't think anyone who actually owned TWD had any issues with it besides length.

I plan on buying this but not at full price.

[Shrinweck]

$16.74 today and tomorrow for the Steam sale... so I'll bite

Edit: Holy fuck the first chapter in episode one was some good shit. This game couldn't possibly be more up my alley. I'll reserve judgment until all the episodes are out but I'm probably going to like this a helluva lot more than The Walking Dead.

[Lox]

I saw that and almost bought it last night. The Fables comics are one of the few I still currently buy and read plus I love TWD game so this is something I have to play.

How long was the first episode? I'm trying to decide if I buy it episodically or wait for all of them to drop first.

[Shrinweck]

First episode took me 2.5 hours. I could see going through it one more time for sure. Maybe again after that. There are a lot of choices and they're much darker then a lot of what's in The Walking Dead.

But fuck them and that ending. If you can wait it out until the last episode gets released and the game goes on sale (probably for $5-$10 at that point), you'd probably be the most satisfied. But if you're having trouble holding back, it's really quite good and I doubt you'd be disappointed. I haven't read any of the source material though. The ending though was kind of like if Fellowship of the Ring was five episodes long and the first episode ended when the Hobbits are in Bree and the Black Riders are stabbing their beds and we have no idea they're in hiding across the street. There's no real comparison in the stories (obviously) but it would leave you with the same amount of "What??? Fuck!"

The atmosphere in the game has this real David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti vibe that I really love.

Ending spoiler discussion:

Spoiler: show

There was much more character death then I was expecting. There are all the Telltale Games clues to people remembering things that will have an effect later which makes me think they aren't as dead as they'd have us think. I suppose it could also be a sort of counter of mercies and nice things Bigby has done since it looks like the game is going in the direction of him either redeeming himself or completely going to the dark side.

Also I went for Tweedle since the Woodsman was close clearly not the murderer since he seemed more like petty criminal and Tweedle probably has so much more useful information. It's probably a safe bet that this won't have TOO much of an effect on the story. Gonna guess the Woodsman gets freed pretty quickly for being (mostly) innocent and Tweedle gets pulled out of custody by his mysterious employer. The game really had me going with both Faith and Snow White. Was really thinking how I was excited to see where their characters went. And then poof. Excited for more Colin but I don't imagine he's in the second episode.

If I played again I'd probably still feel the need to give Faith the money, but I'd definitely stay out of it with Beauty and The Beast rather than telling him the truth. Also I think I made a mistake in not going for Lawrence's apartment first since I figured he was already dead and Toad seemed like he needed my help. Maybe not punch Gren when he calls Snow White a bitch a second time even though I know the fight happens either way.

[bovine]

It was a great intro into the season, and I am possibly more eagerly awaiting episode 2 over the next Walking Dead season.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah as much as I like Clementine and the excellent portrayal of minorities - I like the world set up in The Wolf Among Us so much more. I'm definitely considering picking up some trade paperbacks and plowing through that series. It certainly has a better reputation then the source material for TWD.

[Lox]

The first few trades for Fables are really good, imo. You can't go wrong there.

[Flip]

I played the first couple hours of this last night and its cool. I'm probably up near the end of the episode, according to your alls play through. I had no idea what the Fable world was about and i really like it. I would have sworn the Wolf voice actor was Spike Spiegel, but i looked it up and i was wrong.

[Shrinweck]

Okay I went through the first episode again and this time I'm quite sure that through some trick of magic

Spoiler: show

Snow White and Faith are still alive or exist some how in death. The Magic Mirror being unable to show Faith because it's blocked by magic suggests some how she still exists or at the very least that the location of her corpse is noteworthy. Apparently heading towards Lawrence's apartment first is also the right decision since he's still alive and Toad's situation doesn't change if you delay going to his place. I tore off Gren's arm for the lore entry achievement but reloaded and went back to sparing him since that choice was so damned depressing.

[Shrinweck]

Episode two gets released today.

Edit: Good episode... seemed pretty short. It also kind of felt like compared to the standard episode a lot less of the "___ will remember that" choices tended to happen. I am fairly happy with where the story is going, though. They've really trimmed these episodes down into something amazing. I'm never tapping my foot waiting to get to the next interesting bit. It's all very well done. I like how they put in another scene where Bigby does detective work and has to connect evidence. It's all 1+1=2 detective work, but it still makes me feel like I'm doing something in a gaming environment where I'm really not.

[kali o.]

Surprisingly good (first game). Better than the walking dead...but still too short. Hope episode 2 lives up to expectations....will play tonight.

Episode two gets released today.

Edit: Good episode... seemed pretty short. It also kind of felt like compared to the standard episode a lot less of the "___ will remember that" choices tended to happen. I am fairly happy with where the story is going, though. They've really trimmed these episodes down into something amazing. I'm never tapping my foot waiting to get to the next interesting bit. It's all very well done. I like how they put in another scene where Bigby does detective work and has to connect evidence. It's all 1+1=2 detective work, but it still makes me feel like I'm doing something in a gaming environment where I'm really not.

Wrote my reply before I read your edit. What a shame...Telltale is likely to lose my support if they keep releasing short eps for this genre.

[Shrinweck]

I'm enjoying them too much to stop buying their games... but I may stop buying them until they hit a $5-$10 price point. It's definitely better than TWD in nearly every way, I think that's the power of writing a game around an intellectual property that doesn't blow.

[Shrinweck]

Penny Arcade's Tycho always puts it better than me. And he should, since he makes a living off it:

I think The Wolf Among Us is probably going to edge out The Walking Dead for me, purely in love terms. I don’t really have a problem with The Walking Dead, which proved the model beyond a shadow of a doubt. In fact, I love it. I pushed it on you from day one. But Wolf turns up certain knobs on the formula, with potent effects.

Gabriel says Wolf’s second chapter is TOO SHORT, in all caps. That’s possible. I think they’re all too short. The right length for me, when I’m sitting down, is to be told the entire story at once! But having felt the invigorating benefits of the episode format, energizing benefits like that of the mangosteen(?), I gotta let them do their shit. And being a mystery - not merely mysterious, but situated in the literal genre - means that you think about it more when you aren’t playing it. If you were to right click on my forehead and open up the task manager, you’d always see a little stub of my consciousness working on it, one or two percent at a time.

The Walking Dead is very stark, realistic, and purposeful. You’re supposed to feel all of it and it’s supposed to be real. I don’t know what combination of team, experience, and subject matter resulted in it, but Wolf is expressive (and allows expression) at the camera level that is so intentional, so mindful of the experience, that it hauls you in by your corneas.

[Shrinweck]

Episode three released this week which was also good. And also too short. Took about 110 minutes and that includes at least 10-20 minutes of me backtracking.

I do hope there will be a season two, but unlike The Walking Dead I'll probably be able to wait for it to be $10-12 before buying. Still excited to see what they're going to do with Game of Thrones. Hopefully they're listening to the "Much too short" feedback. I think we're basically screwed on game length for the duration of this series' season one and season two of The Walking Dead. I imagine the story (and hence the game's length) was written out a long, long time ago.

[Shrinweck]

New episode out. This one just wasn't very good, but wasn't necessarily bad. You get a lot of answers and episode five is going to be a hell of a ride, but this one basically just sets it up (kind of like episode two, which was somewhat justifiably panned by critics even though I remember not disliking it). The episode does succeed in making me feel like getting to play Bigby like how I want.

I'm probably more interested in seeing how this story ends up than The Walking Dead S2. It's a whole hell of a lot of fun getting to play as Bigby, even if the episodes are too damn short. All the crazy shit that happens in this game, I can't wait to see what they do with their Borderlands and Game of Thrones spin offs.

[Shrinweck]

Last episode is released on Tueday the eighth. Excited to see this end. Interesting that they've released two episodes of this in a row without releasing episode four of The Walking Dead Season 2, but since this IP works so much better as a video game, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I hope there's more planned for the future. Bigby is a fun protagonist.

[kali o.]

That's a pretty good turn around since the last episode -- much more appropriate than the months of wait usually.

[Shrinweck]

I agree.. they supposedly try to take 6-8 weeks but I think they've only managed that two or three times between the two episodic games they have going right now. On the plus side, from what I remember their estimates had The Wolf Among Us ending by the end of Summer.. so people were actually estimating this being released a couple months from now. Glad they were wrong.

[Shrinweck]

A nice ending that basically begs (and establishes intentions) for a sequel. I hope they take into account the nearly universal wish that the episodes should be longer, but otherwise this series was really quite great.

Spoiler: show

The ending with Nerissa is quite interesting, as well. I'd completely forgotten (because they took their damned time releasing episodes) that Faith's murder was clearly a message and I'd forgotten to keep that in mind. To make that even more interesting, there's a really good chance that Nerissa was glamored as Faith in that introductory sequence. It's kind of hard to completely excuse the fact that she manipulated the shit out of you (albeit for good and justified reasons), I must say I quite like her character. I guess this is also a good explanation for why "Faith" was written the way she was in that first scene with her and Bigby. It just never really sat right that that was going to be your only interaction with her.

I let the Crooked Man get imprisoned but only in retrospect does it dawn on me that doing that with Bloody Mary on the loose was probably a long term mistake, but I doubt the game series will have that kind of scope... and since the other endings had him dying I doubt a game with him as an antagonist will ever be made again.

Also when he's having the flashbacks of voices in his head Doctor Swineheart is included in the voices... I caught a tidbit about 'tests.' I imagine the sequel will involve him and his weird ass hospital/medical practice for fables.

While TTG taking their time to release episodes has soured me on them too much to buy their new games for full price from new IPs (Game of Thrones, Borderlands, and I heard some rumor about James Bond.. but I have no interest in that one - it'll have to get some nice reviews) in the future... I'm probably going to have to buy this particular series the second it comes out.

So in summation, objectively this game is probably a 7.5/10 with a 9 or 10 out of ten story. Would definitely recommend picking it up, especially since TTG puts these things on sale so often for cheap once they're finished. A good tactic. Get people hooked on already released content for cheap so they'll feel they have to pick up the next one full price.

[Lox]

Finally finished the game (I know I know...3 kids all under 3...what can I say?).

Spoiler: show

I really enjoyed it. I liked how it set up some stuff from the comics later on (Snow being in charge of Fabletown and having a backbone, the very professional relationship between Bigby and Snow, Crane being in Paris, etc).

I don't remember the Crooked Man ever making an appearance in the comics so I assume they'll leave him alone for a possible sequel. There is a lot of other stuff they could do because the world is so large. We never even visited the farm. The second volume of the series deals with an attempted mutiny on the farm by the non-human Fables so I'm sure they could find a cool way to tell a story in that area.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story and the gameplay. I liked this series better than TWD, but I don't read/watch TWD so I might be biased towards these characters.