The Wolf Among Us

[RightClickSaveAs]

Anyone else playing this series? It's another one from Telltale in the same vein as The Walking Dead. Episode 4 just came out on the 27th.

I never thought it would happen, but I'm liking this as much as The Walking Dead. It's set in the world of the Fables comics, which I knew nothing about, but it does a good job of sucking you into that world. And in contrast with Walking Dead's Lee and Clementine (especially Clementine) it puts you in the role of a sort of film noir antihero who is really fun to play. He's a guy who has no problems doing whatever he needs to get the job done, but the conflict is he's trying to mend his ways and not let his monstrous side take over. Or at least not too often.

It also features some of the most Important Decisions you'll ever make in a game


Telltale has really got their production down now it seems, between The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us, they're putting out about an episode every month at this point.

[matt]

Honestly, I think I like Wolf Among Us more than The Walking Dead Season 2 although I love Reggie! Best new character ever.

I wasn't going to play Wolf Among Us at all because I'd never heard of Fables, but they did the first episode free on XBLA, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I really liked the detective feel of the first few episodes where you had to figure out who the murderer was. I also liked the choices of which criminal to follow. It doesn't make a huge difference, but it really puts you in the role of a detective.

I wasn't as into episode 4 though because there was pretty much no mystery. It was still cool and they had some kind of tough choices, but they didn't feel as much weight since they have very little bearing on the game. I guess some of the choices early on where people ask you who you think "did it" had no bearing on what happens in the game, but they really make you feel like you are a detective, which I liked.

I really don't know where they are going to go with ep 5 because the ending of 4 felt a little anticlimactic to me, but I'm still looking forward to it.

Jeff Parrott, our original artist at 24 Caret (on Retro/Grade) is now an environment artist on the Walking Dead team.

[RightClickSaveAs]

Reggie is great! It was weird to hear his voice in the game because he's voiced by comedian Kumail Nanjiani who I've heard a lot, so when he shows up and goes "Heyyyy guys!" I started laughing. He did a great job though and the character was really interesting.

Yeah, general consensus seems to be that Episode 4 of Wolf Among Us is the weakest so far. I thought the Jersey Devil's character and fight scene made up for it all though.

Having replayed Walking Dead a couple times and replaying each of the Wolf Among Us episodes at least a couple times, Telltale does a great job at making you think your choices really make a difference, but if you start poking around it starts to fall apart. That's still a great accomplishment though, and they're doing something really innovative with storytelling in games.

One thing that bothers me from an obsessive adventure gamer perspective is you can't always check out all the objects on the screen. In some scenes, like the laboratory at the butcher shop in this episode, there's no way to examine all the things in the room because some of them are triggers to move on to the next scene, and it's not clear which ones do that. I understand why they do it, it keeps the pace moving along sort of like the timed dialogue options, but it really bugs the part of me that needs to hear all the dialogue and examine every object. I guess it's another excuse to play through it again though.

[matt]

I love Kumail Nanjiani, so I was in the same boat as you. I kept telling my wife that's Kumail! That's Kumail! But I think she didn't know what I was talking about. (Season finale of Silicon Valley tonight! I'm excited)

I think the trick with making branches/choices, is to close them off and steer them back onto the main narrative as quickly as possible. That was exactly what I was trying to NOT do with Neverending Nightmares, but it is even more challenging than I thought, and we had to scale back on the scope of it significantly. To some extent, it is hard for game developers (myself included) to build a ton of content that most people wont see as they play through the game. Usually, they try to work in both things.

I also like to examine every object and was disappointed in the same scene that you were. I'm sure the writers knew whether it was important or not to hear all of that. It did help with the pacing I think.

[loverofbooks]

I want to play this game but i'm waiting for the price to either go down in price or my boyfriend to get the hint that i would like it as a present, so basically i'm waiting for the price to go down. But it does look like a over all good game and interesting story.

[Harry Sunderland]

I got into this series during the Steam Sale and WOW! I'm so into it. I actually finished E4 last night, and E5 drops tonight...so I rode the wave in such a way that there's no cliffhanger.

I also think I like it better than TWD (I've not played S2 yet). I just feel like it has a lot less filler (some of the Walking Dead sequences were tiring...like walking around to power up that generator at the farm), and I love just how much they drop f-bombs in the game. I've played the game for what, 8 hours at this point, and I still laugh every time Mr. Toad acts like a d-bag.

Great writing, great art style, cool noir feel...it's an awesome awesome game.

Though I do agree with Matt that some of the "choices" feel a bit futile, and some of the game feels like it's on rails. But that's video gaming in general for you. You can either give players more freedom over the story and risk the story being dumb, or you can create a narrow path with the illusion of choice, but risk the player feeling left-out. I'll take better story over better control any day.

It's like the Procedural Horror vs Hand-Crafted Horror debate we had on the forums earlier.

There's a reason why we aren't telling Stephen King what happens next in the story

[JPrice]

Yeah I got it in the Steam sale myself as well. Only played Episode 1 but I really enjoyed it! Love the world that the game's set in and the mystery is still pretty intriguing. Have to play more though to get a proper opinion on it!

[RightClickSaveAs]

Wow, the finale is out already? That was really quick, Telltale's done a great job this season with the releases. Although apparently episode 2 took 3-4 months to come out. I didn't buy it until it was in Episode 2 so I didn't run into that. Really good timing Harry, you didn't have to wait at all!

This game is almost tied with Walking Dead with me for favorite Telltale series.

[matt]

Unfortunately, I have to wait until tomorrow because I have the Xbox 360 version. Still, that was a pretty amazing turn around time for each episode! I have to give them props - they've really perfected the art of making episodic games. It is VERY hard.

[loverofbooks]

Gah, i'm bad about not getting back here and checking on everything. I got the wolf among us game while it was on steam sales and i played through all the episdoes, except the one that came out today of course, and i love it all! I really like how tall tale does their game play and stories! i heard from a few people that they plan on making a game of thrones game here in the near future and i can't wait!! (yes i know there is already a game of thrones game but every good review has like 5 bad ones to counter it)