The Wolf Among Us

I'm a fan of great story driven games and perhaps none do it better than TellTale Games, best known these days for the sublime The Walking Dead series of games, I'm going through season 1 of it as I type this, they've also done the charming Tales Of Monkey Island, the fun if flawed 'Back To The Future' game and my personal fave, today's topic, The Wolf Among Us

Whilst the game is rated Mature, this trailer is perfectly fine for all.

The game is set before a series of comic books called 'Fables' by Bill Willingham, basically it features the citizens of 'Fabletown', characters from fairy tales and such whom were exiled from their homelands and have to set home in New York, a powerful magic spell protects them from discovery by normal humans 'Mundies' as they call them, most citizens have to use a spell called 'Glamour' to retain a human guise as they try to live their lives, Sheriff Bigby Wolf, a reformed Big Bad Wolf, tries to maintain order in their community, even though most still fear him for his actions in the past.

I got into this game from a trailer and a brief description of the story, I was immediately fascinated by the world and the characters therein, originally released as 5 separate episodes to form a entire game, I was hooked after Episode One.

I've never read Fables and this game thankfully doesn't need prior knowledge to get into the story or the characters as it's all set before the events in Fables and without giving away any spoilers, this story is amazingly good, it's funny, witty and sometimes absolutely brutal, it can leave you speechless and having to face some very hard choices.

The stroke of genius that Telltale games does is that your choices have consequences and what you do, and when you do it, matters, this game has multiple endings, characters treat you differently depending on what you have done, some may help you, others my shun you this gives you much more attachment to the character of Bigby Wolf and to the story as it feels like you have a impact on what happens.

It is currently available on PC/iOS/PS3/360 as a digital download, later this year it will be released as a retail disc copy for the previously mentioned devices as well as XboxOne/PS4/PSVita, whilst I own it on PC I am getting it as a disc for PS4 and I cannot wait to go through again and see where my choices take me.

The graphics are really good, they take from the comics and still images look like they are taken from the comic itself, the voice acting is top notch, Adam Harrington as Bigby Wolf is a fantastic piece of casting and the supporting cast roles all work out fantastically, the game is violent in some places really brutally so, Fables as a majority are quite hard to kill so it can get quite gruesome at times, there is also a little bit of nudity in some scenes but it's never really the focus of the scene, and Bigby Wolf smokes, a lot, now this can be a real distraction in a age of non smoking, for good reason, the reason WHY he smokes isn't explained in game but I found out later, as the Big Bad Wolf he has heightened senses, smell in particular, the hustle and bustle of New York City would drive him crazy so he smokes to dull out these senses to keep himself fairly sane, it's a dog's life for Bigby, though that doesn't stop him being the Big Bad Wolf again if you make him a little too angry at you...

The game plays out as a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style game, you have fairly little interaction other than choosing dialogue and more than a few fight scenes, this is a very dialogue heavy game, but the story is very much worth it all, even if your actual actions as a player are fairly limited.

The game does suffer from what I call the 'TellTale Engine' problem, as in it's issues which are seen in other similar games from the makers, characters actions can be a little jerky and sometimes making decisions can lead to a noticeable pause before things continue as well as problematic lip sync and sound cues, but most of these have been patched out in later releases and I'm confident the retail disc versions as well will be problem free.

So it's a heavy recommendation from me, if you want a adult game with a strong story and cast, get The Wolf Among Us on the device of your choosing.

Lets hope they make a Season 2, Come on TellTale Games, Please!!!