Tuesday, October 22, 2013
| 10/22/13 4:30PM |
Faith in Fables
The Wolf Among Us is the next episodic series from Telltale Games, who are riding high off the success of the first season of the Walking Dead game and preparing for season two of that award winning series. As much as I can't wait to play season two, I'm completely focused on checking out how things will unfold in the world of Fabletown as Sheriff Bigby Wolf.
Taking what worked extremely well with the Walking Dead, the Wolf Among Us has you investigating incidents in the corner of New York where fairy tale creatures roam as the former Big Bad Wolf Bigby keeps them in line. Or at least tries to.
Titled 'Faith', the first episode in this new series does a wonderful job of setting up the plot and gives about two hours of immersive gameplay that left me wanting more and fully anticipating where the next episode will take things with the engaging plot.
As with the Walking Dead, the Wolf Among Us uses material from another comic source to fuel its world and characters. The game serves as a prequel to the comic series titled 'Fables', where a more dark and mature take on fairy tales is presented as the tales and creatures mix in with the regular mundane human society, or mundies for short.
The creatures must blend into their new surrounding and thanks to a spell called Glamour, most are able to pass off as humans despite what their true form is when they don't have the spell to use. The main issue with Glamour is that it is a very expensive item to acquire, and those who can't afford it or choose not to use must live at the farm, a slum-like place made just for creatures until they can get access to Glamour.
That's about as much of the story I can really go into as I don't want to spoil the events of the game, but rest assured that its a very engaging story with many characters that you'll recognize from fairy tale lore. Another great thing about the game is that due to its maturity, you're able to see these characters in a new and realistic albeit dark light. Things aren't happily ever after in this world.
Gameplay wise, The Wolf Among Us is very similar to The Walking Dead. Anyone who played last year's Game of the Year will feel right at home with the controls as well. Combat sequences do show up a few times in this first episode, and these sequences require quick button prompts and use of the analog sticks to use objects in the environment to your advantage.
Outside of these intense moments, you'll be choosing dialogue options for Bigby as he hopes to solve some events that could harm Fabletown and its various inhabitants.
The presentation for the episode is top notch as well. From the visual style, to the dialogue and music, everything comes together in an amazing way. For the two hours that the episode lasts, you will be in for a treat, but be prepared for some technical issues.
Whenever the game would load, the beginning sections afterward would slow down quite dramatically, which put some dialogue and animation out of sync for me.
This was something that was apparent in The Walking Dead game as well, so it may just be an engine issue, but it's not enough to take away from the experience. This is my only issue with the episode. Well that and I just wanted more to play because I loved every minute I was in the world as Bigby.
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If you've played the Walking Dead series from Telltale and want something new to check out, The Wolf Among Us is that game. I'm gonna try and pick up the season pass for it, which you can get now for $14.99, so I can get all of the episodes at a discount and continue the story. This episode does a great job of setting up the story, and I can't wait for when the next one arrives in a month or so.
+ Great beginning Episode to a new Telltale series
+ Wonderful visuals and audio through the two-hour experience
+ Taking what worked great about the Walking Dead and expanding upon it
- Technical issues when the game was loading sequences
Reviews on the thebuttonpresser.com are based out of a '1-5 controller' Scoring system. Purchased games by the reviewer contain no annotation, but review copies are always known to the reader via a review disclaimer.
Publishers- Telltale Games
Release Date- October 11th, 2013
Price- $4.99 MSRP
Review Platform- Xbox Live Arcade
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