Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, pt 1, review

I didn’t think I’d really like this. Coming into this I had no expectations, other than knowing it was based on the Fables comics (which I haven’t read, but heard good things). Attribution: Published by Vertigo/DC, written by Bill Willingham.

I haven’t been invested in anything Telltale Games (other than the Pokernight at the Inventory games, which is just a combination of Telltale’s witty banter and writing mixed with poker). I played some Sam & Max, was entertaining, but not for me. Played some The Walking Dead, wasn’t for me. The writing and story was very good, and honestly I’d like to watch these games more than play them.

But with The Wolf Among Us I felt more invested in this. I didn’t want it to stop. The characters were building. The story was a cop drama, with the cliché bad-boy lone wolf (this character trope is even quipped at in the game). I can’t tell you much about it, just know that part one ends on a cliffhanger and OMG TELLTALE COMEON RELEASE PART 2 NOW.

Penny Arcade echoes my thoughts on the goddamn cliffhanger ending.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/10/23

The art is dazzling. This is the quality of cell-shading I don’t see in anything else. Obviously the comicbook origins and style influence this, but you gotta hand it to Telltale for continuing to develop and improve their owcn cell-shaded style.

So far I’m digging the music. I’ll let you figure out if you like it yourself:

The gameplay is mostly conversation based, with some fight scenes (duck this, dodge that, move cursor here to do an action, press button repeatedly). I might just turn it to easy mode so I don’t have to do much of the action myself. The story and art is driving my interest, not the gameplay.

I’d link the game here, but Steam has decided that because I accidentally selected the wrong DOB on the entry page I can’t access it. So here, instead of that I’ll just tell you what platforms it is on/coming to: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, OS X, PlayStation 3, iOS, PlayStation Vita.

Disclaimer: I received a review code for the game.