Home Gaming The Wolf Among Us Preview: This Fable is Legendary

The Wolf Among Us Preview: This Fable is Legendary

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After earning numerous awards for The Walking Dead, Telltale Games became something of a household name among gamers. Sure, it’s sort of a point-and-click adventure mixed with dialogue choices, yet it goes so far beyond that in terms of story and characters. It’s no wonder that people were excited when they heard that Telltale was turning their attention to the much enjoyed graphic novel series, Fables.

The Wolf Among Us takes place in Fabletown, a part of New York City where fairy tale characters relocated after losing their Homelands. All characters are forced to blend in with their new environment, making use of a spell called Glamour to ensure that they don’t necessary look how we might imagine them. Not all characters follow this rule, and they often seem to lose its effects when overcome with emotions.

The story focuses on Bigby, formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf, who is sheriff of Fabletown and tasked with maintaining the peace. He has a perception problem to overcome as most Fables have memories of him as something to be feared and certainly not the kind of character you’d run to with your problems. While also investigating crime, Bigby needs to work hard on changing his image and making it clear that he’s a nice guy now. Well, if he is actually a nice guy.

Bigsby and faith

For those who have played The Walking Dead (and really, you should), gameplay in The Wolf Among Us is fairly similar. Once again you can move around environments and interact with specific objects. Unlike in The Walking Dead, all conversation choices are done with the mouse rather than the number keys. This is certainly an improvement as it means you don’t need to keep shifting your left hand between the number and letter keys. Most of the game is played through interactive story-telling; the gameplay comes from the ability to make interesting choices rather than press a wide range of buttons.

The Wolf Among Us features a lot more action than previous Telltale games as you will need to use the quick-time events (expect a lot of Q-key bashing) when fighting various Fables. You can chose how to attack, and even if you want to carry on beating up the characters, or simply walk away.

Bigsby and woodsman

All these choices are important. As per the Telltale formula, every decision you make matters. Will you gain a specific character’s trust, or alienate them? How will you align yourself? With only one episode released thus far, it is hard to see all the consequences of those actions. However, judging by previous Telltale Games’ experiences, I would predict that certain Fables may or may not help out later on in the story depending on decisions thus far.

While choices matter in The Wolf Among Us, they are not as emotional as they were in The Walking Dead. Rather than determining which life you save, you are deciding on which Fable to suspect or arrest. Sure, these will have an impact on the story, and the story is interesting and entertaining. However, the emotional connections that were such a cornerstone of The Walking Dead story simply do not have a place in this game. Rather, it’s all about exploring the story through the gruff and seriously fun-to-play Bigby.

Qte wolf

The Wolf Among Us is a very aesthetically pleasing experience. Using cell shading, it truly feels as though you are playing in a graphic novel. However, the music and voice acting really bring it all together, making this choice-based interactive experience into a fully immersive game. The first episode takes about two hours to complete – much like the timing per episode of The Walking Dead. As such, over 5 episodes, we can assume that players will get about 10 hours of gameplay with a high replay value. The Wolf Among Us is available on Steam for PC and Mac, as well as on Xbox 360 via Xbox Live and PS3 using the PSN.

Last Updated: December 26, 2013

17 Comments

  1. bowlingotter

    December 26, 2013 at 17:56

    Love the first episode of this, can’t wait for the second one.

    Reply

  2. iPrimal

    December 27, 2013 at 07:16

    Episode 1 is free on xbox this week. At least in the U.S.

    Reply

    • DarthofZA

      December 27, 2013 at 08:05

      I picked it up for free last night. Thanks.

      Reply

  3. Sageville

    December 27, 2013 at 09:31

    Sorry, but he has a mullet.

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      December 27, 2013 at 10:31

      MacGuyver had a mullet and he was a BOSS!!

      Reply

      • Sageville

        December 27, 2013 at 10:48

        True, but no-one watches MacGuyver these days either, why?
        Because of the mullet I tell ya!

        Reply

        • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

          December 27, 2013 at 13:23

          loooll

          Reply

  4. Jonah Cash

    December 27, 2013 at 10:10

    I am trying sooooo hard not to succumb to this game!!! It looks brilliant!!

    Reply

  5. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    December 27, 2013 at 10:31

    After playing the first episode a month or two ago, I decided to take a look at the comic book series. While the creator loses the plot on issues of politics (there’s a strong conservative message, and a very unsavoury plotline later on in the series), you can’t fault how he merged known fairy tales characters into a very interesting world.

    PS: I instantly bought the series pass after completing the first episode. “dayyymmm that ending… dayyymmmm”

    Reply

  6. Gustav Minnie

    December 27, 2013 at 10:52

    My derp question of the day. If you buy this on Steam you buy all 5 episodes (when the are realesed)? $21 is a bit stiff for one eppie.

    Reply

    • Her Highness the Hipster

      December 27, 2013 at 12:02

      honestly, i bought mine during steam sale awesomeness for a bit cheaper. but i’d happily pay the full price – ends up working out to about $4 per episode (yes, they’re only released over the course of the year) with each episode lasting about 2 hours. If you’re not convinced, though, wait for it to go on sale again.

      Reply

      • Gustav Minnie

        December 27, 2013 at 12:07

        So $21 for all 5 is not too bad. I was reading about a season pass from the banana and I didn’t see the option in steam.
        Thanks.

        Reply

  7. gameguyz

    December 31, 2013 at 10:37

    Cyber Attack caused Servers of League of Legends, DOTA 2 and other games shutdown 

    PhantomLord, Facebook, League of Legends, Twitter, Reddit, World of Warcraft, DOTA 2, Club Penguin, Battle.net, EA.comUPDATE 4: 8:34pm: an update has been posted by PhantomLord on the official Facebook page:

    “Just had an automatic pointed at me, put in hand cuffs and sat in the back of a cop car as I watched as 6 policemen go through my whole house.. will keep you all updated.”

    There are also reports circulating that the group has installed “Zombie Servers” on the League of Legends servers. With the Zombie Servers, any login and payment detail will be sent to the group. This isn’t confirmed, but definitely something to keep an eye on.

    The official League of Legends status Twitter account is recommending a flush of the DNS in order to fix login issues, though staying away from the game all together would be a better bet right about now.

    http://dotadb.gameguyz.com/news/cyber-attack-caused-servers-of-league-of-legends–dota-2-and-other-games-shutdown-.html

    Reply

  8. gameguyz

    January 2, 2014 at 10:21

    Discussion on Perfecting Aquatic Adventuring

    The Christmas holiday has already ended. A new year of adventuring must be waiting ahead of us. ArenaNet wanted to build a new type of MMO when starting producing the Guild Wars 2, thus they did many things differently. One of them is about adventuring in and under water.

    A lot of MMOs feature plenty of land to explore. A few have even offered some rivers, and a pond or two to swim in as well. Swimming is rarely used in games though, and it makes the in game worlds feel flat. Tyria is different, hiding caves, towns, and even cities from the past within its murky depths. The amount of detail underwater is just as intense as what you would see on land. By actually adding in whole areas of exploration in an aquatic environment, it fleshes out the world, giving it more depth.

    http://gw2.gameguyz.com/news/news/discussion-on-perfecting-aquatic-adventuring.html

    Reply

  9. xboxforsale

    January 2, 2014 at 13:10

  10. gameguyz

    January 3, 2014 at 10:02

    LGD.cn retreat from D2L S4 Finals

    LGD.cn, HyperX D2L Season 4 Finals, Caesar’s Palace, Invictus Gaming, Alliance, Fnatic, Vici Gaming, Team LiquidWe just got the news that LGD.cn has retreated from HyperX D2L Season 4 Finals because of roster issues.

    Team Liquid replace LGD.cn as D2L Season 4 comes to its climactic conclusion at the Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with $50,000 up for grabs.

    LGD.cn, HyperX D2L Season 4 Finals, Caesar’s Palace, Invictus Gaming, Alliance, Fnatic, Vici Gaming, Team Liquid

    The situation at hand is the most unfortunate for the first big LAN event of the year, as LGD.cn was one of the front-runners in the race for the title. With the tournament being so close at hand D2L administrators had to make some tough calls in order to secure the success of the event. Here’s how D2L figurehead Ayesee commented on the situation:

    http://dotadb.gameguyz.com/news/lgd-cn-retreat-from-d2l-s4-finals.html

    Reply

  11. Werner Ackermann

    January 7, 2014 at 16:16

    First episode was a real joy to play, but I wish the episodes weren’t spaced out so much. I’m likely to have forgotten most of the events of the first episode by the times the second comes along, so by the fifth I’ll be asking “who ripped off that guys’ arm?”.

    Is the Walking Dead as entertaining if you only watched the first series?

    Reply

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