Telltale Games have come a long way since the days of making Texas Hold Em styled games and light hearted adventure titles. Today, they are one of the premiere developers for focusing on narrative in adventure games. For #9 this year, we have the next game following the hit of The Walking Dead.
#9 — The Wolf Among Us
The Wolf Among us is based on the Fables graphic novel series and takes place as a prequel to the events there. Continuing Telltale’s track record, the game is largely focused on the story with an absence of gameplay. One of the parts that I liked about The Wolf Among Us was that you played as Bigby Wolf who was not your regular adventure game character.
He was very much a take charge character and depending on how you played him, also a huge jerk. Part of the charm of the game was on keeping or losing control as Bigby tried to maintain order in Fabletown. Like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us was definitely a mature game with some of the most violent fights we’ve seen from Telltale.
But not everything was great here. Despite the five episode season, the quality was all over the place with the second episode appeared rushed. Despite the detective and noir theme to it, there was very little in terms of solving crimes and this became less and less as the season continued. The finale had one of the most impressive fights but also one of the weakest ways for your choices to matter and the story never felt like it was personalized based on what I did.
Major events were going to happen regardless of my actions and it never felt like I was moving the story forward through my choices. And without any gameplay to back it up, The Wolf Among Us was a very passive experience indicative of Telltale’s style lately.
And I wish that I could say more about The Wolf Among Us but despite the five episode season there just isn’t more to talk about which is part of the problem. Playing through Tales From the Borderlands has me worried that I’ll be saying the same thing about it in a few months.
Up next we have the first of two other successful games based on popular IPs.
