At Pax Saturday, I got the chance to play Telltale games’ soon to be released the Wolf Among Us. Based off of the comic series Fables, The Wolf Among Us is the point and click adventure you’ve been waiting for after last years critically acclaimed the Walking Dead.
After a two hour wait, fans were brought inside the Telltale booth, built up to look like a grimy hotel, steeped in florescence and lost cat posters. The demo was about twenty minutes long.
The game itself is solid, at least as far as demonstrated. Fans of both Telltale and the Fables series will be sated. It’s difficult to avoid comparisons between the Wolf Among Us and the Walking Dead, as the series bear many similarities to each other.
The Pax Demo features Sheriffy Bigby responding to a call at the Toad’s apartment complex to deal with an old, drunken rival, the Woodsman.
Play/Graphic Style
Much as in the Walking Dead, the Wolf Among Us features decisions that will carry over throughout the series. If you slight a character early on in the game, he will remember it for the rest of the game. Characters that die remain dead. It’s a moral system that assists in telling the story and lends itself to multiple play throughs.
The best part of the demo was the look and feel. It had a stylized appearance, similar to games like Borderlands or the Walking Dead. But the colors are what really lend themselves to the atmosphere. The game is colorful, but gritty. Crayola grimy. It’s flourescent, but noir reminiscent.
Combat
The combat system was, for me, a sticking point. Like the Walking Dead, it is a game that is assisted by Quick Time events. This is not a slight against the game, it makes the encounters feel more cinematic and evolved. The situation is with a part of the combat that involves matching right trigger presses with a circular location on the screen. The purpose of these things were not initially very clear, and it dragged on the combat longer than was probably necessary. Eventually they became clear, and combat flowed more smoothly.
Overall
The game is exactly what people who loved the Walking Dead were waiting for, and is an excellent addition to the Fables canon.
