Playing A Game The Wolf Among Us PC

The Wolf Among Us succeeds due to the strength of its overall story, and especially of its titular character -- despite the specter of Telltale's continual writing blunders.

It's the same shit I'll complain about all day re: Mass Effect: dialog choices that don't say what they sounded like, choices that don't match the tone of the conversation (a'la L.A. Noire), and scenarios that just don't have the choice you really wanted to pick. These issues cut deep in a game that's completely story-driven.

(There's also the irritatingly-unnecessary pairing of "Next time on..." and "Previously on..." teaser/recap scenes, which - when playing the game's episodes in sequence - are a waste of time at best, and can at worst spoil an upcoming story reveal. These cinematics simply shouldn't exist.)

But, the good news about Wolf is that these gaffes are actually fairly rare. And I think the situation is helped quite a bit by the strong and engaging characterization of Fables. With a few notable exceptions, this story's personalities shine in both the words they're saying and the voice actors saying them. And it's pleasantly fitting that Bigby Wolf himself is an exceptionally strong and enthralling character.

It's easier to buy limited dialog options, and understand the subtext of what they mean, when the game's cast is so clearly articulated and consistently developed.

The majority of the game's "meat" is taken up by dialog, but a relatively-close second is the quick-time action, which is ... okay. If you don't play a lot of Telltale games, the symbolic meaning of the prompts (like where to move the mouse, or when to press vs. hold a button) has a slight learning curve. But it becomes inoffensive rather quickly, and there are some scenes where it actually feels satisfying to dodge and strike with the right timing.

It feels weird saying this, but it's a shame that there weren't a couple more point-and-click investigation scenes. While these feel like a chore in some other adventure games, they work incredibly well here, since Bigby is actually acting as a detective and uncovering clues to further the case.

The Wolf Among Us is still not what I'd call a top-tier story-driven game, but it's easily better than most of its contemporaries. The premise is legitimately interesting, the characterization is usually great, and it overall fits its interactive and scripted content together quite well.

Better than: other Telltale games
Not as good as: the Ace Attorney games
But as long as I'm listing minor gripes: the "will remember this" prompts are just ... pointless distractions. I could lose those.

Rating: Good