Fairy tales seem to have inspired their fair share of entertainment past the books: animated movies, live-action movies, TV shows… The Wolf Among Us follows suit by transporting storybook characters into the real world.
The first episode of The Wolf Among Us begins with you in the shoes of town sheriff Bigby Wolf (the Big Bad Wolf), who tries to keep the peace in Fabletown. The characters who inhabit Fabletown are called Fables, all refugees and escapees from their story worlds, now living normal lives under Glamour spells to hide their real appearance.
Right from the start, Bigby (who, by the way, smokes Huff’n’Puff cigarettes) finds himself wrapped into dangerous situations as he answers a call from Road regarding unruly neighbors. Bigby finds an old acquaintance from the Red Riding Hood story and ends up in a crazy fight, out the window, and all of a sudden someone has an axe stuck on their head but still walks away. That’s fables for you, anything can happen.
But the real meat of the story revolves around solving a murder, and while solving it, delving deeper into other strange happenings, only to realize that the Fables who live here can very easily turn to a life of crime or prostitution to make ends meet. Just like anyone in real life who’s having a rough time.
Most of the game plays as a point-and-click adventure. Objects that can be interacted with will have a circle and icons based on the actions you can take. You interact with something you use the left button on the mouse and move around with WASD. Your inventory items appear on the left side, and you can scroll through with the mouse wheel and use them on certain occasions.
Bigby is always given multiple dialog options to talk to others, and you must pick one within the time limit (the meter below that depletes faster than you think). If you don’t choose an answer at all, your answer is considered silence. Choices do matter since they influence what characters think of you or react, and certain outcomes in the story. There are also choices in terms of where to go first.
Combat is done via QTEs, which normally I am terrible at. Not surprisingly, I bit the dust right on the first fight, but I nailed it the second time around after figuring out what the icons meant. Circles appear so you can aim your mouse at them, and click to interact with that spot. WASD appear as cues to dodge out of the way of someone or something, and Q is your crazy button masher for strength-related actions. This works well, but sometimes the circles are easy to miss as they appear closer to the edges of the screen and our attention tends to focus in the middle. Of course, everything going on in terms of animation and action itself is already fantastic and distracting in itself.
The game offers plenty of tidbits about the characters and their stories, which are always interesting to read. You can also see how you compare with other players in terms of decisions made. You can access these features from the main menu in the Extras section. There is also an achievement system in place with plenty of them to collect.
Overall, I am pleased with the first episode of The Wolf Among Us, and I wish I would have started to play it sooner. Yes, it does seem like they just took The Walking Dead and dressed it up differently, but I actually prefer this one. The story is great and I am really pleased with the integration of fairy tales in the real world, much like Once Upon a Time or Grimm on TV. The dialogs are nicely done, the voice actors are excellent and I find the music adds a lot to every scene.
Unfortunately, I was left with a massive unaccomplished feeling at the end of the first episode. In retrospective, my adventure seemed like it was just a whole lot of going nowhere, little in terms of action sequences, and a big slap in the face right at the end. This doesn’t necessarily mean I am complaining, though, since I know it’s bound to get better, but… wow, that really was some unexpected turn of events there! I am now left with many questions and the wait for Episode 2.