Friday, March 13, 2015

Make a Deal with the Bad Wolf

If you purchased The Wolf Among Us and haven't gotten around to playing it yet, bump it to the top of your gaming backlog. One of my best friends gave me the same advice and I am very grateful he did.

It really does an amazing job of balancing the deduction of a detective novel with the fantastic nature of Fables; much better than a lot of urban fantasy (Dresden Files and Angel to name a couple). There is black market magic, a supernatural serial killer and a couple other brutal Fables who didn't warrant a place in the comics.

You don't need to have read any of the Fables comics to appreciate the story (though if you've read through volumes 1-3, you'll avoid all potential spoilers for the comic and enjoy a couple inside jokes). I'm actually finally reading through the series (courtesy of the same best friend), and playing Wolf alongside it really enriched my appreciation of the comic, which can drag at times.

It may just be the subject matter, but I enjoyed it a lot more than The Walking Dead. Also, it's almost as fun to watch as it is to play (to hear my wife tell it).  If you can play it on a TV (either through a console or a linked laptop) playing with an audience that can frantically shout at you to pick a specific dialogue option adds a new dimension of fun.

If you do not yet own it and you like Telltale's stuff, or just narrative driven gameplay in general, you can get it for the song on the next Steam sale. Part of me hopes there is a Season 2, but it also segues into the comic so well and tells such a tight story that I'm satisfied with it by itself.

After I finish the Adversary Arc of the comic, I may write a little something about the Fables mythos as a whole.

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