Tonight, DOS Eat Dog reviews The Wolf Among Us, based on the ongoing comic book series Fables released through DC's Vertigo imprint. While I haven't read Fables, I've read a few of the other Vertigo titles available and I'm familiar with their M.O.: well written, gritty stories, intended for a mature audience. The Wolf Among Us certainly fits that bill. Rarely in a game do you go from speaking to a talking frog to finding a severed head on your doorsteps from one scene to the next.
The cover of an issue of Vertigo's Fables series (above); the basis for The Wolf Among Us (below)
Bigby Wolf in human form as depicted in the comics (above); and in the video game (below)
Bigby wolf, fully wolfed out in the comics (above); and in the game (below)
The Wolf Among Us straddles the line between classic folklore and gritty noir
The absurdity of talking barn yard animals and the grittiness of a black-dahlia-style murder mystery blend together unerringly well. The Fable creatures don't cheapen or soften the noir conventions, if anything they actually work to highlight the darkness of the plot. And, let's not forget that a lot of these old fairy tales that we all grew up loving were actually fairly dark themselves in their original iterations, before their disneyfication. A lot of these stories were designed to keep misbehaving children in line, or prepare them for some of the harsh realities of life; and they often delve into some morbid territory. If you were a kid wandering too far from your family homestead in the European countryside, you very well might have been literally eaten by wolves like little red riding hood. The tale of Hansel and Gretel deals with cannibalism and famine. The pied piper luring children away to a cave (or drowning them depending on the telling) might be an early version of today's "stranger danger", or symbolic of childhood mortality which was prevalent at the times. keep in mind that through much of human history, we didn't have the life expectancy that we have now and many children never made it to adulthood; that's part of the reason that people had ludicrous amounts of children back in the day. Basically, every thing in the world wants you dead, and before modern medicine and germ theory, many of those things seemed to come out of nowhere, for no reason, and leave no trace. One day you were a bright-eyed, bushy tailed kid; the next you were dead. It's not hard to see how our ancestors would have leaped to accusations of witchcraft, or other otherworldly antagonism. That's the background that a lot of our most enduring folkloric tales spawned from; so maybe a murder mystery with fairy tale animals isn't really that much of a stretch.
Of all the questions this picture raises, the most important might be "What is he wearing?"
"I think we can trust her, Gretel!"
The Wolf Among Us was developed by Telltale Games, developers of the insanely well received The Walking Dead game, and if you're familiar with that then this game will feel like putting on a pair of well worn slippers. If you haven't played a Telltale game before, they're basically what happens if the choose your own adventure books and point and click adventure games that you loved as a kid popped out a bastard baby. I could picture a lot of elitist gamers not really considering this a "game" because it's not what they're used to consuming, or what's typically being pushed on the market now. It's not a massive blockbuster shooter like Call of Duty, but it's also not a quirky indie time-sucker like Flappy Birds. There's no score board, no online multiplayer, no microtransactions. It's not a stealth game, it's not a crafting game, or a fighting game; it's not really anything you might be used to in a game. It's a game that deals in things that we typically associate with television, movies, and books. It really relies on plot, good writing, and character development; but, also beautiful design and style. A lot of the language that will come to mind when playing the game is language we typically reserve for film. You won't think of the various locales in the game as "environments" or "levels", but more like sets; and the set design is incredible, filled with props that really help to enhance the world. The staging of the characters and their interactions make it feel like a movie scene. The game is even divided into five separate "episodes" that usually start slow and end on a cliffhanger, just like episodic television. And, each episode opens with a title sequence played over music, which is stylish and beautiful. It really is like watching a movie, and you will appreciate it on that level; but unlike a movie, you have some agency in what's happening before you, and the events of the game may change upon different playthroughs. All of this is to say that gameplay really takes a back seat in The Wolf Among Us, and storytelling comes to the forefront. It's a game I didn't know I wanted, but was incredibly happy I got.
The beautiful purple paisley The Wolf Among Us title sequence
Telltale Games created the hugely popular The Walking Dead game
You take on the role of Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf known for harassing little red riding hood and the three little pigs. You've reformed since then, although the inhabitants of Fabletown still have trouble trusting you due to your infamous past. The game is filled with characters you know, but you may as well forget what you know about them. Snow White is an administrative assistant to Assistant Mayor Ichabod Crane. Beauty and the Beast are down on their luck, out of work, and looking for a break. Grendel (from Beowulf) is a drunk. The Jersey Devil runs a pawnshop, and Georgie Porgie runs a strip joint where The Little Mermaid is a dancer. You get the idea. Science Fiction is at it's best when it's used to analyze real world issues, and the same holds true for the Fairy Tale world of The Wolf Among Us. The game explores issues of racism, classism, drug abuse, redemption, and immigration through the lens of transplanted fable characters in a modern megacity. The characters and organizations of the game are morally ambiguous, and the choices you have to make aren't easy. The Local Mob boss may be a scumbag, but he also employs fables who can't get a job anywhere else. The Legitimate Government of Fabletown may have it's citizens best interests at heart, but it also forces fables who can't blend in with regular people to pay for the "glamour" that the government supplies to hide their true natures, under the threat of being sent to "the farm".
Colin, one of the three little pigs from TWAU (above); and a drawing of the three little pigs by J. Jacobs from 1895 (below)
Tiny Tim as depicted in TWAU (above); and an illustration of Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol as illustrated by Fred Barnard (Below)
Beauty and Beast from TWAU (above); and an illustration of the folkloric Beauty and Beast by Walter Crane (below)
Mr. Toad as depicted in TWAU (above); and an illustration from The Wind in the Willows drawn by E.H. Shepard, from it's 1931 edition (below)
The Jersey Devil as depicted in TWAU (above); and an illustration of The Jersey Devil from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from January 1909 (below)
The Magic Mirror as depicted in TWAU (above); and an illustration of The Magic Mirror from 1852 (below)
A flying monkey from TWAU (above); and an illustration by W.W. Denslow for The Wizard of Oz from 1900 (below)
Bigby Wolf from TWAU (above); and The Big Bad Wolf as illustrated by Gustave Dore (1832-1883) (below)
Bloody Mary as depicted in TWAU; and possible inspiration for the urban legend, Mary I of England in a portrait from 1554 (below)
The Crooked Man as depicted in TWAU (above); and possible inspiration for the There Was a Crooked Man nursery rhyme, Charles I of England, in a portrait from 1636 (below)
The game is filled with twists and turns from episode to episode and will definitely keep you guessing. Let's be honest, when was the last time you were surprised by a plot twist? The same twists have been recycled over and over again in television and movies and I was entirely ready to expect the same from The Wolf Among Us, though I was ready to forgive that failing. As it turns out, the killer wasn't who I suspected... And, in the end, it didn't really matter who actually pulled the trigger, as much as why they did it. I wasn't ready for the game to end. That's not to say that there's not enough content; just that the content is so good it was depressing when I realized the end was near, even as I raced to get there. Like the characters who populate it, the ending of the game is morally ambiguous, and true to the hardboiled detective genre. There aren't really any happy endings in noir. I knew that The Wolf Among Us was good because it toyed with my emotions in a way that's very rare from video games. I second guessed the choices I had made on multiple occasions, and was filled with deep regret more than once. Those choices give the game some undeniable replay value. I played the game making the decisions that were true to how I thought I would react if I were in the situation; but on a second playthrough I would probably play it as an absolute dick head, untethered from social mores.
Does the game have problems? Some, but they're all rather minor. It accomplishes what it sets out to do amazingly well; whether or not what it sets out to do is your cup of tea is another matter. Sometimes NONE of the choices that were presented to me in a given situation were exactly what I wanted.. But mostly the options presented were exactly on point. On more than one occasion I found myself thinking "Boy, I'd really like to punch that guy," only to have that exact option pop up on screen a moment later. Is the game derivative? Yes... but how could it not be? It works within a well established genre, with well established themes, using characters that have existed for hundreds of years. But it's derivative in the way that a Quentin Tarantino movie is derivative; and ultimately, it's just as fun as a Tarantino film despite it's time tested themes. I really like the game and was fully engrossed, and would definitely recommend it if well-written stories presented in a visually appealing manner are in your wheel well.
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