Game Review: The Wolf Among Us: Smoke and Mirrors

In the first episode of The Wolf Among Us, I was absolutely blown away at how wrong I had pegged the world of the game. Now that I’ve had time to wrap my head around how things work and immerse myself in its setting, I’m still blown away at how tight the narrative and strong the characters are in this game. The Wolf Among Us, at least in its first two episodes, is knocking it out of the park.

This episode, “Smoke and Mirrors”, picks up shortly after the end of the last installment, with our hero Bigby being interrogated by the police. And by police, I mean the “mundie” police that us non-fable folk are used to. Luckily, we get sprung from there pretty quickly, and are back on the case. And that’s really all I’m going to say about the plot, because things come at you pretty hard and fast in this installment, and I’d absolutely hate to ruin the surprises for anyone.

Suffice it to say, I was completely shocked within the first few minutes of the game starting up.

At this point in The Wolf Among Us, our killer has struck twice, and the list of suspects is about a mile long. It seems that there is no end of the unsavory characters in Fabletown, and it’s up to you to find evidence and put things together. You do this in a few different ways: evidence gathering mini-games, dialog, interrogation, and a bit of research. There’s enough variety there to keep things quite interesting.

On top of that, the game gives you a lot of latitude in terms of how you approach its various encounters. You can be a tough guy and intimidate, be a saint and talk through things, or be a monster and smash and burn. Characters notice your choices and react accordingly. I’m a big softie and usually take the gentle route, and a lot of people were surprised and even impressed with Bigby for this. Of course, not everyone liked that I handled things with kid gloves. I’m very curious to see how these choices come into play down the road.

Speaking of choices, it was also nice to see how a few of my choices from episode one were addressed in “Smoke and Mirrors”. Again, I won’t go into detail to avoid spoilers, but it’s nice to see that The Wolf Among Us will remember what I’ve done and work it into the game play moving forward.

While the first episode of the game was certainly dark, things became much more adult in the second part. The violence was more graphic, and there was a fair bit of sexual content, including some nudity. I mention this because I know some people are sensitive to things like that, even if it’s completely fitting with the story and setting.

That said, my only real complaint about “Smoke and Mirrors”, other than it being over too soon, was that the plot didn’t seem to move as far as the first episode. I don’t mind a slow moving storyline, especially when the tangential items are used to flesh out the setting and characters, so this is a very minor complaint.

If you haven’t checked out The Wolf Among Us yet, then what are you waiting for? This game is absolutely fantastic, and I anticipate it getting even better as it continues.

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