‘The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2’ Review

The long wait is finally over for episode 2 of The Wolf Among Us, the latest game from Telltale Games after their massive success with The Walking Dead in 2012. The second episode was released after a grueling four month wait. While the total time for episode 2 comes in around 80 minutes, it is a very necessary episode jam packed with content to set up the remainder of the season.

For those who may not be caught up with The Wolf Among Us, it is set in the famous Fables comic book series. Here, fairy tale characters have been forced out of their home and settled in a community in New York City called Fabletown in the 1980s. By using special elixirs, the characters appear to be humans and avoid being harassed by normal people.

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In The Wolf Among Us, you play as Bigby Wolf, formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf. Bigby is the sheriff of Fabletown, and a few Fables have been murdered, which has Bigby tracking down the culprits.

One thing that makes The Wolf Among Us so unique and interesting is seeing these characters that you grew up with in such a mature setting. You will find the likes of Beauty and Beast, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Mr. Toad, Tweedle Dee and his brother Tweedle Dum, Ichabod Crane, and other famous characters represented in the game. But they are not portrayed as your typical fairy tale character. They curse, they smoke cigarettes, and are keen to violence. There are multiple times throughout the game where you kind of chuckle to yourself after hearing Mr. Toad drop a few f-bombs when he is having an argument with Bigby.

Episode 2 begins right after the events of episode 1. Your decisions at the end of episode 1 will determine how the first few scenes in episode 2 play out, but after that you don’t see many decisions from episode 1 carry over and affect the story. Just like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us is advertised as a game where you choose your own path for the characters and story. While this is true to some extent, there is an overarching narrative that Telltale is presenting, and sometimes it feels like your decisions do not impact the story too much.

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This would be a problem if the story being presented was poor. The story so far has me intrigued and waiting for the next episode. There are a few twists in episode 2 that really open the door for what Telltale can do in the rest of the season. Without giving too much away, the twist at the end of episode 2 really caught me by surprise. The last 20 minutes of episode 2 is fantastic, and really brings into play that fairy tale feeling.

The visuals in The Wolf Among Us look like they were lifted straight off of the pages of a comic and became animated. There is a heavy use of dark blues and purples in the game to give the game a very noir style look. The voice acting is great, as it should be since you spend a majority of the game listening to conversations between Fables.

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Episodic gaming is a style of game delivery that can be hard to pull off, but Telltale is doing a great job with it. While I would like episodes to come quicker than four months, the content you receive makes the wait worth it. With the company working on four productions this year, another four month wait for episode 3 may happen. But the way the story is shaping up so far, I have a feeling the rest of the season will be worth the wait.

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