NOTE: This review contains spoilers from previous The Wolf Among Us episodes..
It is hard to believe that it was October of 2013 that we got our first taste of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us. The noir-style detective story featuring a roster of fairy tale characters from Bill Willingham’s Fables universe was an absolute treasure to play and followed up Telltale’s previous Game of the Year effort in impressive style. Now, after a long wait which Telltale has apologized for, we finally have ours hands on the second episode and while the wait may not have quite been worth it, “Smoke and Mirrors” continues to build a dirty world with shady fairy tales where Bigby Wolf struggles to keep the peace, or sometimes threatens to break it.
Telltale continues to expand on the world Willingham created and gives voices to more of the comic’s central characters including Jack and Bluebeard. Much like Bigby and Snow in episode one, all of the characters translate to the screen in fantastic fashion, fitting into Telltale’s grittier universe while still holding true to the characters that Willingham has originally written. In my review of episode one, I stated that The Wolf Among Us feels like a Fables run done by a different artist and “Smoke and Mirrors” very much continues in that same vein. Needless to say, if you felt the series first episode, “Faith” was good, Smoke and Mirrors will not disappoint.
After the murder of Snow White at the end of the last episode, The Wolf Among Us continues down the rabbit hole of a mystery, bringing its audience along for the ride. While investigating a series of murders, Bigby is introduced to a whole new batch of suspects and shady characters giving you more friends and foes. Telltale continues to show its smart writing by bringing in popular characters from the comics and doing their own research to add new fairy tale characters into the game. There’s so many missteps and cheesey traps that The Wolf Among Us could fall into, but Telltale continues to demonstrate their writing team is above cheap parlor tricks and catch phrases. Telltale’s games rely heavily on the writing, and the story in The Wolf Among Us doesn’t betray the expectations Tellatale have cultivated over the last couple years..
Smoke and Mirrors might rely on its solid writing a bit too heavily. While “Faith” had the best mix of action and dialogue that Telltale has demonstrated in a while, Smoke and Mirrors feels a little too talk-y. I’m not asking for more fights or quicktime sequences, but aside from an investigation of a body a quick glance around a dressing room the game is in desperate need of more time to let players explore and discover on their own. Between two violent fights and some interesting environments to investigate, episode one set an impressive bar for the series’ gameplay, Smoke and Mirrors isn’t always up to the task of carrying on that same well-crafted blend.
That’s not to say the dialogue choices aren’t interesting in Smoke and Mirrors. This episode pushes players–and Bigby–toward the edge, allowing them to revel in the nasty side of the Big Bad Wolf. Bigby can be brutal, he can smash things up, beat down suspects, and intimidate children. Depending on playstyle, Bigby can almost turn unlikeable, constantly riding the fine line between hero and antihero. The characters of The Wolf Among Us are so well constructed that players will be instantly connected to them, whether they love them or hate them. The blend of these characters makes player’s choices varied and interesting. You’ll want to play hardball with thugs, intimidate scumbags, and still be gentle with upstanding citizens who are having the worst day of their lives. This helps prevents Bigby from becoming a one note character like so many other video game protagonists. I think players will find it impossible to play Bigby in the black-and-white terms of “good” or “bad”.
Speaking of black-and-white, the noir black and whites return in “Smoke and Mirrors” after being so gorgeously used in “Faith”. Just like episode one, the art continues to be a mix of blacks, purples, and yellows, adding the dark flavor of the game’s narrative. The design of each character is so specific you can know them without even hearing their names. The way that the scenes of the game are constructed communicate so much to players without having to wave it in front of your face.
While Smoke and Mirrors is a joy to play, the episode suffers from more technical hiccups than its predecessor. It is still an improvement over the first season of The Walking Dead, but there are significant loading screens and frame rate drops that stall the game’s momentum. There were even issues downloading the episode for the season pass on Xbox 360 and getting the episode rolling once it was downloaded. The preview for the third episode fell flat its face as each snippet took about ten seconds to load. These hiccups don’t ruin the experience, but it does feel like a developer who is so committed to its downloadable and episodic format should have more of these issues sorted out.
With their technical issues and off-kilter release schedule, it can be easy to get frustrated with Telltale and The Wolf Among Us. Luckily, once you get the episode downloaded and waited out the long loading screens, the game itself is still some of the best entertainment around. The world of Fables continues to host one of the best mystery stories told in games and weaves it through a cast of characters that are memorable, each in their own way. Hopefully the next couple episodes can avoid putting so much weight on the dialogue and create a few more interesting settings to play in, but The Wolf Among Us’ gameplay lies in the Bigby players get to create. Smoke and Mirrors continues giving players some of the best fun to have in video games, and it isn’t finished yet.
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