The second episode of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, titled Smoke and Mirrors, takes us to a whole new level of awesome! This masterpiece of a world that Telltale created is still bouncing with vibrant neon colors, but all the characters this go round are coming in shades of grey!
This episode dives much deeper into the character of Bigby, and no matter whether you play as the nice guy, or as a monster you get to see a personal side to who Bigby really is. You really get to see a lot of the dark, fantastical world of Fables which you find yourself really questioning some of the decisions you have to make, right or wrong. The writers of this episode did an amazing job of keeping the suspense up, but thrilling you with moments of ease and lush adventure.
Starting this episode you will pick up right where you left off with the shocking events at the end of Faith. A lot of the drama and suspense in this episode revolves around how Bigby and the other Fables deal with the fallout, and thankfully, a lot of that is fully up to you and the decisions you make. The voice acting in this episode and overall game is top notch and probably some of the best Telltale has put out, which is saying a lot with the games they’ve done.
Want some villians? Well, this episode has got plenty of them as they set the foundation for some really nasty ones who you will quickly love and hate all at the same time. SPOILER ALERT – One of the nasties in this game is named Georgie, a strip club owner and pimp with an absolute numbness to human dignity and need. No matter how you handle Bigby’s interaction with him, through understandable violence or forced restraint, the scene plays out great both ways. A few of the major decisions from Episode 1 also have some nice moments of payoff in Smoke and Mirrors. Particularly how you handled Belle lying to Beast and who you chose to chase out of the bar result in very different scenes that shape both the story and Bigby as a character.
As great as this episode is/was with all the character developments, the one downfall is the overall story didn’t move a long quite as I hoped. This episode leaves a lot of loose ends still unanswered from episode 1 which I was hoping to tie up, but instead they add more to the mix and leave you with even more questions. There aren’t any big action sequences that would meet the expectation that episode 1 left after encountering the Woodsman which was a bit disappointing.
Overall The Wolf Among us series continues to bring moments of joy while playing, but at the same time tears away at the multitude of emotions while dealing with people. Sadness is something you see quite often in Bigby’s life as he is alone in this journey, or so he feels. You quickly learn that he has more allies then he realizes after meeting some of the other characters in this game. Telltale makes it more than worthwhile to go back and replay the episode as a complete maniac or a restrained reasonable person. This is really something I never wanted to do with any of the other adventure games Telltale has made, so good job for sucking me in even further Telltale.
Smoke and Mirrors is a fantastic second step in this already great story. You are going to get 90 whole minutes of memorable characters, scenes and some of the best but agonizing decision moments Telltale has ever made you think about before. Even with the slight disappointment with the overall story not progressing like I hoped it would….I’m completely sold on this story and can’t wait to finish the rest of the game.
This game quickly took the top list of favorites in my book second only to Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. They came very close to knocking The Walking Dead out of my number one spot but not quite.
This was a relatively quick episode to play but easily a two hour chunk of time you need to really see everything in this first episode. The game drops some majorly hard bombs on you early on with the decisions you have to make, but being a big bad wolf made it a little easier to rough some Fables up. Action and adventure are some of the main themes of this first episode but at the heart of things comes a mystery. This is what makes this game such a joy to play is the wide use of emotions and rich story surrounded by well done characters.
During your search, you’ll come across a rather interesting toad who refuse to hide himself from the human world, a member of the Three Little Pigs with a bit of a drinking problem, and an abusive woodsman with a startling revelation regarding Snow White. Since it’s based on characters that pretty much everybody knows, The Wolf Among Us is able to toy with our expectations and delivering some very surprising and entertaining character developments. It’s amazing how the dialogue swings between funny, absolutely tragic, brutal, and magical all over a course of the two-hour episode.
Telltale Games created a masterpiece with the Walking Dead game series and I took the hook, line and sinker when I first started playing the game. Now almost two years later after season 2 finished leaving fans with mixed emotions on how things ended, Telltale Games seemed to have closed the story with season 2. The famed developer company has been quite busy lately with the alternate story of their Michonne miniseries and just yesterday I saw the newest addition will be a Batman game coming later this year. All of Telltale’s games are pretty awesome if you ask me, as I’ve tried just about all of them, but the big question on the table is when the heck are we going to see the next season of The Walking Dead series release?
This game drives me absolutely nuts in both a good and bad way. I’ve spent hours just missing a moments notice of dying which is exciting and a fun aspect of this survival gem. Though this game is the king of kings when it comes to busy work but you will likely enjoy every moment of it while being perturbed as you explore the vast environment, outfitting your toon, and making sure home base is safe and sound. Now, that all sounds hunky dory but in one fell swoop all that time you’ve just spent just came to a screeching hault with a shadow monster invasion. It’s a roguelike at heart, meaning that death is inevitable, and once you die, it’s truly game over. Don’t Starve will never, ever hold your hand, and for that I love and hate the game to my wits end at times.
I was pretty much blown away with the graphical style of this game as it has a children’s storybook created by Tim Burton feel to it. What makes this game well worth the time spent wondering amidst and dying is the comical bits you get throughout the story. The visuals are accompanied by a catchy soundtrack, that at first grabs the attention and perks your ears right up, but lacked any variation and looped quite often. This feature was quite annoying to me and really took away from the art style and graphics of the game, so needless to say I tend to listen to my own music while playing this game.
Unfair deaths do happen, and some of mine had to do with not being able to pick up a life-saving object that were right in front of me. While the overhead perspective helps show off the vast world and gives it a living, breathing, environment, it also creates very frustrating moments when items are hidden directly behind pieces of the environment. The thing about the vast landscapes is that there are lots of items in them, and there’s often times no angle from which you can click to pickup that item. When you’ve been running and gunning for hours and find yourself being chased by one of the many creatures in this world, this little bug becomes quite annoying as more than likely you will be restarting the game very soon.
When getting ready to play this game, I usually have to ask myself do I really want to spend the next 30 minutes starting over with everything? Usually the first 30 minutes or so of each new game is an extremely dull, repetitive experience. Every time I come back to a new game I have gained some more knowledge of how to craft better items, or what areas to stay out of as they are just littered with creatures, but my character has lost all his belongings from previous, and forgotten how to craft many of the better items. You will have to re-teach him if you want to continue on in those moments of survival.
Hey again everyone!
This story became dark quickly and all happiness, smiles, and sense of safety was sucked from the monitor you’ve been watching. Clementine’s new family has now just been imprisoned by Bill Carver, the maniac who debuted in Episode 2: A House Divided. Clementine and her gang’s overnight escape plans put everyone at risk, and the story line built a very uncomfortable and surprising climax which will make you squirm in your very seat.
Telltale games has done something pretty magnificent with this episode as they have made me play Clementine completely different. Her bitterness in previous episodes was changed as she opened up in this episode to the people she found and so quickly became family with. This was all done because of Carver and his psycho tendencies, as it pulled you away and shows what can happen when you become cold and don’t cherish life.
A Hobbits Journey 