Snow White works as a secretary, and the donkey skin is forced to traffick herself on the panel. The lumberjack saved a red cap with his grandmother by chance: actually he was just about to rob an old woman living in the middle of the forest, and the situation with a gray wolf suddenly made an unlucky robber a hero. NIF-NIF (however, maybe NAF-NAF-who will sort them out?) Smokes, drinks whiskey and dreams of register in New York, from where he is constantly expelled to the farm-the place of exile of fairy-tale characters who did not accumulate on the „Glamor“.
If all this seems nonsense to you, then in your life there were no comics called Fables from Bill Willingham (Bill Willingham). And in the life of developers from Telltale Games These comics happened. So the idea of a new game was born – The Wolf Among Us.
I am an evil and terrible gray wolf
Gentlemen from Telltale, As usual, they divided the next gaming project into episodes, the number of which is five. The first series called Faith I recently went out in … I would like to say “rental”, because, despite the declared belonging to the adventure genre, in essence, the developers released an interactive film, or a comic book. Before us unfolds not so much gameplay as one continuous plot. But what!
The scene is New York, where fairy-tale characters found their shelter in one of the areas-all in a row. Beauty and the monster pretend that they are an ideal married couple, Mr. Zhaba with their little son barely make ends meet. A lumberjack, who saved the very red hat, drinks like a horse, and swearing like a cabman, and Bigby Wolf is an evil and terrible gray wolf, who at one time managed to hare young girls and stupid piglets, works in a local madhouse sheriff.
The sheriff, in particular, has to ensure that none of the inhabitants of this wonderful town appear to the eyes of a simple mortal. Bigby himself is good: Wolf is a werewolf, not a wolf in the philistine sense of the word, so that most of the time he is already similar to a person. But the poor Mr. toad was not lucky. Even a very drunk passerby will not confuse him with homo sapiens. Therefore, amphibious and other fabulous creatures, which were unlucky with human appearance, are forced to buy expensive masking spells called „Glamur“.
Wulfs find problems when he once again goes to deal with Mr. Zhabas, who, as always, does not have money for an anthropomorphic appearance. Sheriff hears the sounds of a quarrel from the apartment where a toad neighbor lives – lumberjack. Behind the door, a pretty girl with a large fingal under the eye is found and, in fact, the owner of the apartment, clearly intended to “decorate” and the second eye of the interlocutor too. Bigby enters into a fight – and, by the way, completely naturally risks life: this scene can easily end with the death of the main character. The saved beauty thanks an incredibly brutal intercessor, but – here’s the bad luck – the very next day it turns out to be a victim of a mysterious maniac.
These huge bald uncles usually react nervously when they are grabbed by the neck. The sheriff should be more respectful about such prejudices of the local population.
I know a lot about piglets
The plot of the first episode The Wolf Among Us So steeply and in an adultly turning into one direction or the other, that at some point we forget about the fabulous origin of the heroes. In general, in this story there is anything, but not a lingering „children’s“ tone. We are dealing with a dashing detective in the noir style. There are bloody fights, and chases, and an ax stained in the skull, and severed female heads, brazenly thrown to the steps of a police station. All this is served with a fatal-dumb intonation, and only a small fraction of the finest irony reminds us that the authors of the project are the very funny people from Telltale, who gave us a series Sam & Max. When the former piglet (and now a seasoned boin, who fled from the farm) reflects out loud about the meaning of life and asks Bigby to share with him a drink, we understand that we somehow very seriously feel the hopeless longing of the existence of both of these unfortunate creatures.
Many players know Telltale Games as a studio that gave the second life of a series of games about the dog Sam and Rabbit Max. Someone probably remembers Back to the Future: The Game or Wallace & Gromit. All these adventure can be called humorous to one degree or another. However, do not think like Telltale Only now I took up Noir: in addition to the gloomy series The Walking Dead, released last year, on the account of the developers are very high -quality detectives CSI, Working seriously, without a shadow of joking.
However, longing, and gameplay in The Wolf Among Us almost and does not smell. There are no riddles here, puzzles-all the more, the collection of a few items seems to be absolutely useless, because never throughout the first episode we had to solve the usual tasks to use the collected to anything. Basically, our hero only walks, examines, collects evidence lying in prominent places, leads dialogs and makes a complex moral choice. Or immoral – how we will solve.
It is hard to believe that once this pig built a house from straw and naively hoped to hide in it from the cold and wolves.
But whether to tear off a hand?
The fact is that all the actions of the protagonist affect the further development of the script. In a number of cases, we can feel the consequences of the decision literally after a few minutes. So, if two suspects flee in different directions, it is quite obvious that Bigby will be able to catch only one of them. And we have to determine who Wolf will chase. The second potential criminal will run away, the moment will be irrevocably lost, so our mistake can cost us expensive.
A similar situation unfolds when Mr. Zhaba calls the sheriff in a panic and begs to urgently come, because something very threatening is happening in the apartment of amphibians. The problem is that just at the same time Bigby should go to the house of one of the victims without delay. Yes, yes, we will have to choose again. And on two chairs it will not work: either in the dwelling of the toad, or in the apartments of Prince Lawrence, we will find ourselves later than.
An attentive reader can rightly notice that here we are not talking about a moral dilemma, but simply about the usual choice of two equivalent options. So, let the reader not worry: with the torment of conscience the hero is also all right. In the course of almost every dialogue, every interrogation or fight Bigby Wolfe, he can lead himself “like a person” and “like a wolf shameful”. Hit the interrogated to unleash his tongue, or act exclusively by civilized methods? Leave alone the beaten enemy or tear off his hand, to the great horror of all random – and not so – witnesses? Finally, treat the annoying pig with drinking or get off your drink right before her eyes, frankly mocking? Any of our NPC decision will be remembered. True, in the framework of the short first episode alone, it is difficult to understand how these “remembered” actions will affect further events. By the way, it is far from always profitable and right to be a good guy. You can, for example, give the latest savings to the character, which will literally kill in the next scene. And what, one wonders, there was a point in forking? A good attitude of the corpse can help a living person, even if this person is a wolf.
Torn heads with torn heads, and fabulous laws with fabulous laws. The magic mirror will not answer the hero if he does not use the ritual formula for circulation.
Click on buttons, button accordion
There are no riddles, the evidence itself lies in their hands, the locations are tiny, there is nothing special to explore. It turns out that the whole essence of the gameplay comes down to variability in dialogs and the adoption of some global decisions?
Almost. We are also forced to press from time to time on different buttons in the scenes of an active action dedicated to fights and chases. Suppose that the enemy throws an ax into our character, we must
press, say, ah to avoid. If the enemy begins to strangle Bigby, you need to make powerful emphasis on q. These castrated action elements do not represent any complexity for the player and rather claim to strengthen the dynamics of the development of the plot and the general atmosphere than the role of the “heavy artillery” of the gameplay.
In general, with atmosphere in Telltale more and more in order. The spirit of the original drawn series is carefully preserved and complemented by a successful soundtrack. Heroes are bright, each – with their cockroaches and does not cause a question in the spirit of “as you can seriously perceive Snow White?“. Bigby Wolfe himself is simply beautiful in his truly inhuman brutality. In this review, something sounded about his masculinity and impressiveness? Nothing, repeating in this matter is never superfluous.
The first episode The Wolf Among Us – a great beginning of a new story, from which it is really difficult to break away. Let it not be about full adventure – what’s the difference? In the end, we predicted a couple of years ago that this genre would be getting closer to interactive cinema in the future. Stopgame forecasts come true, and in the meantime we are looking forward to continuing the saga for evil and gray sheriff.
Pros: fascinating plot;qualitatively realized nonlinearity;Bright images of heroes.
Cons: gameplay as such is not here.