It seems like it has only been a few months since the last episode of The Wolf Among Us, which seems like a bit of madness. It's been close to five months to be a little more exact. Given that you would think that Telltale would have a nice, long, and amazing addition to the episodic adventure. Well let's dig into it and see if the wait and money was worth it for The Wolf Among Us — Episode Two: Smoke & Mirrors. I'll try to stay spoiler free.
The Story:
We all remember Bigby from the first episode. Well he is still on the case like a blood hound to try and find out who killed the Fable known as Ass-skin Faith. During his investigation all kind of other Fables seem to get into trouble as well including the death of yet another Fable turning the suspect into a serial killer and not just some random act of violence. To move forward on the hunt Bigby needs to make an appointment with the prostitute once known as the Little Mermaid in a shady motel managed by Belle A.K.A. Beauty of Beauty & The Beast fame. All that is brought up is more questions and some weirdness made for daytime TV.
Hated:
Before I thought the concept of having to use magic to hide their true appearances was a nice gimmick to explain why all of these Fable creatures could live in New York. Now it has become the latest way to bring dead characters back from the dead or try to play mind games with us players. It only happened once in the game so far but as they seem to have revealed who the serial killer is at the end of the episode, I would not be surprised if it was the real killer all magicked up to look like the suspect we are left with.
Is this really going to be how you keep playing out The Wolf Among Us? Give us some shock value or "oh fuck" moment only to reveal that is was some other nameless character Glamoured to look like the main character we just saw on the screen. That doesn't make for good storytelling in my book and as that seems to be the focus of this Telltale title I hope that doesn't stay the case moving forward. Although I am fairly certain we have already seen the serial killer at the beginning of The Wolf Among Us as the nameless guy walking past Snow White's office.
Lastly here, where were the new and innovative mechanics for this episode. In The Walking Dead there was at least some new form of gameplay that changed the game from being just a point and click adventure with a few QTEs mixed in. I didn't find anything like that in this episode of The Wolf Among Us. If you are going to use crappy storytelling gimmicks to make things "shocking" at least give us a bit of a change up in the gameplay. Even the basic sneak behind the tractor portion of The Walking Dead in episode two was a nice addition; and that game had some great storytelling mixed in. Just please give us something.
Loved
To be honest, I only really loved the twists on the Fables here. In this case Ariel, Belle, and I am assuming Sebastian. At least that is my guess based on the big "Kiss The Girl" tattoo across his chest. I am a fan of taking the happy and bubbly and turning it into the sick and twisted for fun. That is what has kept me hammering through this episode so good job there. That kept me interested enough to play unto completion. Other than that, this was a weak episode. Especially given the gap between this and the last one.
Overall
It should be quite easy for you to see that I was not a big fan of this episode of The Wolf Among Us. If not, then you just skipped down to this portion to see if you should pick up the game or not. Well if you were smart, then you most likely have the season pass for The Wolf Among Us and you have this episode already. If not, then you might want to hold off and see how the rest of the series pans out. The first episode was amazing and this one doesn't continue what was such an amazing start. Be it the long down time between episodes or just that this was rushed as Telltale has so many other games on their plate right now. Either way I'd be doing a disservice to you, my readers, if I told you to buy the whole The Wolf Among Us season right now based off how the momentum seems to have fallen off.
The Wolf Among Us was developed and published by Telltale Games for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC and Episode Two released on February 4th, 2014. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.
