The choices feel less important in The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2
This is a review of The Wolf Among Us' second episode. For an overview of the game’s tone and style of adventuring, see Drew’s review of Episode 1.
When Grand Theft Auto V’s Trevor, the psychopathic meth trafficker, tortures a guy using techniques straight out of Gitmo, no one is completely surprised. The scene is vaguely horrifying on a human level—because we’re playing a game where the object has become to inflict as much pain on this blubbering mess of a man as possible—but for Trevor, this sadistic afternoon delight is not in any way out of character. If anything, the fact that he stops short of killing the guy and later helps him escape is the part that doesn’t quite add up.
In the second episode of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, your character Sheriff Bigby—otherwise known as the Big Bad Wolf—finds himself in a not dissimilar situation. Tweedledee, cast as a mafioso-style enforcer and the only link to a brutal murder, is tied to a chair. Bigby needs answers, and fast, but Tweedledum’s defiant sibling isn’t talking. Unlike Trevor, torture isn’t an integral party of Bigby’s DNA. This latest homicide affected him personally, though, and he’s done messing around. When the game offers me the choice to smash Tweedledee’s face with a whiskey bottle or take a softer approach, it turns out to be one of the day’s easier decisions. Does beating a helpless man make Bigby a monster, or does the fact that he turns into a slavering werewolf when distressed make the point moot?