The Wolf Among Us (2013)

Started it. It looks great - the engine has been improved a bit, I'm playing it in 4K now, and it's drenched in 80s neon lighting. Along with the melodramatic title sequence, it's giving me Jessica Jones vibes. All the character designs are great, too, especially the non-human characters. The writing and acting is good so far, and the story is relatively intriguing. It does still have all those Telltale issues, though - some weird camera behaviour, inconsistent graphics quality, some characters looking near-identical, QTEs are still a thing, and the big issue of it pushing the whole 'your choices MATTER' thing without it ever being very convincing (at least, so far).

Finished episode 1.  They still have these bullshit 'next time on's at the end, am going to assume that if I quit out before it starts then I can go straight to episode 2 with everything saved when I return, but it's really bad UX to make that a thing I'm worrying about. Especially when I own the whole season. Just cut those out or make them optional.
The other thing that was really annoying me is the QTEs. They're so fiddly and confusing, plus they just distract you from whatever action sequence is actually happening on screen. Really can't believe they're still in here and still this bad. And regular gameplay-wise, the discrepancies between what you meant to do and what actually happens are still there. Otherwise, a fairly good Telltale. I'm hoping that I'll get more involved as the episodes go on, as with TWD S1.

Finished the whole thing. So, yeah, it has nearly all the same issues as TWD S1, though at least it didn't do shitty adventure game puzzles every now and again. The QTEs were infuriating, though. Also, by the end, I didn't really feel like I'd participated in or even really understood the detective story at all - I kept getting whisked away from places before I could look at everything, there was no really chance to put conclusions together, and then everything deflated into a 'well, the big group of baddies did it, obviously, but there's some quibbling to be done about whether the leader was really responsible' ending. There was also a twist at the end, but I didn't understand it and the internet seems to have decided it could mean two or three things but the point is that it's impossible to really know, which is the SHIT kind of twist. And I didn't feel as involved in it as I did with TWD by the end. Honestly, the more I think about it, the lower my opinion goes. It just gets away with a lot because the presentation is so nice. I'm deffo going to try the comics out, but I doubt I'll ever bother with S2 unless it gets rave reviews saying 'this is how Old Telltale should have done things'.

Rating: pretty but dumb; most of TWD's flaws but not as many of its highs.