Review: The Wolf Among Us Chapter One: ‘Faith’

Posted by angelcruz2241991 on November 3rd, 2013 | 1 Comment | Tags: TellTale Games , The Wolf Among Us

Ever since Telltale released The Walking Dead with its choice-based storytelling, I’ve been baffled about how it works. I found it to be one of the most innovative things to happen to gaming, and I believe they hit the mark again with The Wolf Among Us (mostly). While there is still some technical stuff to work out, the story is good enough to forget all about it.

The Wolf Among Us is based on the Fables series from DC Comics. You play as Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown. Interestingly, everyone in Fabletown is from a popular fairy tale, be it Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood. The fairy tales combined with the gritty M-material in the game sounds kind of ridiculous, but it actually works out perfectly.

Telltale’s story takes place 40 years before the comics do, so if you haven’t read them, you can start right off with these games. The story starts off with quite a bang, and the action stays pretty consistent throughout the whole episode. Upon getting to the end, you are greeted by one of the best cliffhangers I have ever seen. I still can’t believe I have to wait another month to find out what happens after the credits rolled in this episode.

As much as the story is the most important thing in these games, there is still the gameplay component. If you played The Walking Dead, you’ll be right at home with these controls. You walk around with the left stick and the right stick is for interaction. They also added a run button to this game which was definitely a great addition. You can also expect, with a noir game, a lot of interrogation. That being controlled the same way as The Walking Dead, using all 4 face buttons as different responses.

Like I mentioned earlier, in The Wolf Among Us, the choices you make actually matter. Whether it’s an immediate change, or something that might even come into play in a later episode is difficult to tell. If this game is anything like TWD, a decision you make in chapter one may make a huge difference in the story arch in chapter five. Basically, it’s the cooler version of the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books.

The graphics and sound held up very well, too. Telltale was better able to use their comic book style graphics in this game than in The Walking Dead. What’s different is that splashes of color are all over every surface in the game, really making the characters and environments pop. Noir music also helped set the mood for the game, and fit in perfectly with everything else.

It seems that with all Telltale games, we get a plethora of technical hiccups. Audio skips, freezing, and many other problems are things that happen a few times throughout the game. While it wasn’t game-breaking, these hiccups didn’t happen as often as previous games, it takes away the immersion of the experience.

The Wolf Among Us has an awesome story, really great characters, and a crazy cliffhanger. The game has a few technical hiccups, but nothing too bad to keep you from enjoying the title. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the next episodes of The Wolf Among Us.

A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. This review is for the Playstation 3 version of the game. For more info on our review policy click here.

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