I just finished my playthrough of The Wolf Among Us Episode 1: Faith, and I am fairly satisfied so far. This is the latest creation from Telltale Games, the same devs who brought us the Walking Dead game (the good one…not that other garbage excuse for a shooter).  The Wolf Among Us is based off of the Fables comics by Bill Willingham, so TTG’s signature graphic novel style fits well with this narrative.

The Fables series deals with familiar fairytale creatures called “Fables” that most of us have grown up with through common folklore. When the Fables are exiled from their Homelands, they find their way to our world and set up camp in New York, creating a secret community called Fabletown.  The animal and monster-like Fables must use a magical concoction called Glamour to keep their identities hidden from us humans (aka “mundies”). Those who can’t afford Glamour must stay at a restrictive community called “the Farm” in upstate New York, but some have managed to sneak back to Fabletown, Glamour-free.

The Wolf Among Us is a prequel to the events in Fables, so you don’t need to have read the comics to get into this game. You play as Bigby Wolf (formerly the Big Bad Wolf), the town sheriff who must protect the citizens of Fabletown from one another. In Episode one, Bigby is thrust into a murder investigation with Snow White as news of a murder is brought quite literally to his doorstep.

So far, I am enjoying The Wolf Among Us.  It’s basically an interactive graphic novel with a few QTE’s here and there, so the gameplay isn’t anything terribly complicated.  But the game is meant to immerse you into the story rather than test your skills on the sticks. That being said, the core mechanic of the game is centered around player choice, so my experience of the story and characters may differ from your playthrough depending on the choices we both make. However, it seems that the ending of the episode will play out the same way regardless of the approach you take, so it really presents more of the illusion of choice than actual choices with separate outcomes. Nevertheless, I am willing to bust out a few QTE’s and make some arbitrary decisions if it means I am presented with a quality narrative experience, which so far seems to be the case.

I did experience some lag & framerate drops that occurred inconveniently during several good fight scenes, which is unfortunate because a narrative heavy, noire-style game can’t really afford to screw up the few action scenes it has.  Also, the game suffers from some ridiculously looong load times while transitioning between scenes. Some load screens took so long that I thought my console had froze! I’m not sure if these issues occur for everyone, so feel free to verify for me.

I do have to say that I love Bigby’s voice…Adam Harrington gave a great VO performance as usual. I really kinda wish that I had an awesome, gruff voice like Harrington’s, or even a deep voice like Benedict Cumberbatch (a name that makes me giggle for some reason). I know they’re man-voices, but just imagine if I could switch between my squirly girl voice to a deep, dark, grumbly-ass man voice like theirs. How fucking AWESOME would that be???  I’d be a super versatile voice actor too. Hell yes! Sign me up.

*AHEM* Where was I? Oh yes, the game.

The Wolf Among Us has five episodes total, and each will be released probably every month or so, like how they released the Walking Dead game. You can buy episode one for about $5, or save money by getting all five episodes at once. Episode One is out now on XBOX 360, PS3, and Steam. If you don’t want to pick up the game for yourself, feel free to watch my playthrough of episode one, or at least humor me by giving the videos a “like”. 😉

I’ve provided Part 1 below for your viewing convenience. Enjoy! <333