The Wolf Among Us Episode 1: Faith Review

Trailer Art advertising The Wolf Among Us

     Hello everyone, I hope you have had good last couple of weeks, sorry about no posts last week, I should have posted a notice but I forgot about it among the crowds of life. But anyway I'm back this week with another review complementing one of the best games I've seen in a long time.  A new game made by the creators of the Walking Dead Game comes a new game called The Wolf Among Us.  The Wolf Among Us is a episodic graphic adventure (added a link for those of you who might be lost to what kind of platform that is) developed and produced by TellTale Games.  Based off the comic book series "Fables" by Bill Willingham, The Wolf Among Us Episode 1 received positive reviews upon its recent release on October 11 of this year.  For those of you viewing this from the future, the year is 2013.  Anyway The Wolf Among Us takes place in a place called Fabletown located in Manhattan where Fables live who have been exiled from their homelands including fables such as Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Icabod Crane, the Woodsman and countless other storybook characters who have been living among mundanes for hundreds of years.  This game really synthesized on the saying "deathless as a fable".  Displaying their near invincible qualities throughout the game such taking an axe in the head, getting shot in the heart, and getting thrown out of three story windows, that sort of thing.  Other than Fabletown, alot of creatures who cant pass for humans such giants, animals and so forth are sent to The Farm located in upstate New York away from mundanes unless they can afford a glamour, a magical spell that can be purchased from which to make the user appear human.  These glamours must be used by any non-human like fables under threat of being sent to

Bigby fighting the Woodsman after getting word of that he was causing
trouble and would not calm down

The Farm, which despite its large space and open areas, it is looked upon as a prison by its inhabitants and the rest of Fabletown. The main protagonist of the game is Bigby Wolf formally known as the Big Bad Wolf who has reformed himself, trying to put his past behind him, and been charged as sheriff of Fabletown to protect these fables from each other.  Hailing from the provinces of the Dark Forest, Bigby was recruited by Snow White to serve as Fabletown's sheriff and using a enchanted dagger in a ritual it granted Bigby the ability to shift from human to wolf form or something in the middle as seen on the cover displayed above.
     The game opens with Bigby riding in a taxi cab in the middle of the night to an apartment complex where he going to take care of a fable who is trashing the place.  Bigby arrives at the complex to find Mr. Toad (a three foot tall toad who owns the complex) standing at the bottom of the stairway.  Bigby tells him the rules in Fabletown is that he needs to be glamoured at all times when stepping out of house.  This is the first contact the player will have with interaction system, where Bigby either can be patient with Mr. Toad or be aggressive and threaten him.  After a conversation with Mr. Toad Bigby heads upstairs to find the Woodsman drunk and beating on a girl.  Bigby intervenes by pinning the Woodsman against the wall followed by a brief discussion involving their past that results in a fight in which Bigby has the option to through the Wooodsman into different objects in the apartment.  About halfway through the fight the Woodsman grabs his ax and attempts to kill Bigby in his drunken rage, Bigby dodges the ax, wrestles it from the Woodsman grip, and uses the handle to stun the Woodsman, breaking his jaw.  Bigby goes to talk to the girl the Woodsman was beating on and asking her what happened, after doing so the Woodsman causes frequently at Bigby while cracking his jaw into place.  He rants on about he saved Red Riding Hood, cut the wolf's belly open and filled it with stones, indicating the rough past these two shared.  Bigby asks the girl to excuse him a minute and lunges at the Woodsman.

Bigby lying on Toad's crushed car

The two crash through the wall out of the three story building resulting in Bigby crushing Toad's car and the Woodsman lands on the sidewalk next to the car.  Bigby blacks out for a moment before coming to and taking note of the Woodsman unconscious beside him and Mr. Toad standing next to his car with a horrified look on his face, he comments that even when Bigby shows up, things end up even more f*cked up than they started, he then turns and regards the Woodsman as not being dead as he grabs Bigby and pulls him off the crushed car.  He pins him against a bus stop to try chocking Bigby to death, saying he knows the beast is in there, as Bigby loses air his eyes turn yellow and teeth start to protrude right as the girl from earlier cops the ax into the Woodsman's head, causing him to fall to the ground.  Bigby thanks the girl for her help as she searches the Woodsman, only to come up with a few lose coins.  Cursing she throws them on the ground, Bigby asks whats wrong, she replies by saying that he owed her money, a hundred dollars.  After pulling the ax out of the Woodsman's head, the player can choose to give her some money or to say he wish he could help.  He then turns around to discover the Woodsman and his ax are gone, he sets out to catch him as the girl lays her hand on him and says not to make a big deal out, he asks her if shes sure and she nods, he then proceeds to question her about what happened.  After multiple attempts at getting her name, she continues to say "these lips are sealed", Bigby drops the matter as she makes her leave after saying she'll meet him at his apartment after he asks her to come down to his office to talk about what happened.  As she is leaving she whispers "your not as bad as everyone thinks you are" giving him a light kiss on the cheek and walking away.  Bigby goes back to his

Bigby lighting the mysterious girl's cigarette 

apartment and gets a little sleep before being roused by a knocking at his door.  He rises, walks to the door, straightens his tie, and opens the door to find Snow White with a scared look on her face.  He asks her what is wrong as she paces quickly through the hallway to the elevator and into the small courtyard outside the main entrance.  He finds a sheriffs coat with a lump under it, he lifts the coat to discover a fable's head.  Now for obvious reasons I'm not going to spoil the rest of the episode other than to say it is up to Bigby to find the killer and stop him before he strikes again, which is what Episode 1 is about and presumably the rest of the series in which Bigby is determined to find the killer at all costs.  It is up to you if he will be reasonable, kind, and caring for the fables that fear him because of his past or will you be the monster of the storybooks and be the fearful beast you are depicted as.  That decision is up to you.  Also bear in mind the story of the game is based on how I played through it, the experience can differ for everyone, the game is tailored by how you play and the choices you make.  It is an awesome game that I would recommend to any person, and shows great promise in future episodes.  I give it a 9.8 out of 10.  I hope you enjoyed and I will see you all next week.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

The Wolf Among Us launch trailer