Pass the Controller | Latest news, reviews and reviews in video games
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Community
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
  • Home
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Community
  • About
    • Contact
    • Meet the Team
>

Joe Dever's Lone Wolf | Xbox One

28/3/2016

 
Picture

If you read our review of The Banner Saga, you’ll know that we appreciated its charming reminiscence of a classic Choose Your Own Adventure book, and lamented its initial attempt to seemingly deny that fact. Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf doesn’t suffer the same deception; it’s an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure through and through, which is all the more endearing as a result.

Picture

​by Sam Sant

Picture

@pass_controller

Picture
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android
Developer: Reply Forge
Publisher: 505 Games

Players: 1 
If you’re wondering who this Joe Dever bloke is, he’s the award-winning author of the Lone Wolf series of novels. He’s also a game designer with the gamer credentials to back his position up, having become an RPG World Champion back in 1982. He is not the master of just a singular wolf.

Having originally released on mobile and PC, Lone Wolf Console Edition is a game based on a game, based on a book. If today’s visual media has helped you develop an aversion to using your imagination, then you’ll probably want to steer clear, as what we have here is essentially an e-book punctuated by decision making, management and gameplay segments.

Most of your time in-game will be spent reading the pages of a weathered old tome, which you help to shape through the decisions you make. This immediately gives rise to an interesting character creation process as you pen the page that best describes who you wish to become, rather than schlepping through another typical editing process. Levelling thereafter is handled by assessing the nature of your decisions and upgrading appropriate skills to match, which carries the theme throughout and is a similarly nice touch.
​

Once you have a protagonist of your own - the titular Lone Wolf - you’re let loose in the world of Magnamund and bombarded with lore. Obtuse fantasy character and location names flow thick and fast - which is somewhat overwhelming for the uninitiated - though pop into the codex and you’ll soon be set straight. In a nutshell: you’re the last remaining Kai Lord and a hero who has slain great evil - this comes at a cost, as you are now hunted by the united lesser evils that remain.
Picture
Picture
It’s nothing particularly innovative, but there is meat on the system's bones, and experimenting unearths tactics that can prove satisfactory when you resultantly slay Giaks with efficiency.
Detailed and evocative writing conjures a story that is consistently engaging, though it's a while before you can really invest in any of its characters. A wealth of branching possibilities encourage active narrative engagement; you’ll inevitably wonder whether you reached the ‘right’ conclusions, what might have been if you’d made a different decision, or whether you perhaps could have travelled a completely different path afforded by differing character abilities.

Players must manage Lone Wolf’s vitality, endurance and Kai power (mana) carefully, which can lead to some uncharacteristic decisions, made only to preserve these resources. They can each be restored through the consumption of potions, or by resting, either at a camp or by paying for accommodation. The former opens you up to attack, which brings us to the game’s turn-based combat system.

Resource preservation is so important as they’re each integral to your success - you’ll require endurance to perform both offensive and defensive manoeuvres, Kai power to cast spells and employ use of the Sommerswerd sword, vitality to stay alive. A timing-based system keeps you on your toes, as if you delay for too long you’ll plain miss your turn, but you’ll often want to delay for as long as possible to regenerate endurance and buy time for ability cooldowns, before launching a multi-move assault in a tempting risk/reward proposition. Landing manoeuvres requires the completion of a quick time event, so you’ll need to remain vigilant at all times. It’s nothing particularly innovative, but there is meat on the system's bones, and experimenting unearths tactics that can prove satisfactory when you resultantly slay Giaks with efficiency.
Picture
Satisfactory whilst somewhat lacking is a comment that extends to the game’s presentation, which is mundane, whilst getting the job done. Combat sections could’ve been pulled from an early Xbox 360 release and the tome and neatly integrated menus are inescapably unexciting visually. By the same token, there’s nothing wrong with soundtrack, though nothing sets it apart either, you’ll have heard similar many times before.

The transition from touch and mouse control on their respective platforms to a console game-pad also presents issue, as cumbersome menu navigation clearly results from their initial design. We also question how at home this sort of experience is on a static console - you don't generally hit the couch, controller in-hand, to read a book on the telly. You do, however, pull out your touch device for a blast from an e-book - and this is a badass e-book!

Despite its drawbacks, if Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf sounds to be of interest to you, don’t hesitate to pick it up. When it's available cheaper and more accessibly elsewhere, we’d just recommend thinking twice before purchasing the Console Edition.

Pros

  • Engaging narrative
  • Replayable thanks to branching story
  • Successful merging of a novel and video game
  • Relatively deep combat system

Cons

  • Not massively well suited to console
  • Cheaper on better suited platforms
  • Uninspiring visuals and audio

7/10

Comments are closed.


    READ MORE

    News
    Features
    Videos

    Comment Here

    Categories

    All
    Action Adventure
    Adventure
    Air Combat
    Arcade
    Family
    Fantasy
    Fighter
    Hardware
    Horror
    Indie
    Management Sim
    Multiplayer
    Narrative
    Open World
    Party
    Platformer
    Puzzler
    Racing
    Roguelike
    Roguelite
    Role Playing
    RPG
    Shmup
    Shooter
    Sim
    SoulsLike
    Sports
    Stealth
    Strategy
    Survival
    Virtual Reality


    Archives

    February 2025
    December 2023
    November 2023
    September 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015


    RSS Feed

Pass the Controller

News
Reviews
Features
​
Videos
Community
About

What is PTC

About Us
​Meet the Team
​
Contact Us
Find our reviews on:
  • OpenCritic
  • vrgamecritic
© COPYRIGHT 2014-2022 PTC / JMP.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.