Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf HD Remastered

Review

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If I had to sum up Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf HD Remastered  in one word, it would be great. The story? Great. The graphics? Great. All the elements needed to make a game enjoyable to play are definitely here, and are all pretty much solid. The story follows the Lone Wolf, a perpetually single warrior who (stop me if you’ve heard this before) is “the last of his kind” as he makes his way across the land. Not an original premise, I know, but this base gives way to some pretty good multiple choice storytelling. The game begins with the player choosing the attributes of the Lone Wolf, as there are many different ways to fashion the warrior. He could be direct, but reckless, or he could be calculated and methodical, but slower. These, amongst other choices, all come together to forge a unique play through, as these aspects change what options you can take when faced with dilemmas.

The game presents itself in a storybook fashion. There’s definitely a lot of text, which can be skipped if the player chooses. To advance the story, you physically turn the page using the mouse, or you can double click if you’re boring. The text is broken up by a few elements subtly moving images, quick time events, combat sections and choices. The images are well drawn, and all enhance the story. From hungry wolves who pant slightly to a woman literally swinging into action, these images suit the story well. The rest can be seen as hit or miss.

Quick time events (or QTE’s) are abundant in this game. For those of you who don’t know, a quick time event is a type of small challenge in the game. These usually consist of mundane button presses while something much more entertaining happens on screen. These are often use to (poorly) emulate action that happens to the characters, while taking pretty much all the control away from the player. The best example I can find is Asura’s Wrath, for Xbox 360. That game, while stylish and surprisingly entertaining, consists mainly of QTE’s. Many gamers hate quick time events, since they also have a habit of being placed at the worst possible times. Imagine this: You get to a cut scene, so you assume you’re safe to watch it. You put the controller down, and before you know it a button command flashes onto the screen for 5 milliseconds before your character’s head rolls across the floor. Feel cheated? Well, that was an often occurrence in Resident Evil 4. Moving on, this game is filled with them. But oddly enough, I don’t mind them here. I suppose it’s because the game slowly introduced the different commands you have to do, so they never came as too much of a surprise. It keeps you alert without catching you off guard.

The combat sections could be broadly written off as more quick time events. But I can honestly say they’re much more than that. I think it’s quite complex. Lone Wolf has four categories of attack: Holy Sword, Melee, Ranged and Magic. The Holy Sword (which has a name but it escapes me) casts very powerful strikes, but uses a lot of magic and cannot be used often. The melee attacks can be quick, slow or combined. The quick attack is obviously fast, but relatively weak. However it uses the least amount of stamina and is also less likely to be blocked or parried. The heavy attack is the opposite, it hits very hard but is slower, and is more likely to be blocked or parried. The combo attack is the most damaging, but needs a couple of successful quick time events to be effective. This uses the most stamina. Ranged attacks need ammo. You start with throwing knives which can be bought at merchants or found. The player has the option to throw a single one, or a fan to hit multiple enemies, or hit the same enemy multiple times. Finally magic can be used, but depends on the choices you made at the beginning of the game. Personally, my warrior could heal himself effectively, and also had access to several mental/psychic abilities, which allowed him to stun enemies and shield himself from attacks.

Finally, the choices themselves are pretty interesting. They allow you to choose how you approach a particular problem. Early in the adventure, you find a woman being harassed by some monsters. You had the choice of charging on in there, staying back and mindblasting them to give yourself an edge, or get closer to get a better look at the woman. I chose to use my mental powers and stun them, which in turn gave the supposed damsel in distress to get out a crossbow and mercilessly mow them down. A lot of these choices inside the storybook sections will lead to quick time events, which need you to rapid click or drag in a certain direction. Everything I’ve mentioned so far is open to personal likes. Usually I hate quick time events, with timed button presses and the like. But everything here works. Unfortunately,  I do have one complaint. One very large complaint.

This game is a mobile port. Oh yes, I did my research beforehand this time. I looked for it, and there it was, looking me in the eye on the App Store. For free. And as someone brought to my attention, there is a possibility that the mobile game isn’t the complete version, and you have to keep paying to play. But there lies the issue. They can choose to pay or not. I looked on Lone Wolf’s Steam page. £10.99. I am aware that the free version on mobile is basically a demo, and that only the first chapter is available. But do the PC gamers get a free demo? No. You buy the full thing, and if you don’t like it, tough. John Dever’s Lone Wolf HD Remastered (quite a mouthful) is a very good game, just look at the scores I gave it. But like most PC ports of mobile games, it feels… dishonest. And unclean. It feels like PC gamers are being punished just for the platform we chose. And gamers should never really feel that way, since it doesn’t matter what platform you play on, as long as you enjoy the game. Isn’t that what it’s all about?