Movie videogames suck. This is an irrefutable fact. They are to films what Uwe Boll films are to videogames, ill-conceived shallow bastardizations with no respect for the fans or the source material, only a pander for the almighty dollar. And there is no way that any movie videogame will ever, ever, ever be g- wait. What?s that sound? Brb.
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There's pigs flying outside my window.
"I'm the best at what I do. Unfortunately, what I do isn't very nice"
I guess I?ll just say upfront what everyone wants to know. No, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the game), is not terrible. It's probably superior to the movie what with the BUCKETS of gore in it. In fact, I'd say it ranks right up there with Spiderman 2. It's not "Riddick" great, but it's still a solid game. It's not as stellar as it has the potential to be, but lets get to that in a bit.
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Right from the start, this game lets you know - It does NOT f*ck around
Story
Following the events of the movie rather faithfully (and probably telling them in a more cohesive and visceral way), XO:W tells the story of Wolverine. While it doesn't go as far back in his past as the movie, skipping over the important elements of his childhood and his relationship with his brother Viktor (Sabertooth), it does cover the other important bits that everyone knows: Wolverine is a black ops specialist in the military. After a particularly grungy operation in what I assume is Wakanda, he decides to leave the military life behind and moves to the Canadian wilderness, hooking up with a tasty native Canadian chick (Silverfox) and making with the lovies. Unfortunately, his crazy ass brother Viktor never stops killing, and eventually gets too wild even for Commander Striker to control. Viktor goes AWOL, shows up at Wolverines house and after a fun boss fight in which they brawl inside Wolverine's bar, Viktor knocks Logan out and kills his lady off-screen. Queue oath of vengeance, and Striker (belatedly arriving to warn Logan about Viktor) offering Wolverine the opportunity to gain the ability to kill Viktor by volunteering for the Weapon X program. What follows is a well known but still entertaining story of betrayal, racism, hubris, and gallons and gallons of warm sticky blood. Story is told primarily through in game engine cut scenes, with CGI cinema's being primarily reserved for particularly over the top action segments or chapter bookends. Most pleasing is the fact that Hugh Jackman lends his acting chops to the game, voicing Wolverine in a way that says he didn't just half-assed phone the role in, as do the other principle actors from the movie.
Stability
There is the occasional camera problem, usually when you get slammed into a wall or a corner but the obscured view is quickly rectified and it never sticks. Of more concern is an occasional bug I ran into when the button tapping QTE's jig out on me, with button mashes going on for eternity until you stop, and one time my controller got stuck on rumble (went away as soon as I encountered a cut scene, never had that problem again). Nothing game breaking or even that annoying, but unfortunately worth mentioning.
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See what I said about Wakanda? And blood? Hey, does black people being an enemy in this game make it racist like RE5 omg?
Sound and Graphics
Wolverine has an overall pleasing aesthetic, with vibrant environments and well animated and interesting enemies. Wolverine himself is very well detailed, complete with that slightly hairy chest and even the detail of his abs (ladies and gentlemen who loved Uncharted will love this) - all of which you will see as his cloths take copious amounts of damage during fights, ripping and tearing realistically until your running around with naught but a pair of jeans on and the oceans of blood coating your body. Yes, damage is something this game does very well- enemies visibly take damage, the environment visibly takes damage, and Wolverine definably visibly takes damage. Lots of damage. Flesh strips off muscle, and muscle strips off bone. You can literally watch Wolverine get stripped down to almost a squishy skeleton, and then watch his body re-grow before your eyes. It's both frightening, and yet awesome at the same time, especially considering the sheer amount of punishment Wolverine goes through during the story. Oh, and there is a TON of blood, spraying everywhere, particularly when you do something interesting like decapitate a sucka. Sound is equally well delivered, with solid voice acting from the actors in the movie (including Mr. Jackman). Characters scream and grunt realistically, the claws make pleasing cutting sounds, and meat squishes with almost disturbing realism as you cut through enemies. The pretties are marred somewhat by the fact that on the occasional close-up, you see interactive environment objects like consoles are actually fuzzy un-textured blobs only meant to be viewed from a suitable distance, and smashing boxes isn't as fun as it ought to be.
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I can't find any game play footage where the player doesn't suck. These idiots aren't using the counter or dodge system at ALL, just mashing attack buttons.
Gameplay
Every game has it's strong points and it's weak points, and game play is both Wolverines strongest point, and it's weakest point. The game immediately drops you right into the action (literally and figuratively), and it's a rush when you start flailing away like a bladed whirlwind, hack sawing enemies to death with your prodigious pointy knuckles. It's exhilarating, it's awesome. Combat is fun to play around with, and very rewarding. Especially the quick kills, which harkens back to God of War and it's "F*CK YOU!" button which would cause Kratos to rip whatever he was fighting in half. Infect, Wolverine is very, very much like God of War- as you fight your character gains experience and gets stronger. Wolverine gets experience from killing enemies (or finding dog tags off of dead soldiers), his multiplier going up the faster you chain kills and with certain mutagens (more on that later). When you level, your health increases and you get skill points you can use to increase wolverines abilities, such as boosting his claw damage or the effectiveness of his rage moves - which are special AOE attacks, four in all, that have different effects and use the rage meter located under the health bar. You can also find mutagen power-ups laying around, either immediate health boosts, or abilities that you can equip that passively increase wolverine in some way - such as increasing his health, or reducing enemy damage. Also of note is the Combat Reflexes system, that slowly increases wolverines damage to certain types of enemies as he kills them. All this adds up to Wolverine getting more and more psychotically strong as the game progresses, turning him from a plain old murder machine to a WMD on legs. In all, it's very similar to God of War if you only got one weapon, and replaced the magic bar with a rage bar. And at first, I thought it was as GOOD as god of war too. Sadly, we've reached the downside of this review now...
I was playing the game and having fun. Slaughtering tons of natives and soldiers, groovy- I can dig it. But... then something felt wrong. A sense of ennui overcame me. Blasphemy! I told myself, Madness! You like this game!. But then, the other side of my brain said, Madness...? THIS! IS! SPARTA! and then I kicked myself in the head and everything went black for a while. When I came to, I realized the sad truth.
I had been doing the same goddamn thing over and over for the past two hours.
Oh yes I enjoyed it at first. Lava monsters, wendigo, natives with machetes, cloaked commando's. I was down. The game didn't sting on the boss fights, throwing bigbads at me many times. Sometimes two at a time. But it was always the SAME bosses over and over again. And they were ALWAYS beaten in the same way. Dodge, lunge, mash X, jump off, dodge, lung, mash X - death QTE, mash X, rip monsters head off, repeat. Sure with regular enemies I could mix it up, combo attack one, counter another, lunge over there, quick kill here. But the minibosses man... The minibosses... It just dragged me down. And though there was occasionally something unique, like a helicopter fight scene or shooting a sentinel in the face with it's own gun, but it wasn't enough. This game was just like God of War - with all the interesting environments and puzzles ripped out. My enthusiasm diminished somewhat. Game of the year, this was not.
Furthermore this game is highly linear, and offers pretty much no replay-ability. There are un-lockable like classic costumes, and challenge rooms, and special movies, but ultimately once you play the game, you've played it.
Difficulty
Varies. Bosses are tough till you get the trick and/or pattern, then easy. Normal enemies are cannon fodder, but come at you in swarms and can wear down your health- which regenerates at a rapid rate. You gotta beat the game once to unlock Hard, which may be harder (just a guess), but I haven?t done that yet.
Overall
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 'Uncaged Edition' (Translation- The 360/ps3 version) is a solid, bloody beatemup in the spirit of God of War. Sadly it does not quite live up to Mr. Jaffes Greco-masterpiece due to getting bogged down in repetition and uninteresting puzzles that only serve to briefly interrupt the action with annoying fetch and mash this button quests. The combat is smooth as butta, everything else is not quite as polished. Wolverine screams lost potential- the basis of the game is solid, but the developers simply lacked the imagination and perhaps the creative freedom to make a game that not only tells the movies story, but is bitchin' in it's own right.
Buy, Rent, Burn?
Rent. Unless your a huge fan of Wolverine in general, you'll plow through this game in a week. It's not a bad game by any means, just not worth the $60 I plopped down- albeit more worth it then some other games I?ve paid for (SCREW YOU FABLE 2/HALO 3). If you must buy, wait for it to come down in price a bit. And bring wet naps for the blood.
And if you must have numbers, I give it 3.5 Adam Sesslers out of 5.
...
...
...
There's pigs flying outside my window.
"I'm the best at what I do. Unfortunately, what I do isn't very nice"
I guess I?ll just say upfront what everyone wants to know. No, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the game), is not terrible. It's probably superior to the movie what with the BUCKETS of gore in it. In fact, I'd say it ranks right up there with Spiderman 2. It's not "Riddick" great, but it's still a solid game. It's not as stellar as it has the potential to be, but lets get to that in a bit.
...[/youtube]
Right from the start, this game lets you know - It does NOT f*ck around
Story
Following the events of the movie rather faithfully (and probably telling them in a more cohesive and visceral way), XO:W tells the story of Wolverine. While it doesn't go as far back in his past as the movie, skipping over the important elements of his childhood and his relationship with his brother Viktor (Sabertooth), it does cover the other important bits that everyone knows: Wolverine is a black ops specialist in the military. After a particularly grungy operation in what I assume is Wakanda, he decides to leave the military life behind and moves to the Canadian wilderness, hooking up with a tasty native Canadian chick (Silverfox) and making with the lovies. Unfortunately, his crazy ass brother Viktor never stops killing, and eventually gets too wild even for Commander Striker to control. Viktor goes AWOL, shows up at Wolverines house and after a fun boss fight in which they brawl inside Wolverine's bar, Viktor knocks Logan out and kills his lady off-screen. Queue oath of vengeance, and Striker (belatedly arriving to warn Logan about Viktor) offering Wolverine the opportunity to gain the ability to kill Viktor by volunteering for the Weapon X program. What follows is a well known but still entertaining story of betrayal, racism, hubris, and gallons and gallons of warm sticky blood. Story is told primarily through in game engine cut scenes, with CGI cinema's being primarily reserved for particularly over the top action segments or chapter bookends. Most pleasing is the fact that Hugh Jackman lends his acting chops to the game, voicing Wolverine in a way that says he didn't just half-assed phone the role in, as do the other principle actors from the movie.
Stability
There is the occasional camera problem, usually when you get slammed into a wall or a corner but the obscured view is quickly rectified and it never sticks. Of more concern is an occasional bug I ran into when the button tapping QTE's jig out on me, with button mashes going on for eternity until you stop, and one time my controller got stuck on rumble (went away as soon as I encountered a cut scene, never had that problem again). Nothing game breaking or even that annoying, but unfortunately worth mentioning.
...[/youtube]
See what I said about Wakanda? And blood? Hey, does black people being an enemy in this game make it racist like RE5 omg?
Sound and Graphics
Wolverine has an overall pleasing aesthetic, with vibrant environments and well animated and interesting enemies. Wolverine himself is very well detailed, complete with that slightly hairy chest and even the detail of his abs (ladies and gentlemen who loved Uncharted will love this) - all of which you will see as his cloths take copious amounts of damage during fights, ripping and tearing realistically until your running around with naught but a pair of jeans on and the oceans of blood coating your body. Yes, damage is something this game does very well- enemies visibly take damage, the environment visibly takes damage, and Wolverine definably visibly takes damage. Lots of damage. Flesh strips off muscle, and muscle strips off bone. You can literally watch Wolverine get stripped down to almost a squishy skeleton, and then watch his body re-grow before your eyes. It's both frightening, and yet awesome at the same time, especially considering the sheer amount of punishment Wolverine goes through during the story. Oh, and there is a TON of blood, spraying everywhere, particularly when you do something interesting like decapitate a sucka. Sound is equally well delivered, with solid voice acting from the actors in the movie (including Mr. Jackman). Characters scream and grunt realistically, the claws make pleasing cutting sounds, and meat squishes with almost disturbing realism as you cut through enemies. The pretties are marred somewhat by the fact that on the occasional close-up, you see interactive environment objects like consoles are actually fuzzy un-textured blobs only meant to be viewed from a suitable distance, and smashing boxes isn't as fun as it ought to be.
...[/youtube]
I can't find any game play footage where the player doesn't suck. These idiots aren't using the counter or dodge system at ALL, just mashing attack buttons.
Gameplay
Every game has it's strong points and it's weak points, and game play is both Wolverines strongest point, and it's weakest point. The game immediately drops you right into the action (literally and figuratively), and it's a rush when you start flailing away like a bladed whirlwind, hack sawing enemies to death with your prodigious pointy knuckles. It's exhilarating, it's awesome. Combat is fun to play around with, and very rewarding. Especially the quick kills, which harkens back to God of War and it's "F*CK YOU!" button which would cause Kratos to rip whatever he was fighting in half. Infect, Wolverine is very, very much like God of War- as you fight your character gains experience and gets stronger. Wolverine gets experience from killing enemies (or finding dog tags off of dead soldiers), his multiplier going up the faster you chain kills and with certain mutagens (more on that later). When you level, your health increases and you get skill points you can use to increase wolverines abilities, such as boosting his claw damage or the effectiveness of his rage moves - which are special AOE attacks, four in all, that have different effects and use the rage meter located under the health bar. You can also find mutagen power-ups laying around, either immediate health boosts, or abilities that you can equip that passively increase wolverine in some way - such as increasing his health, or reducing enemy damage. Also of note is the Combat Reflexes system, that slowly increases wolverines damage to certain types of enemies as he kills them. All this adds up to Wolverine getting more and more psychotically strong as the game progresses, turning him from a plain old murder machine to a WMD on legs. In all, it's very similar to God of War if you only got one weapon, and replaced the magic bar with a rage bar. And at first, I thought it was as GOOD as god of war too. Sadly, we've reached the downside of this review now...
I was playing the game and having fun. Slaughtering tons of natives and soldiers, groovy- I can dig it. But... then something felt wrong. A sense of ennui overcame me. Blasphemy! I told myself, Madness! You like this game!. But then, the other side of my brain said, Madness...? THIS! IS! SPARTA! and then I kicked myself in the head and everything went black for a while. When I came to, I realized the sad truth.
I had been doing the same goddamn thing over and over for the past two hours.
Oh yes I enjoyed it at first. Lava monsters, wendigo, natives with machetes, cloaked commando's. I was down. The game didn't sting on the boss fights, throwing bigbads at me many times. Sometimes two at a time. But it was always the SAME bosses over and over again. And they were ALWAYS beaten in the same way. Dodge, lunge, mash X, jump off, dodge, lung, mash X - death QTE, mash X, rip monsters head off, repeat. Sure with regular enemies I could mix it up, combo attack one, counter another, lunge over there, quick kill here. But the minibosses man... The minibosses... It just dragged me down. And though there was occasionally something unique, like a helicopter fight scene or shooting a sentinel in the face with it's own gun, but it wasn't enough. This game was just like God of War - with all the interesting environments and puzzles ripped out. My enthusiasm diminished somewhat. Game of the year, this was not.
Furthermore this game is highly linear, and offers pretty much no replay-ability. There are un-lockable like classic costumes, and challenge rooms, and special movies, but ultimately once you play the game, you've played it.
Difficulty
Varies. Bosses are tough till you get the trick and/or pattern, then easy. Normal enemies are cannon fodder, but come at you in swarms and can wear down your health- which regenerates at a rapid rate. You gotta beat the game once to unlock Hard, which may be harder (just a guess), but I haven?t done that yet.
Overall
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 'Uncaged Edition' (Translation- The 360/ps3 version) is a solid, bloody beatemup in the spirit of God of War. Sadly it does not quite live up to Mr. Jaffes Greco-masterpiece due to getting bogged down in repetition and uninteresting puzzles that only serve to briefly interrupt the action with annoying fetch and mash this button quests. The combat is smooth as butta, everything else is not quite as polished. Wolverine screams lost potential- the basis of the game is solid, but the developers simply lacked the imagination and perhaps the creative freedom to make a game that not only tells the movies story, but is bitchin' in it's own right.
Buy, Rent, Burn?
Rent. Unless your a huge fan of Wolverine in general, you'll plow through this game in a week. It's not a bad game by any means, just not worth the $60 I plopped down- albeit more worth it then some other games I?ve paid for (SCREW YOU FABLE 2/HALO 3). If you must buy, wait for it to come down in price a bit. And bring wet naps for the blood.
And if you must have numbers, I give it 3.5 Adam Sesslers out of 5.
