Thankfully Raven Software, the makers of the Soldier of Fortune series stepped up to the task and started working on a brand new Wolverine game that’s as bloody, visceral and violent as it gets. The story of Wolverine revolves around Wolverine’s origins, his torrid relationship with his brother and the bane of being a mutant. Of course when you have Ademantium claws to fall back on, life becomes a whole lot easier.
Wolverine borrows a bit from tons of high profile action games on the block like Ninja Gaiden, God of War and Tomb Raider. The Tomb Raider bit of course is limited to platforming and certain locations that feel like they’ve stepped right out of Tomb Raider Underworld. These platforming segments can range from moving huge stones/crates to reach a higher ground to a bit more complex stuff that may require exertion of the gray matter. Still, there’s nothing over here that’ll stop you in your tracks.
On the combat front, the game delivers the good and how! For starters you can decapitate, maim and dismember every enemy on-screen with reckless abandon. Limbs, heads and appendages fly all over the place as Wolverine slices and dices his way through his enemies. You’ll start off with a few basic heavy as well as light attacks but as you progress you’ll acquire experience points that’ll help you improve existing abilities and learn newer ones at the same time.
Now Logan is one pissed off mutant and that fact is reflected through his Rage meter that sits pretty on-screen right below his health bar. Kill people and destroy objects to build up this bar after which you can unleash up to four devastating rage attacks that’ll affect multiple opponents and cause a serious amount of damage to bosses as well.
Speaking of bosses the game will throw tons of them at you. Initially it’ll go a bit easy with one boss per level but half way through the game it’s like the game goes into over drive with nearly every level offering multiple boss fights. In fact towards the last few levels you’ll have nearly three boss fights back to back so I suggest you try out the game in Easy for the first time (Hard is only unlocked once you finish the game once).
If you aren’t in the mood to systematically dismember foes (shame on you then) you could indulge in some quick kills that are as awesomely violent as they are effective. To do this you need to grab an enemy and hit the heavy attack that prompts Logan to raise his claw slowly. At the peak of his motion it’ll gleam and that’s your key to press the attack key once again. Time it right and you’ll watch Logan smash his claws through an enemy’s face only to rip his head off in a glorious gush of blood and gore. Screw up and well, they’ll just kick you away after which you can try the entire process again. Another way of quickly dispatching off your foes is by using the game’s many environmental hazards to impale, pulverize and obliterate them.
And then you have Wolverine’s Lunge ability that’s unlocked from the get go. This ability allows Logan to literally lunge towards an enemy and bury his claws deep within their chest (or face at times). This game mechanic offers an instant kill on lower level opponents and will be your key to taking down some of the gigantic bosses as well.
Also spread out through every level are tons of Mutagens that can be equipped to make Logan a serious force to reckon with. You can only equip three at a time but they can be switched every so often allowing you to try out all the power-ups the game has to offer.
Once you finish the single player campaign, you unlock bonus challenges and if you perform them successfully you’ll unlock different Wolverine costumes. After that you can play through the entire game using that costume but that’s really no motivation to go back unless you’re an obsessive fan. The game has no multiplayer or co-operative component as well, so after you sink in around 8 – 10 hours into the game, you’re pretty much done with it for a while.
Visually the game is pretty stunning running on none other than the Unreal 3 engine. Logan has been recreated really well and bears a stunning resemblance to his real life avatar. As most of you already know Logan regenerates immediately and that fact has translated to the game as well with Wolverine healing his wounds in real time. After taking a ton of damage Logan actually looks a bit like a T-1000 and you can actually see his innards nearly popping out till his tissues, muscle and flesh all regenerate fully again. Voice acting on the other hand is God awful and I couldn’t comprehend the fact that Hugh Jackman sucks this hard at voice acting. Most of his lines were delivered with such lifeless emotion I honestly thought it was a low budget porn voice actor.
Speaking of all things that suck it’s time to address some of this game’s faults.
For starters, Wolverine suffers from the very same syndrome most action games on the block do – monotony. Around half way through the game it seems developer Raven just ran out of steam as the game just throws wave after wave of repetitive enemies your way in a bid to increase longevity. Even locales – especially the Africa level – repeat themselves way too often and the latter ones come off as bland and generic.
Don’t get me wrong here; the combat carries this game a long way. It’s just that the game could have been so much more if they had only thrown in a bit more variety or cut down the length to a certain extent. Boss fights – save for 2/3 – are unimpressive and highly boring. Each and every boss or mini boss in this game will go down in the exact same way leaving little room for creativity or variety. And it really doesn’t help matters that I’m fighting the same boss nearly 7- 8 times throughout the game.
So yes X-Men Origins: Wolverine is no God of War but at the same time it’s still one of the better Movie-to-Game Adaptations out there. In fact I’d put this bad boy up there right after Chronicles of Riddick and the Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Its production values are off the charts and developer Raven has done a seriously commendable job in capturing the raw, uncaged essence of Wolverine. If only the game was tweaked a bit more we could have been looking at the best Movie-to-game adaptation out there. Still, if you’re a fan of Wolverine or just like action games in general, I definitely recommend picking this game up. You will not be disappointed 'bub'.
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