X-Men Origins: Wolverine
As Hilden would say, “Must be a movie coming out!”. The following week after whichever movie game he had mentioned was released would be filled with confusion, sadness, anger, and disdain. Every time we get our hopes up that maybe this game would be the game to finally buck the trend, and nearly every time we get another rushed hack job full of bugs to shatter our dreams of playing something decent with far cooler characters then 90% of games out there. These games are not cursed, but rather simply the result of what happens when a publisher gives whatever B team they can pull out of Croatia ten months to piece together whatever they can. When you do that, odds are you’re gonna have a hunk of poo sitting on store shelves. If you give a good developer the time and let them swing for the fences, then games like Escape From Butcher Bay become a more common occurrence.
So there isn’t a curse, but why do shit movie games keep coming out? The same reason Sonic games are still terrible: If Sega sells millions upon millions of copies of whichever raping of my childhood they decided to release this month, why would they ever spend the money to make sure it was good? Until people stop buying shitty movie games, there will always be shitty movie games. The latest well intended effort to do a franchise justice comes to us from the kings of whoring franchises: Activision. So it is all the more stranger that they are the ones to give Raven Software, one of their finest developers, the time and resources needed to have a good chance at actually making X-Men Origins: Wolverine into a decent game.
At its core, Wolverine is a god of war clone through and through, and by “clone”, I mean “Sony could probably sue for copyright infringement”. You got weak attacks, strong attacks, grappling moves, special moves using magic collected from little orbs, occasional QTE button pressing segments, lots of grunting, and the occasional break from the carnage for some light plat forming or puzzle solving. So yeah, it’s a pretty generic brawler, however, in the history of pop culture, there might not be a character more appropriate to star in a beat ‘em up then one James Howlett. Great character design? Check. Badass signature weapon? Check. Snarky attitude? Check. Hell you don’t even have to explain how he can magically regenerate his health! He’s the perfect videogame hero, and a quintessential badass.
This is what the folks at Raven truly nailed: Making you feel like you are the biggest, baddest, most powerful Wolverine you’ve ever encountered. Pretty much right from the start you are constantly lighting up suckers, knocking out chumps, smoking fools, and talking noise about it before, during, and after. Within the first half hour of this game, you have already jumped out of a burning helicopter while dodging missiles in midair, grounded into a dude while in the middle of stabbing him in the face, lunged head first into a helicopter before throwing some poor saps head into the spinning blades, air jack multiple attack boats Vin Diesel style, and along the way you eviscerate about 75 organic meat bags, and the whole time you will have this giant shit eating grin on your face as you decapitate your way to blood soaked glory and boy is it a bloodbath. Fountains upon fountains of strawberry jam will spew from every newly created orifice you place where a head or a leg once was.
If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know this is far from the kind of action you witnessed in the film, which is a good thing as this is far more entertaining then that movie ever was. They both follow the same story path of Wolverine out for revenge after getting his skeleton blinged out, but the game takes a few more liberties with the plot to they could fit in things like Wolverine fighting a Sentinel just for shits and giggles. I wasn’t a fan of the movie, as I found its dialogue stilted and its story convoluted (on top of a whole fuckton of other problems). However because the standards of videogame storytelling frankly pale in comparison to the standards of a film, so I found myself not being as bothered with the story in the game as I was with the movie, and the script is about at the same level as the movie (IE: bad). It’s still not good, just slightly more tolerable.
However while the acting in the movie was bad (except for Hugh, who gave a valiant effort in the face of adversity), the acting in this game is truly atrocious. Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and Will I Am (God I feel dumber after just typing that) all reprise their roles for the game, and they all phone it in big time. The rest of the cast from the film is absent, with Deadpool looking and sounding nothing like Ryan Reynolds (a blessing in disguise perhaps?). The rest of the game sounds great thankfully. On my way home I remember thinking, “man I hope this game has a good soundtrack full of some old fashioned metal to compliment the carnage!”, and sure enough I got just that. The look on the other hand doesn’t fare as well. This is another Unreal Engine 3 game, and you can tell from its texture pop in to its distinct over contrasted look. The visuals look somewhat dated, as it looks more like a early UE3 game like Turok rather then Gears Of War 2, and the frame rate is rather erratic to boot. The graphics do have one truly awesome trump card in the form of the character model for wolverine, which will take and show realistic damage. If he gets shot in the gut with a shotgun, there will be a gaping flesh wound, and mortar fire will turn Logan into charred hamburger. Then Wolverine will slowly regenerate back into himself, and frankly it’s one of the cooler effects I’ve seen this console generation.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not perfect. Far from it for that matter. It’s not the deepest entry in the genre, it’s short, there isn’t a whole lot to do after you finish, and it’s pretty generic. However my expectations are so low for a movie game at this point that as long as it’s decently fun and not fundamentally broken I can be happy (Quantum Of Solace is another good example of this). This outlook is selling this game somewhat short, as if you’re a fan of the character and like games of this ilk you’re going to have a absolute ball with this game. Also, big kudos to the folks over at Activision (never thought I would ever type that) for letting the team make the game M rated, because the game is better because of it, and if I am sick and disturbed because I think that way, then so be it. However while I do like this game, $60 is a big asking price for a game without a abundance of content, so I would personally wait until it’s around $40, but if you are a big time X-Men fan, even at $60 I doubt you’ll be disappointed, as this game blew away pretty much every expectation I had for it, and if you want to open up a whole can of whoop ass as Wolverine, I can’t think of a better way to do it.
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Tags: hugh jackman, wolverine, x-men
May 20th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yeah I enjoyed what I have played so far, Gotta love the GORE factor that was amped up a notch. I think it’s hard to do Super Hero games right because there is already so much lore associated with the character.
Perhaps Batman: Arkham Assylum will come closer to the mark…
May 29th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I’m playing through the game now and I’m really enjoying it so far. Raven definitely nailed the combat. What I don’t understand, though, is why developers insist on putting platforming sequences and environmental puzzles in these kinds of games. Wolverine isn’t a GREAT game, but it is a blast to play when it focuses on combat. So I can’t believe that the devs thought “Hey, you know what would make this game even better? Some jumping puzzles!” Argh…