[360/PS3] X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

[AgtFox]

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

Title: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Platform: 360/PS3/Wii/PC/PSP/PS2/DS
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
ESRB: Mature
MSRP: $59.99 (360/PS3), $49.99 (Wii), $39.99 (PC/PSP), $29.99 (PS2/DS)
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek

What's Hot: A blast to play; voice actors (many from the movie) do excellent work; extremely violent; graphic changes to Logan as he takes damage; rage abilities tie-in well with straight claw action; cinematics (both in-game, but especially CGI ones) are really good

What's Not: Technical issues (some slowdown, clipping and camera oopsies); game is a bit short (took me just under 8 hours); repeated early boss fights that really aren’t boss fights; puzzles are annoying

Wolverine as a character has not had the best of histories in video gaming. Raven Software and Activision attempt to change that with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and after playing through the game I have to say they have been quite successful at bringing Wolverine to the video game consoles. I do want to point out that I have not yet seen the movie because of working late hours and having other commitments, but understand that the game takes a lot of pieces of the movie to create its story. This kind of goes against what Raven had been arguing, that this game was not really a movie tie-in since work started on it over two and a half years ago, but it’s pretty hard to deny it relies on the story of the movie to tell its own story.

We start off the game with Logan’s helicopter being blown up and him falling through the sky, reaching his target below by slicing him right through with his bone claws. Awesome opening for a game and it really doesn’t let up much from there. Early on you learn two major things that are important to the game. First one is that there are dead soldiers that have dog tags that increase experience throughout the game. The second is that you learn how to unleash the Lunge move, a move you will be using throughout the game. The Lunge is done by holding the Right button to target a distanced enemy (you can move the right analog stick to a new enemy) and then hitting the Left button to spring Logan toward them, striking them through with his claws. You can then unleash a combo by hitting either the X button (light strike) or Y button (heavy strike) to continue the flow of attack. The Lunge move is very useful when you get into sections where lots of enemies are unleashed on you at once. You can fly all around the area taking out the bad guys. Along with these things we also learn that we can grab enemies with the B button and use the X or Y buttons along with that or just throw them by pressing the B button again. This is the simple controls for the game, but as you continue on you receive more of Wolverine’s special moves.

You will also learn very early that this game obviously gets its inspiration from God of War and Raven really does nothing to hide that fact. This game is built around using various combos to dispose of enemies. Although there aren’t a ton of quicktime events (QTEs), there are some scattered here and there. It doesn’t go to the level of God of War in that respect, especially when facing off against bosses, but the obvious inspiration is there. I’d also argue that this game takes inspiration from the recently released Dead Space in regards to two things. The first are computers being strewn about that have voice logs on them that you can listen to as you move along. The voice logs are quite interesting and give you a bit of the backstory, especially revolving around Alkali Lake and exactly what they are doing with the Weapon X project and the early building of the Sentinels. The second homage is in the Feral Sense ability that is used by pressing up on the d-pad. This shows off his higher senses, but also has a blue wave that shows you the direction you need to move next, much like the blue line in Dead Space. The Feral Sense also allows him to see enemies when smoke fills a room or when he is facing off against cloaked enemies. The sense has a time limit, so you can’t use it for too long or he’ll lose use of it for a bit.

The game is made up of 5 stages, each of which contains parts that put you back in time three years ago to a mission in Africa called “Operation: Firestorm”. Not having seen the movie, it becomes very tough to follow exactly what the operation is outside of destroying watchtowers and weaving the story with present day connections. Eventually towards the end the purpose is made clear in that they were looking for the rock that contained Adamantium which later is used to fuse with Logan’s bones to increase his indestructibility. The Africa sections and the way they weave together with the present day story is nicely done, except there are a couple questions that come up about it that I’ll get into later when I talk about the somewhat RPG elements of the game below.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine also has a light RPG element since you gain experience points as you kill and collect dog tags. You level up and get skill points that you can use on various things such as increasing the damage done by your claws, increasing your healing factor and powering up the special moves you pick up along the way, such as the Beserker mode, Claw spin and Claw Cyclone. I found myself putting early skill points towards upgrading the claws and upgrading my healing factor. Later on as I reached into level 30 and beyond I upgraded some of the special abilities. You find out early that it behooves you to search out dog tags, mutagens and health increases as you go along in the game. The one problem in the light RPG section is the fact that the upgrades transfer over to the sections that play out in the past. Honestly, Logan should be weaker back then, but instead he is just as strong during the flashback.

The graphics and sound, especially the voiceovers, are well done. The game uses the Unreal engine and does a good job at keeping things going at a steady pace. There is some slowdown here and there, but I want to be sure to point out that this happens infrequently. There are times where the camera will reset itself below Logan, basically looking up from the ground after some in-game cutscenes. It is a bit jarring, but it just takes either a manual move of the camera or pressing in the right analog stick to center the camera behind him. One of the interesting things from a graphics perspective is how Wolverine takes damage and watching it heal. He will lose his wife-beater shirt quite a bit (it mysteriously reappears every level) and you will see his Adamantium bone structure should he be damaged enough. The voiceovers are really good in this game, especially by the actors that transfer over to the game like Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. Usually in video games you find that the voices from the actors in the movie are poorly done, but this one certainly stands out as impressive.

There are a few problems with this game that keeps it from the absolute upper echelon. The biggest one for most people will be the length of the game. Given that this game is a linear one and not an open world game like some of the Spider-Man movie tie-in games have been. It took me just under eight (8) hours to beat the game and there isn’t much to entice you back outside of unlocking the hard mode and, if you find the various Wolverine action figures in the game, some bonus stages. It doesn’t help that it is very hard to kill Logan in the game given his healing ability and constantly increased health bar. There are points where his powers are taken away or neutralized, but even then it isn’t too hard to get to the next area.

Another problem is that many of the bosses are dispatched using the same kind of strategy: get behind them and pounce onto their back and slash at them multiple times. Rinse and repeat. The early “bosses” actually turn out to not really be bosses since they show up at various times through the game as regular enemies. There are some notable boss encounters though. Ones involving Logan’s brother Victor (Sabretooth), the Sentinel Mark I fight, the Gambit fight and a late battle with everyone’s favorite Merc with a mouth, Deadpool (or as they call him in the game, “the Deadpool”). The last problem to point out are that many of the "puzzles" in the game are annoying, although I really only had one that made me scratch my head until I figured out where the Feral Sense was telling me where to go.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a fantastic visceral action feast for anyone looking for something to preoccupy yourself until God of War III or another game in the same vein comes out. The ability to use the environment to kill you enemies and the basic “do anything you want” principle really gives you freedom here. I was pretty surprised by how good this game was, even with the confusing story…well, confusing for anyone that hasn’t read the Wolverine comics or seen the movie I guess. Someone coming at this with no knowledge of the character or his origin (which has built up over time) will probably be lost, but then again maybe they really aren’t looking to pick this game up. Ravensoft is to be commended for making an excellent movie tie-in game. Maybe the history of bad movie tie-ins is finally coming to an end. We can hope, can’t we?

Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs


Loren says, "This is an excellent action game. The big question is whether to buy it or rent it. At just under eight (8) hours long that may make the question easier for you. Then again, you might want to play through the game multiple times to find all the dog tags, mutagens and hidden items."

*Note - Review based upon the 360 version of game

[bapenguin]

There's also those "bonus" arenas too for scoring. Adds some depth at least.

[agentgray]

This has been my biggest surprise game of the year so far.

The plot was even better than the movie. (Yes, I said it, but it doesn't say much.)

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by bapenguin

There's also those "bonus" arenas too for scoring. Adds some depth at least.

Yeah, I added in the "bonus" sections into the length area of the review (above the last picture I think). I only unlocked 2 of the 4 bonus levels though by picking up hidden Wolverine action figures. I only played a bit of one of the bonus levels. Are they just you against another version of yourself or is there more to them? I wasn't too interested in it.

[Shjinta]

I got it for PC... Man those have got to be the worst mapped controls I've ever seen. The idea of putting the block mapped at Z, with shift and WASD to move and dodge made some boss fights a little annoying.

I'm currently escaping the complex after getting the Adamantium. I find this level extremely annoying. You're right about repeat boss fights. The lack of graphic options was a little surprising. Considering it's built off the Unreal 3 engine, I expected more than resolution changing options.

Sounds are well done, graphics are really nice, even though I play in windowed mode. It actually runs really smooth on my machine. With, what I assume are max graphics.

[AgtFox]

Did Dead Space have no graphic options too (if you played it). I seem to remember that being a problem with that game as well (maybe I'm thinking of the wrong game).

Anyway, I'm sure Wolverine was a port to the PC and they didn't put any bells and whistles on it in order to sell it for cheaper. The controls do sound f'd though, too bad you don't have a 360 controller and the adapter, I've heard that playing that way on PC is pretty good.

[H.Bogard]

Beat the PC version last night. Absolutely no frame-rate issues if that's the kind of thing holding anyone's purchase. Loved the game, and I didn't have any gripe with the game's length either, as a matter of fact it was fun enough for a second go (which I'm taking up on hard difficulty now).

By the way, for anyone using a regular gamepad... just use Xpadder to get around to that, worked fine for me. The graphics, as mentioned above are bloody sharp and my framerate rarely ever went below 50 on an nvidia 8800GT.

[Sense Field]

This just makes me want to buy some real metal wolverine claws, go out there and take it to the baddies!

Seriously...a good movie tie in? With Wolverine? Sold (when it's 30 bucks at target)

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by agentgray

This has been my biggest surprise game of the year so far.

The plot was even better than the movie. (Yes, I said it, but it doesn't say much.)

Same here. I was sweating a bit while I was driving home with this because I thought I had just bought a turd. Those fears quickly turned into joy as I learned how much fun this is. Not GOTY material, but a definite sleeper hit. Kinda like Earth Defense Force: 2017.

[Dark Prince]

Had the 360 version and just past the halfway mark, pretty entertaining. Getting some of these achievements have been pretty easy. In one instance I was unlocking something like 3 achievements at once using those special moves.

Great review though. I agree with Wolvie that this would probably be a sleeper hit. Though there were graphical issues I noticed at certain spots when the camera pans up close, but not enough to kill the game.

[Adam Blue]

Considering the developer I wouldn't have labeled this a sleeper hit. To me, it was expected to be good.

[ElektroDragon]

This is a high quality game... can't wait to pick it up for $30.

[mister slim]

Huh, I must be losing my mind.

[torrefaction]

This is like the twilight zone....

Movie is awful, and the game is good?

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Adam Blue

Considering the developer I wouldn't have labeled this a sleeper hit. To me, it was expected to be good.

But it's a comic book game. You aspect a major gripes, I mean aside from The Darkness, and the MUA games...

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by ElektroDragon

This is a high quality game... can't wait to pick it up for $30.

I'll be right there with you in a couple of months. I mean the starting price of $45 isn't all that bad.

[AgtFox]

Yeah, it's a tough one to say go out and buy because of the length. However, I will say I bought ICO long ago and that game is only 4 hours long and I'm still glad I bought it. This game has almost double the length and is good enough to go through again when the hard mode is unlocked, so there is arguably replay options here.

[Iron Past]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

But it's a comic book game. You aspect a major gripes, I mean aside from The Darkness, and the MUA games...

But didn't Raven Software make M:UA 1? Or am I thinking of someone else?

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by Iron Past

But didn't Raven Software make M:UA 1? Or am I thinking of someone else?

You would be correct, but they aren't on M:UA 2 because they were working on this game plus Wolfenstein and Singularity.

[Xydarc]

A note about Feral Sense: you can use it right away. I'm working on the "Kill X enemies while in Feral Sense" Trophy, and as soon as it reverts back to normal, I hit up, and I'm right back in it.

Otherwise, a good review and one that I agree with.