Satisfyingly Brutal
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a 2009 hack and slash game based on the movie of the same name. You play as James Howlett, better known as Wolverine, a wolf-like human weapon famed for his adamantium claws and inclination for merciless violence. Of course it’s no secret that video game tie-ins for movies have a history of very poor quality so how does X-Men Origins: Wolverine match up to the competition? Surprisingly well.
Gameplay is basically what you’d expect from your standard character-based action game but that’s not to say it’s at all bad. Wolverine’s array of abilities include standard attacks, heavy attacks, grabs and throws, counter attacks, dodges and blocking. There are also four “rage attacks” which are individually introduced early on in the game and do more damage than normal attacks but require that Wolverine has collected enough rage by striking down enemies and breaking objects in the environment. In addition to these moves Wolverine can also lock onto and lunge at opponents with claws drawn and can perform environmental kills such as impaling enemies on spikes or shredding them in spinning fans.
The combat is the real high point of the gameplay and there is no shortage of enemies to rip apart. This game is unrelentingly violent and when you first begin to see Wolverine rapidly plunging his claws into the flesh of his foes over and over or disappear into a whirl of blades and begin eviscerating all the enemies in his immediate range there is a real sense of visceral satisfaction. Combat also flows just as fluidly as you’d want from a fast-paced hack and slash game and the lunge move in particular feels like a refreshingly original addition with jumping from enemy to enemy making you feel like an absolute tool of destruction. The consistently brutal fights in this game will keep you highly entertained for a good while but unfortunately like all violence after a while you can’t help but become desensitised. By the end of the game you will have hacked and slashed your way through hundreds of enemies and have executed every attack countless times; this shows and not in a good way. Combat remains at least solid throughout but the game really runs out of tricks about half to two thirds of the way through and spearing a screaming tribesman through the chest just isn’t as enjoyable at the end of the game as it was at the start.
Most of the enemies are quite well-designed however there are only two different mini-bosses and even they are very similar. While fighting machete-wielding tribesmen and elite military soldiers is fine the mini-bosses get all too familiar far too fast. Unusually the game also incorporates some minor RPG-style elements which factor into the combat. Defeating enemies and collecting the dog tags hidden around the game will gain you experience and level you up increasing your health and giving you more skill points to spend. Skill points can be used to improve your rage attacks and other aspects of your fighting abilities, fighting certain types of enemies will increase your “combat reflexes” enabling you to do more damage against them, and you can equip up to three mutagens which can be collected throughout the game and provide you with useful perks. Juggling skills and mutagens can feel a bit of a slow-down from the bloody combat, even if only a brief one but these features still add something interesting to the experience.
Aside from the usual face-offs against legions of enemies the game presents you with there are also a number of quick-time events dotted throughout the game which aren’t all that fun and there is one particular boss battle about half way through the game which although rather epic in concept actually plays out to be a far more drawn-out experience than most players will enjoy, most of the boss battles however are at least somewhat gratifying. When you’re not spending your time separating enemies from their beloved limbs the game features some puzzle-based sections. These sections are not difficult and offer up simple problems but they seem to break the pacing of the game and these generic puzzles just don’t seem to fit when the game is so much better at combat than these lacklustre brainteasers.
The games also gives you a small number of challenges which can be unlocked by picking up the few figurines hidden throughout the game and involve battling a second Wolverine to unlock new costumes for use in the main game. They’re not a big part of the experience but they provide a greater challenge than the story mode for those who want it. One strange weakness that the game seems to have is the way it treats character death. Should you meet your end at the hands of the enemy there’s no cool death animation, no dramatic camera pans and no impacting sound effects, just a pop-up informing you of your death and asking whether you’d like to continue or quit to the main menu, needless to say this is somewhat jarring.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is overall a game that’s pleasant on the eyes. Not only does the combat feel good but it looks good; animations are well-done and the camera stays where it needs to be. Textures and effects throughout the world also look good and during cutscenes characters move convincingly. There is one particular problem to do with the gore on Wolverine. Mr. Howlett can take a great deal of punishment and it’s not unusual for him to be partially stripped down to his organs and skeletal structure in places. The textures for Wolverine’s innards don’t look very detailed though and there’s a strange reflective quality which makes Wolverine’s insides look somewhat realistic. Frame-rate drops can also be an issue although admittedly for the most part they’re not a big concern. The best of the graphics comes in the pre-rendered cutscenes which feature brilliant detail in all aspects and wonderful animations. They are really something that should not be skipped.
Story is unfortunately not the games strong suit. It seems like the story would make more sense to those who have seen the movie but as a self-contained experience it is little more than “okay”. Most of the story deals with Wolverine fighting back against the soldiers of the group who turned him into a human weapon and seeking revenge against a man known as Colonel Stryker. The game will intermittently flash back to events three years before the main story set in Africa to provide additional backstory for the plotline. Nothing is ever overly clear and it feels like the pieces never fit together like the writer intended them too. Also with characters appearing at the beginning of the game and remaining out of the picture until the very end you don’t feel attached to any of the characters except perhaps Wolverine and the introduction of the final boss just feels tacked on. Fortunately the game stops the story getting in the way of the gameplay.
Music does not feature prominently in the game but the subtle music in the background is fairly effective in building a sense of excitement. Far more noteworthy is the voice acting for the game. The voice cast features Hugh Jackman (as Wolverine), Liev Schreiber (as Viktor Creed) and Will.i.am (as John Wraith) from the cast of the movie and they do a great job. They have a well-written dialogue and deliver it with all the realistic character you’d want from them. I wish I could be as complimentary about the rest of the voice cast and the scripts that they were given. Raven Darkholme’s lines often sound forced and over-dramatic, it seems that Gambit can barely go two minutes without using the phrase “mon frère” or “au revoir” and some of the generic military grunts sound downright stupid on occasion.
Overall X-Men Origins: Wolverine features combat which is both aesthetically and non-aesthetically satisfying even if it does lose some of its wow-factor by the end of the game. The graphics are good, sound can be a mixed bag, narrative is somewhat poor and the game is dotted with minor problems, however X-Men Origins: Wolverine is certainly the best movie-based video game I’ve ever played and is worth checking out if it looks like your kind of video game.
