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X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

This movie-to-game adaptation is one of the better ones, but it has it's own set of gameplay issues that keep it from becoming a good title on its own.

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an action game that is based on the film of the same name. The game release coincided with the release of the film on May 1, 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, and Wii. The game was developed primarily by Raven Software, who used Unreal engine technology to develop the game, and Activision published it. Now, to get something settled right off the start – this is easily one of the better movie-to-game adaptations you will play on the current generation of platforms. While on its own merits it may not stand up to action game standards, it is non-the-less a fun action romp with plenty, for fans of the movie and fans of the genre, to do. While some folks were not very happy with how the movie turned out, especially because of a low age rating, the game definitely more than makes up for it with a strong Mature rating, which it definitely earns with cutscenes alone.

Being “based on” something always means that the story has to end the same way, no matter what the studio’s creative aspirations are. In case of movie adaptations, this usually means two things: let the player pretty much replay the whole movie with extra scenes and special effects, or throw in your own filler story that only connects to the movie at certain points. The game opted to go for the latter – which is a good idea in theory, but here it’s a little overdone and stretched thin. Basically, if you have not seen the movie, do not bother trying to understand what is happening in the game. The story is extremely poorly told, constantly jumping between the plot of the movie and the made-up plot of the game. Having seen the movie (twice actually), even I had troubles understanding the new parts of the story being told. You get to replay a couple of boss fights that are directly from the movie, and these are actually very cool and well-done. However, the rest of the game’s story is focused on things that were only mentioned briefly during the movie. You spend most of the game in the jungle (as you remember it) and in a robot factory (in the present). The story keeps switching between these two locations for the majority of the game, and it gets rather repetitive after a while. Repetitiveness of locations and story is a major flaw of the game. For example, one boss fight which lasts just a few minutes in the film takes up probably 40 minutes of “chase” style gameplay here. It gets quite tedious and boring, and worst of all predictable because you know you will eventually win and continue the story. The final boss (the same as the movie) likewise feels overly tedious. What was an epic and exciting battle to watch on the big screen becomes a repetitive button mash which lasts another 30 minutes and a few boss stages. I don’t want to go into the plot any further, because it risks spoiling the movie as well. It’s definitely recommended to see the movie before you plan on trying the game.

The core of the game is combat, and it’s very fun and satisfying at first. You get only 3 buttons to worry about, assigned to Heavy attack, Light attack, and grab. They are pretty self-explanatory. Wolverine can also lock onto an enemy and lunge at them, which results in many instant kills and is the preferred quick way of dispatching the low profile baddies. For the first 20-30 minutes, the combat is great fun. It’s fast, violent, and fun. But, after a while you start to get a little bit bored because all fights can be won by simple button mashing. You also have a block button, but it’s never used unless you are forced to deflect a few enemy rockets, or are low on health and need a minute to regenerate. Your button mashing will often produce combo attacks, which are all available from the menu to look at and try to perform. These are just variations to the basic attacks and don’t really add any significant damage on average. Instead, to increase your attack powers you must upgrade Wolverine. Yes, it’s true, the game has a leveling system and tries to act like an RPG in that regard. There is an experience system in place, which you gain by killing bad guys or finding hidden dog tags around the level. Once you level up, you gain a few skill points which you can spend on a number of categories. All of the categories are attack based, most increase your character’s damage output via claws or special powers, as well as increasing your health amount and regeneration speed. The special powers are unlocked as you level up, and you should unlock most of them within the first half of the game. These attacks are mostly focused on either a short burst of heavy damage to a single enemy, or a prolonged burst of damage to enemies surrounding you. It’s all pretty cool stuff, but you aren’t told exactly how much damage one attack does over another, so I mostly stuck with the claw spin (for area damage) and the drill for single enemy/boss damage and maxed out their upgrade slots. You can also find [poorly] hidden “item upgrades” around levels, which you can put into your 3-slot upgrade interface. These items provide various boost such as faster health regeneration or quicker attack speed. They are interchangeable and can be replaced with a different boost from your inventory at any time. You also have a special “spectral” vision, which only comes in handy when doing 3 tasks: fighting a specific enemy type, looking for upgrades, or looking where to go next. Yes, you get a directional pointer at any time you wish, which doesn’t always work well and seems totally useless because the game is completely linear.

Not much can be said about the enemies. They are all repetitive bad guys with AI at a very basic level. Some sections can be simply run past because enemies won’t chase you to the next checkpoint. Depending on the locale, you will be fighting either mercs with guns or mercs with swords, and variations of them. The guys with the guns are the easiest to dispose of, with just a couple of light attacks. The guys with swords are much more effective and will provide a challenge during the whole course of the game. Enemies you encounter are varied, yes, but they still repeat at least every 2nd level so it’s all for naught. Boss fights are another annoyance – there are only 3 or so major bosses in the whole game, which take a while to kill and feel pretty fun, and they are all taken from the movie. The rest of the time you will encounter mini-bosses. There are only 3 of them, so you can imagine the horrible repetition of these fights as you encounter them about 10 to 15 times. They fight exactly the same each and every time, and only add to the tediousness of the game towards the end. It must be said that Wolverine is a good length game at around 8 hours, but it feels extremely dragged on and repetitive by the end. So much so, it took me a break of a few days to convince myself to finish the last couple of chapters and hope for something I wasn’t expecting. There is no multiplayer, and little replay value. You can start again with all your powers unlocked from the previous completion character, but there is no incentive to.

The environments that you visit are all well-designed and mostly good to look at. As mentioned earlier though, things do get repetitive by the time you hit 3rd quarter of the game as you keep going through similar-looking jungle ruins or grey metal corridors over and over. When you are not fighting enemies, Wolverine likes to solve simple puzzles which involve dragging boxes across the room so you can jump on a higher ledge. Variations include turning wheels to create ledges to jump on, or to open doors. Often, the doors you open/ledges created are on a timer. Yeah. It works well enough to break up the fighting, but it’s all too simple and serves only as a minor distraction. Environments also include some spikes on the walls and floor, which provide for instant and satisfying kills if you grab an enemy and impale them. You can also grab and throw bad guys, and often they hilariously fly across the room just to get impaled and die. Often, some tough bad guys later in the game are so easily dispatched by these accidental impalements, it almost feels like cheating. In fact, during one level which involves fighting your way up a building where floors are under construction, I did sort of cheat. Rather than wasting my time by fighting 3-4 “special” enemies, with enormous amounts of health that each take 5 minutes of button mashing to kill, I simply grabbed and tossed them over the edge, quickly ending the fight and getting my experience points. You know that the fun is not here anymore when you try to shorten the gameplay with such methods. Indeed, you certainly don’t feel like an unstoppable superhero anymore when it takes 20 stabs to the face of an enemy soldier to finally kill them. The camera occasionally becomes glitchy, and often there are sequences in the game where it switches position with no warning for a more “cinematic” shot, which causes you to fall off some ledge because the directional controls change with the camera.

The game was built on the Unreal engine, so you should already have an idea of what it looks like. The dominant colors are grey and silver metallic, with some brown thrown in. Even the snow does not look all that white. The good thing though is that all characters are detailed impressively well to match their movie counterparts, and the voices are also by the actors from the film which adds further authenticity. A main very cool graphical feature is Wolverine’s damage model – as you take damage, your skin will deteriorate accordingly, revealing your insides. As you heal out of battle, you can see the skin heal itself, and it is a very cool effect. The music and background sounds are fairly basic but they match the setting well and don’t take away from the action. Game runs very stable, and I have only experienced one or two crashes during the whole play through. There is not much you can change for the visuals, except for the basic resolution and brightness settings. The game looks passable, but the Unreal engine is definitely showing its age and lack of AA does not help things.

Wolverine is one of the better movie-to-game adaptations. However, what it makes up in gameplay and original story, it loses with repetitiveness. There is no point of playing this before seeing the movie because you will be lost and confused by the story and characters. The action is the core of the gameplay and it’s very fun for a while, but will quickly grow stale towards the end. The same problem exists with enemies and mini-bosses, as you will be sick and tired of killing the same enemies over and over, in similar looking locations from the previous level. Because of the game’s repetition, I can’t recommend this to be a purchase for anyone but the hardcore Wolverine movie or X-Men fans. For the rest of us, try to play the demo a couple of times in a row, and if you are still not bored, then consider the purchase.

Our ratings for X-Men Origins: Wolverine on PC out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
Presentation
80
The game fills in the back story of the movie, and everything feels very authentic. Movie characters are mostly well-done and voice work is also of similar level.
Gameplay
67
Fun for the first while, but becomes extremely repetitive just a few hours into the game. Similar bosses, enemies and levels make it a difficult task to complete the game and not be bored.
Single Player
70
Admirably long, but tends to drag on due to repetition described in gameplay. Story is very convoluted and best ignored if you have not seen the movie.
Multiplayer
NR
None
Performance
(Show PC Specs)
CPU: Intel Core i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X 1GB
RAM: 6GB DDR3
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
PC Specs

80
Frame rate is very smooth, and almost no texture clipping occurs. Only a few crashes.
Overall
71
Fans of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie will surely appreciate this effort, but the repetitive gameplay and convoluted story will likely keep even action fans at bay.
Comments
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine box art Platform:
PC
Our Review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine
71%
Good
The Verdict:
Game Ranking
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is ranked #1113 out of 1957 total reviewed games. It is ranked #55 out of 63 games reviewed in 2009.
1113. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
1114. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
PlayStation 3
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