When I heard that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a good game, I wondered if it was a joke. A good game based on a mediocre movie? No way. But I went and bought the game, and low and behold, I was having a blast within the first 5 minutes. No other game has made me feel as awesome as Wolverine. THIS is how Wolverine's other games should've been. No limits on using claws, no toned down violence, no melodramatic plots, just straight up action. The funny thing is that I normally don't like violent games, but this one's just so over the top that it sucked me in.
The story? I didn't pay much attention to it to tell you the truth. You play between the present day story and one from 3 years earlier- Wolverine in the jungle while on a military operation. A lot of it has to do with revenge on his brother Victor Creed, and superior William Stryker. The game's all about action though, and chances are that you won't care for the plot anyway. Wolverine goes from location to location tearing everyone a new one, and taking on some major X-Men characters along the way.
The number of ways Wolverine kills his enemies is impressive. The first one that really got me was when he lunged to a helicopter, smashed through the glass, then pulled the pilot out and held him up so the helicopter blades decapitated him, and created a huge red swirl. My jaw dropped when I saw that since I didn't see it coming. In fact, I replayed that scene 4 times just to do it again- it's that cool. Enemies also get dismembered in different ways depending on how you slash them. Wolverine can also use objects in the environment to quickly dispatch them as well, like wooden spikes, mini-cement mixers, forklifts and more. You have three main attacks- light slash, heavy slash and throw, and then 4 special attacks as well that can be used when you build your Rage meter up. Wolverine also has a great Lunge ability where you lock on to an enemy, and as long as the view isn't blocked or they're not too far/high, he'll leap toward them and you can go from there with how you want to attack. The Lunge is awesome, and I loved that there'd be certain parts where the camera would switch to right in front of the enemy so you'd see Wolverine pop up behind them. Comedic gold right there. Also, Wolverine's healing factor and Feral Sense are here. You heal after a few seconds, as long as you're not getting attacked, and this helps gameplay so you're not constantly looking for health packs. Pressing up on the d-pad changes the visuals and highlights key locations and points you out on where to go next, kind of like the guide feature in Dead Space.
So why the average rating? I wanted to give this 3.5 stars, but since I couldn't I rounded down due to some of the problems. First- the boss fights aren't that fun, at all. These guys take forever to whittle down, even the first boss which later appears as more of a mini-boss. I found myself getting bored. One that really got me was the boss in chapter 4 where I had to restart the battle NINE TIMES because it'd constantly glitch on me, and he'd either disappear from the level completely, or he'd get stuck on part of the platform and freeze, not taking any damage no matter how I attacked. So I had to be very careful with how I fought him just to try and prevent glitches. That part nearly made me quit on the game. Lastly, gameplay gets really repetitive by level 3. Since Wolverine doesn't have a lot of different combos, most attacks look the same and all of them are equally effective.
Visually, the game's a mixed bag. When the camera zooms in on character models, they either look good, or like an early-ps2 game. Cutscenes looked phenomenal though. And you gotta love how they show Wolverine's injuries in-game while he heals. Watching him run around with a hole blasted through his chest was just plain cool. The voice acting's all good too- no complaints here.
While I did have fun playing the game at first, 20+ hours is a long time to be doing a lot of the same attacks and fun-deprived boss fights. This was definitely a great effort on the developer's part, and the game deserves the good scores it's gotten, but the glitches (especially in that boss fight) kept me from wanting to play through it again. Definitely get this though if you want a non-stop action game.Get more detail about X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition.
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