The problem with movie tie-ins, most notably to summer blockbusters, is
that they all tend to suck. Things are the way they are for number of
reasons. Not enough development time to polish the game; lack of
creative thinking because the game will sell either way if only the
movie is successful; or simply because the source material sucks in the
first place. After watching "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" at the cinema
when it premiered I was really disappointed with how badly the movie
turned out especially considering solid quality of X-Men movies trilogy
with X2 being absolutely awesome. So what can you make of such a piece
of crap of a movie? Apparently Raven thinks nothing less than a great
action game and they're right.
The game follows story presented in its movie counterpart but it drops
most of the pointless talking and expands on showing a bit more from
x-men universe instead. I'll only mention that such figures like
Mystique and Sentinels make appereance in the game. Logan, Sabertooth
and John Wraith are voiced by Jackman, Schreiber and will.i.am
respectively.
Thanks to Unreal Engine 3 game looks really good with dynamic real-time
regeneration effects, Wolverine's super vision, nice open spaces and a
whole lot of beautiful gore and violence. Logan's character model is
very nicely shaped and actually resembles Jackman. Nothing's perfect so
there is occasional texture popping typical for UE3 and some framerate
dropdowns when too much happens on the screen. Anyways the game gives
you great first impression with intense sequence of Wolverine dropping
from the sky to unleash his raw power on enemies in the jungle. After
that there is about a dozen of hours of hardcore hacking 'n slashing
with a fair amount of collecting, upgrading, grinding and simple
puzzling to keep you busy.
The game is surprisingly violent. It's unusual to make an M-rated game
based on PG-13 movie, hence the so called uncaged edition I guess (for
360 and PS3 versions). Not there is something bad in it. On the
contrary, I am very pleased with its uncompromising style. Over the top gory violence feels a bit
like Ninja Gaiden II even with the controls but hey, nowadays
everything in hack 'n slash department feels like NGII right?
I enjoyed the game very much. It's simple but well designed and it
deserves to be recommended even - or especially - if your opinion on
the movie is very much like mine.
