Well, it has been announced again. And again. Hugh Jackman is officially hanging up the claws with Wolverine 3…or is that X: Men Apocalypse. Who knows? The man changes his mind like the British Weather. Either way, one thing is for sure, the next Wolverine will have some pretty hefty shoes to fill. Jackman was great as Wolverine, my favourite performance, X:Men Origins Wolverine. No not that forgettable piece of garbage movie, I’m talking about the video game, duh. If you’re really wondering, his best Wolverine performance was probably in Days of Future Past.
The Review:
So the game begins with a brutal and bloody as hell cut scene featuring Logan in a war torn future as he dispatches a few enemies with his trusty adamantium claws. Wolverine, voiced by Jackman then reminisces his past in Africa. Every level, the game switches between Africa and the events that led him to get his metal skeleton. Basically, whatever happened in the movie is retold here but stretched and extended to a good ten to fifteen hours, depending how you play.
The player controls Wolverine from a third person perspective, taking the poor guy through all sorts of hell. He’ll get shot at, blown up, dropped from an airplane, sliced, and diced even though he himself returns the punishment in even grimmer detail. Make no mistake, this version of Wolverine is nothing like you have seen before, limbs fly off, as do heads, if you’re standing close to an interactive object such as a spike or a forklift, and press the grab button, Wolverine will impale his enemies in the gut and let them suffer. Remember what he keeps reminding us in the movies but never actually does due to ratings, what he does isn’t very nice.
Graphics wise, the game is a feat. As you either run or lunge into the hail of bullets being thrown your way, Wolverine’s flesh will visibly break off exposing his skeleton underneath. If you become too injured, just run away and marvel (heh sorry) at the sight of his flesh growing back. It isn’t photorealistic by any means but still fun to watch.
Dispatching enemies grants you experience points which you can use to upgrade and unlock abilities and moves and so on. Dog tags from random dead soldiers will also give you some added XP. There are many collectibles throughout the game which will unlock different costumes and such.
Some complaints would be the jittery camera angles which is common in third person hack and slash games. Many times while in the midst of combat the camera would hide behind a pillar or something. It’s to be expected. Boss battles especially with those on the larger side such as Wendigo clones and giant lava rock monsters become repetitive.
Other than that, the game is fine and works well on its own. Would have wished they expanded the intro of the movie into an actual game but all in all, this game rocks.
The Verdict:
Story 3/5 Jumping back and forth in time works but following the same boring as hell story as the movie was a bad move. Hell at one point we have to go through the whole drawn out story as to how Wolverine gets his name, something about trickster howling at the moon, I don’t know wasn’t paying attention to either.
Gameplay 4/5 Developers Raven and Blur studios knows what makes Wolverine tick. On the surface its a button masher but with so many different moves to unlock, slicing and dicing becomes fun. Boss battles could have been less repetitive especially the dodge-lunge-attack ones which just take up time rather than be a challenge.
Graphics 4/5 CGI cut scenes are pretty damn good. The prologue is an eye opener for sure. Watching Wolverine heal up after dispatching a horde of baddies never gets old.
Sound 4/5 Jackman loves roaring as Wolverine just as much as he loves playing the character and this game has no shortage of roars. Besides that, the voice talent are on top form, and everything else as chaotic as it seems blends nicely.
Much better than the movie that’s for damn sure. Would have preferred if they did something like X: Men 2 Wolverine’s revenge but still, I’m happy with what we got.
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