X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Uncaged Edition

Oh no! Not another licensed game, rushed out to co-incide with the release of the film of the same name.  Actually in this case, no it isn’t, which is a fantastic thing. X-Men Origins: Wolverine has had some considerable time and effort lavished upon it which really shows.  Apparently the game contains about ninety per cent of the plot of the film but that is just a tiny part of the whole game which traces how Wolverine came to be.  Just to be clear, I am aware of Wolverine and the X-Men, but I am no uber fan so if I make any mistakes, forgive me.

The game starts with Wolverine only having bone spikes protruding from his hands, but they are just as lethal as his adamantium ones.  Movement is controlled, as always, by the left thumbstick with the face buttons being used for Wolverine’s attacks and such.  At the most basic you have jump, light attack, heavy attack and grab, but put them together and you can obliterate enemies with relative ease.  Yes, you can button mash and get results, but give it a little thought and you can pull off spectacular attacks and combos.  Also at your disposal are Wolverine’s feral powers, a quick tap up on the D-pad and the screen goes all thermal vision-esque, here you can see exits, breakable items and hidden enemies, it looks really good.  One of the most impressive attacks in your arsenal is the “Lunge”.  With this, you tap the right bumper to target a far away enemy then press the left bumper to launch yourself at them, claws first, with deadly results.  At this point I must tell you that this game features a level of blood and gore not usually associated with super hero games.  From the very off, Wolverine is both brutal and vicious – limbs are shred, heads sliced off and blood splattered everywhere – it truly is a sight to behold and gives us a unique insight into the real Wolverine instead of diluted cartoon imagery.  One of the most impressive aspects of this is to see Wolverine’s regeneration in action.  As he takes damage his skin comes away, right down to his adamantium skeleton, but seek some cover and you see it all growing back in real time.  Flesh grows over the skeleton, skin grows over the flesh and the clothes repair, a truly stunning graphical effect.

As you progress through the game you can level up various skills and attributes based on your kill rate. You can also find hidden dog tags which offer greater experience points.  This doesn’t make a huge difference to the overall gameplay but is a welcome distraction from the hack and slash gameplay.  You can also search out various ” Mutagens”, which are upgrade items that offer you different powers or bonuses, once again welcome but not essential.  As you might expect the default character is dressed in the clothes from the film, ie. jeans and a vest, but Raven Software obviously know what they are doing and very early on in the game you find figures that enable you to unlock different outfits.  There are four costumes in total. I wont spoil them for you, but my favourite is classic Wolverine, a nice touch indeed.  There are several different types of enemies in the game to fight but it has to be said that they are re-hashed quite a bit throughout the game, especially some of the larger enemies.  It doesn’t take away from the overall quality of the game though, it just gets a bit tedious. There are several standout moments in the game and I really don’t want to spoil them for you, but the Sentinel fight is awesome.  When you start playing this game you really will want to see it through to the end, which will take you the best part of ten to fifteen hours, and it is well worth every minute.

Okay, the game isn’t one hundred per cent perfect, but the down points are not so bad as to mar the overall product.  There are several cut-scenes in the game and of them four are of astounding quality, they really are like watching a film.  However, the other cut scenes are strangely not as good and look a bit ropey, but as I said, they don’t take away from the game.  Some of the platforming sections are annoying, with time sensitive jumps having to be attempted several times, but other than that everything is good.