slash. But you can’t hide! Coming this Halloween from Adamantium Pictures is
Wolverine and His Deadly Claws! Starring polygons, no-name voice actors and
some music from the film, Wolverine and His Deadly Claws will frighten even
the toughest moviegoers.
"I went into the theater and
was like, ‘This won’t be scary.’ But it was, it really was!"
Critics are calling it a
horrifyingly good time! The York Peppermint Patties Times says it will
"experiment with your mind and leave you feeling mutated." Entertainment
Daily reports that while the plot is a little thin, "the scares are
unbreakable."
Wolverine and His Deadly
Claws slashes into theaters this fall!
The introduction of a
mock film was used to illustrate a point: this game is not unlike the usual
horror flicks released around Halloween. Most of them aren’t scary, and get
boring after a while because they have that "been there, done that" feeling
throughout the whole thing. X2: Wolverine’s Revenge has that same feeling…
The most common genres
for movie-based games are first and third-person shooters. What do you do
when the main characters of the particular movie don’t use guns as their
primary weapon? Simple: you do what the developers of Lord of the Rings: The
Two Towers did and make the game a hack-and-slasher. The Two Towers proved to
be a short (but fun-filled) thrill-ride. How does Wolverine’s Revenge
compare?
From a conceptual
standpoint, Wolverine’s Revenge is the better game since it has a lot of game
elements. Not necessarily unique elements, but lots of them nonetheless,
including mine-detection using Wolverine’s mutant sensing ability. The levels
are also much bigger, with much more to explore and a lot more to accomplish
(and more items to collect!).
In actual gameplay,
Wolverine’s Revenge isn’t as good as The Two Towers. It’s not a bad game, but
as a hack-and-slasher based on one of the year’s best films, it really could
have been better.
The game does have its
perks though. As a game starring the coolest mutant of them all, Wolverine,
it’s a given that you’d get to at least see his special powers in action.
Thankfully, Wolverine’s Revenge lets you really take advantage of them.
Wolverine’s claws are retractable, and while this serves no purpose other than
to heal yourself (he can recover from virtually every wound received — even a
landmine or two won’t kill him!), there is something really fun and really
cool about being able to unleash your claws at any time. He has a few
different claw animations, too, so you can see him clinch his fists and watch
him suck up the pain as the claws rip through his skin. And you can see him
stand perfectly still and act as though no pain is received when the claws
come out.
Along with adamantium
claws and the wonderful self-healing ability, Wolverine can "sense" (sniff?)
nearby enemies, landmines, and other hazards. While utilizing your senses,
the screen is given a bright red glow. The controller rumbles more severely
as your approach a hazard, and in the case of landmines, they become visible
on the screen. This gameplay technique has been done before in the form of
electronic radar in various spy-mission games. It’s a cool feature though,
and the game is better with it than it would have been without it.
That all seems less
important once the game begins. First and foremost, the camera is,
well…almost the complete opposite of the camera featured in Splinter Cell.
It’s not at all intuitive, and makes navigating even the smallest of rooms
difficult. That’s not acceptable, but I’m always willing to stick out a game
— even a frustrating one — for a while. As you may have guessed, the camera
never gets any better. It doesn’t get worse either though, so I guess that’s
at least something to be happy about.
The gameplay is nothing
but enemy-slashing. Over and over again. This is fun for a little while, but
there are only two main attack buttons, making the combo system extremely
limited. Wolverine has several Strike attacks that occur automatically
whenever the Strike icon appears and the X button is pressed. These are fun
to watch once or twice, but after that, it’s not too exciting.
X2: Wolverine’s Revenge
is strictly for fans of the film and/or the comic book. It doesn’t offer
anything that can’t be found anywhere else (aside from the retractable claws,
which can only be found in other X-Men games starring Wolverine). Being a
typical hack-and-slash clone doesn’t automatically make a game bad, but a bad
camera system, repetitive mission objectives and repetitive combat don’t make
a game great either. The first level’s only objective is to find a door! The
second level’s objective isn’t much more exciting. You’ll have some
excitement killing all the enemies that stand in your way (and in some cases,
stand off to the side and let you do as you please), and you’ll be challenged
by some of the levels’ obstacles. But don’t expect much beyond that.
Gameplay: 6.7
For a game with
more variety than most hack-and-slashers, Wolverine’s Revenge leaves a lot to
be desired. I didn’t expect the game to have as much depth as the movie, but
I did expect a lot more. Spider-Man’s gameplay was dead-on. The web-slinging
action was as perfect as a Spider-Man game could get. But Wolverine’s Revenge
is not even close to matching the experience of the X-Men movies, the comic
book, or even the classic X-Men game released for the Genesis.
Graphics: 7
The score may
seem kind of low considering how attractive Wolverine’s Revenge is, but
consider the power of the ‘Cube, and consider what has already been achieved
on all three game consoles. Lots of other games have greatly superior
graphics, brining Wolverine’s Revenge down on the list of visual
impressiveness.
Sound: 6
The music from
the movie is good, but the rest of the songs are comprised of typical video
game sounds. Surprisingly though, the brief voice-acting isn’t too bad, just
annoying at times (most enemies sound like they’re coughing when they die!).
Difficulty: Easy
There are a few
difficult parts, but aside from that, there’s not much that’ll keep you from
completing this game in a day or two.
Concept: 6
The mutant powers
are cool, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen them in a video game. It’s
unfortunate that everything Wolverine’s Revenge has to offer has been done at
least a few times before, taking away from some of the glory this game could
have achieved.
Overall: 6.7
X-Men fans will
want to at least give this game a shot, but please proceed with caution.
Wolverine’s Revenge has its high points, but it’s really not the kind of game
that you’ll want to play again and again. Ultra-diehard fans may feel it’s
worth buying, but the rest of you will be glad that you chose to read this
review before opening your wallet.
