He's the Best at What He Does
X-Men Origins: Wolverine finally does what no other comic book game has before: lets you be Wolverine.
Published: May 1, 2009
Anywhere there's water in the game, though, the framerate goes to absolute shite. Waterfalls, surging torrents, even some fountains are apparently beyond the PS3's ability to render properly. The game is textured well, and the environments are nicely detailed, even if the framerate isn't very steady. It holds solid at 30 most of the time, but the real draw is in seeing Wolvie tear into enemies. There are more than a few moments where he shirks caution to go all out, destroying helicopters, tunneling through the head of a giant sentinel at terminal velocity and tearing the heads off... uh... lava monster... things.
Those are probably the game's biggest problem -- not so much that you're fighting lava beasts in Africa, but that you'll do it a lot; the game's story jumps forward and back in time constantly, revisiting the same areas multiple times. Even with the rehashing, though, the actual combat keeps things thrillingly bloody, and the sense of progression throughout the moves and upgrades makes it worth pressing on for -- not to mention seeing just how insane some of the fights will get.
Plenty of the game's oomph comes from the audio; burpy, bass-heavy explosions, the trademark punch of claws tearing out, and lots of the Canuckclehead's enraged growling. The music, too, is a nice mix of semi-tribal, driving, percussive undertones and lots of grinding, almost angry bits of aural backdrop. None of it sticks out too much, nor does it persist long after you've finished the game, but it doesn't drag or annoy when exploring and things turn more industrial or ambient either. In a nice contrast to most of the vocal talent that crosses over from movies to games, Hugh Jackman clearly enjoyed adding his take on Logan to the game. He comes across as a badass without phoning in the lines, and it works to the game's advantage.
If the game's awesome action scenes make it a joy to see new areas and set pieces, then having to play through the old bits again can drag things down. Africa ends up feeling tired by the time the game's few simplistic puzzle sections present themselves (even if it's just moving statues and turning cranks). The arctic bits surrounding Alkali Lake are a bit too lengthy (though avoiding the sniper from his perspective was a nice touch). Overall, though, the game mixes things up just enough to keep them from getting tedious, just... stretched thin.
Why the hell Raven opted to use the same low-bitrate, heavily compressed videos that no doubt were in the 360 version for the PS3 when there's multiple times more storage space on a Blu-ray is beyond me. Often times, the stuff pre-rendered with in-engine assets looks worse than the real-time stuff. There's a very important distinction, though: the game's pure CG sequences, crafted by the incredibly talented hands of Blur, are amazing. There's more here than they've done in any other game, I'm fairly certain, and it's all incredible stuff -- damn near photo-realistic at times (I had to watch the adamantium bonding scene more than a few times). Their standout, though, is the post-game teaser of a certain Future Past sequence that simply has to be seen in HD.
Like I said, though, I can't understand why I loved the game so much. Yes, things are recycled a bit too much. Sure, the game's level designs are a little uneven. Being able to finally play as Wolverine, tearing guys in half, impaling them on objects, ripping their heads off, it all felt so... cool. I don't know how else to describe it. The game's boss fights are simple, but never annoying, the difficulty is just right and ramps up smoothly, and aside from some really dumb glitches where I fell to my death after finishing someone off (including more than a few instances of it happening on the final boss fight), the game feels fairly well-polished -- again bucking the typical trend of licensed games.
There's no rational reason for liking X-Men Origins: Wolverine as much as I did, but sometimes a game is more than is disparate parts or its pros and cons. For nothing else than the fact that I finally got to play as Wolverine and actually felt like a badass, this game has gone well beyond a rental. In fact, I'll be finishing it multiple times to get the Platinum Trophy, and I can't think of a better bit of praise (however trite it might also be) than that.
