After a hour or so of play-time gamers will feel right at home with the controls, fending off the toughest of enemies with ease. Going into X-Men Origins: Wolverine you need to realize that at its core the game is a straight-up action game, and that is what you will spend 90% of the game doing. There is also a small amount of RPG elements that come in the form of character upgrades. By leveling up with XP you earn points to upgrade a number of different characteristics (health, strength, etc.) or improve the four special abilities that Wolverine possesses. There are also a number of “Mutagens” that can be collected and utilized to improve character effectiveness. Overall I was impressed with the mix of action, puzzle, and RPG elements; by the end of the game I felt as though my character had improved greatly, along with my personal gameplay skills. Even so, the game can still get quite repetitive so my personal advice is to play a couple hours then take some time off, which will help the game from feeling so familiar throughout.
Graphically X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a lot of great with some good and a little bad. Up until release I was under the impression that it would be one of the best “movie-genre” games ever to be created, and while the game is paused it is just that. Unfortunately once the player starts to move through the world some of the game’s less-impressive visual attributes show through. The camera can become a bit wacky and off-center; thankfully it only becomes an issue during a handful of specific times. The character models are fantastic looking; very accurate to the actual actors from the movie. Because of the M rating gamers will be treated to a number of graphically violent cut-scenes and brutal, blood squirting finishing moves. I found that this actually added to the quality of the game as it felt real, and brought out that badass Wolverine character that we all love from the comic books; which the movie does not.
I assume that had the developers been given another 3-6 months to really polish X-Men Origins: Wolverine the visuals could have been cleaned up and pushed the title into that upper echelon. The audio department does its job; it’s obvious that Hugh Jackman’s voice helps the game have the cinematic feel everyone looks for when it comes to any movie game. When Activision first announced that they were bringing the Wolverine movie to home consoles I was a bit skeptical. Now that I have finished the game I can’t help but feel satisfied for the most part. Everything is not perfect but as far as movie games go this is simply put one of the best out there. Any fan of the X-Men universe should give the game a chance, but those who have been waiting for a Mature version of Wolverine to come around should rush out and pick X-Men Origins: Wolverine as soon as mutantly possible. Let me finish by saying that this game sets the new bar for what developers can accomplish when it comes to creating a "movie" based video game, well done.
