A steady movie-adaptation that lacks length and variety, bullet curving aside.
The game serves as both a sequel and a prequel to the movie. The story picks off roughly 5 hours after the film ends - with Wesley killing Sloan, the head of the Chicago assassins fraternity. The story continues to twist the mysteries around Wesley's family - this time, it's all about his mother. We're also getting constant flashbacks and play as Cross, and find out how he learned of Sloan's treachery and turned against the brotherhood. The story doesn't quite capture the essence of the film, but it will definitely manage to satisfy hardcore fans of the movie.
Although it must be said that almost all of the characters are terribly underdeveloped, have basically a few lines of text before being killed by the main hero. Every introduction to a new character usually starts and ends with Wesley seeing the enemy the first time, insulting him and finishing him off after a few minutes.
What compensates the boredom of storytelling though, is the dynamic, fast-paced gameplay. The action picks off at the first seconds and goes on and on right to the end. The mechanics are pretty simple: It's just you running around, shooting at anything that moves and taking advantage of a nicely done cover system. The latter is really nice, although it lacks the complexity and tactical advantages in combat, like seen in Gears of War.
The gunplay was supposed to be the trademark of the game, and the gameplay honestly tries to prove that. You can shoot normally, shoot from cover, commence blind-fire pindowns, shoot in slo-mo, and, of course, perform Bullet Curves. The system is organized pretty well: You press a special button combination, and a curved trajectory appears stretching from your gun's barrel to the targeted enemy. Using the mouse(Or analog sticks) you can rotate and scale the trajectory, and when it lights up white, you have a guaranteed hit. Curve kills are rewarded with an extremely well-operated bullet cam. You even get to curve multiple bullets(which collide and explode at the end of their path) closer to the end of the game.
Of course all those assassin powers come at a price, which is represented by Adrenaline slots. At first you have only one, but after dispatching another boss you get another. They refill when you kill an enemy, which means that a well-placed curve shot comes off almost for free. It's nicely balanced, and makes what many would consider a repetitive mechanic(I mean bullet curves) an enjoyable challenge.
All in all the gameplay is basic TPS+bullet curving for varienty and amazingly fast action. The price for all this turned out to be a funny 4-5 hours till completion. I beat the game on medium difficulty setting in 3.5 hours, and it took another 5 to beat it on the hardest difficulty and collect most of the extras. Unlockable character skins and different game modes are supposed to stretch the fun, but honestly we would prefer to have multiplayer.
And a few words about the presentation. Wanted runs on the Diesel game engine, of which I have never heard before anywhere. It seems to have a lot in common with the Unreal Engine(Yes yes Aliasing issues), but overall the performance is bearable. There are no minor tweaks to graphics excluding resolution changing, and the game itself looks a little outdated. Models and textures are terrible, animation is motion captured but still lacks fluidity and precision. The lighting and HDR, however, are really neat, and we constantly see professional work with Depth of Field. Artistically, the design is good, although dark, cavey environments start to bore out at the end.
Voice acting is suddenly great, with most of the film's talent's making comebacks. Wesley is not voiced by McAvoy, although the tone is expertly imitated. The emotions and the "Go to hell" attitude of the film are being represented here, and very nicely, by the voice acting. The score seems stuck in the last century, with repetitive verses boring the hell out of anyone. Fortunately, we have a mute button.
All in all, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a steady rental candidate and may become the game of the day for movie fans. Although more based on comics, the core essence is still of the film. Unlike many from it's genre, the game doesn't scream that it's marketing garbage made to promote a movie. It would become an even more fun experience if it would've been a little longer, but I guess the longevity would most definitely make bullet curves boring. And we don't want that, do we?