For what X-Men Origins: Wolverine is, it's certainly good enough.

User Rating: 7.5 | X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Uncaged Edition) PS3
Games and X-Men have had a sordid past. It all started when LJN misunderstood what it feels like to the real X-Men on the NES, until, at last on the Sega Genesis finally got the formula realtively right, and X-Men Legends on the PS2 showed some potential. X-Men Origins: Wolverine seems like a game that really feels like the purest Wolverine game yet, but is that seemingly faded philosphy true?

The story of X-Men Origins: Wolverine sees Wolverine fighting for a special Canadian army, with his selfish and self-absorbed brother named: Victor. After a disagreement from Wolverine and his brother over a precious villiager's rock, Wolverine has decided he has had enough of his brother and decides to lead of a life of his own. All the time however, old friends and the Conoel from the Army have been trying to lure Wolverine back to the base, so secretly his power could be used for the bases' Weapon X.

The story of X-Men Origins: Wolverine at least deserves credit for having solid fan service from the early days of the comic. The cutscenes, which contain Wolverine's events in the Canadian warfare, are done with the same energetic pacing and flavour of X-Men in it's golden age. The biggest problem with the game's narrative though however is that it is overly simplistic. X-Men Origins: Wolverine lacks both the involving energy and emotional complexity that is usually accosiated with the X-Men characters, and, at times, it feels like it is hard to believe it is inspired from a blockbuster spinoff. However, for a simple plot, it keeps the game's gears turning. And for the story of a game, it is at least serving it's purpose.

The gameplay of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a hack-n-slash action adventure at the purest, if not, most typical sense of the phrase. Wolverine uses his claws to slash any number of foes that appear on the screen and the attacks come in a wide variety of different styles: light attacks, heavy attacks and grabs. Wolverine also has enhanced feral senses, which the player can use to track down and kill an enemy.

The lack of depth in X-Men Origins' control scheme is both a joy and a curse in the title. It is a joy in the sense as the game's combat is functional, and is more than rewarding to easily see Wolverine slice an enemy. It is both a curse, because X-Men Origins is too much of a cakewalk, and poses any sort of the depth seen in such titles such as God of War. There is very little thought required to beat X-Men Origins, and for a reasonably well-done title, that is a very sad thing. However, X-Men Origins, at least it's fun, whilst it lasts.

The presentation of X-Men Origins is consistently up to a high standard. The levels, all containing a strong variety of different locations to travel through, and all shining of great detail, makes X-Men Origins graphically great. The voice talent, whilst the orginial actors from the film are abscent, the replacement voice cast just do as good as job as any, hitting all the right emotions each character is feeling at that point.


X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a very fun game, if you can tolerate the thin plot, bugs, and generally too easy gameplay. X-Men Origins manages to feel like Wolverine, in, whilst a very obvious way, really does the job. It's flawed, but fun to finally properly unleash the misunderstood mutant's claws.