Editor's Say - "Passable" "Not what i was expecting" Find out what i though...
Wanted: Weapons of Fate review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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*****Introduction*****
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The Good:
Curving Bullets – Great soundtrack
The Bad:
More than a few technical glitches – Pathetic boss fights – Too easy – Too short – Weak A.I. system – Very cheesy voice dialogue – Redundant game-play
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Wanted, as a game is fair but somewhat disappointing at the same time. Both the film and the game are based on the graphic novels by Mark Miller, JG Jones and Paul Mounts. The story that revolves around the movie and the game are not 100% that of the story from the Wanted graphic novels, but they do capture the main concept that made Wanted a popular graphic novel, the action, the violence, and the coolness. While Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a cool game, unfortunately it suffered from a lot of problems that held it back from being, a good title. Wanted: Weapons of Fate would not have been any better than a good game if the problems it suffered with where addressed, but it should have been a whole lot more.
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*****The Plot*****
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Story:
Wanted: Weapons of Fate continues the story from the movie. Wesley Gibson, the main character of the game (voiced by Jimmi Simpson, not James McAvoy from the movie), is in search for his mother's killer. Wesley has a recurring dream about his mother holding him as a baby in her arms before getting shoot by an unknown person hidden by a shadow. Wesley is out to find the killer and truth behind his mother's death, and will kill anyone that stands in his way.
The basic concept of the plot to Wanted is rather good (not as interesting as the graphic novel), but the plot in the game just feels redundant. Some of the characters from the film are in the game i.e. Wesley (of course), his father Cross and Sloan, as well as new characters, but the basic plot in Weapons of Fate is not really that appealing or rather interesting. It's an average plot that could have easily have been non-existent, or forgotten.
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*****The Graphics*****
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Overall Design:
The graphics are not bad, but it suffers from a lot of technical problems and glitches. Surfaces and textures look flat and dull. Sometimes background environment i.e. walls, objects, and even the ground you walk no can look transparent making it very hard and annoying to see where your going due to graphic glitches, causing you to either reset the game or checkpoint.
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*****The Game-Play*****
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Game-Play:
The game-play is not bad but again it suffers from glitches and frame-rate problems. The game-play resembles that of Gears of War where you run from cover to cover shooting your enemies on the way, except Gears of War is good game, and Weapons of Fate is just ok. The game is way to easy, even on The Killer mode. You'll very rarely find yourself in a tight spot where there is no cover and moving from cover to cover is as easy as the push of a button. When in cover the camera centres on you making it very hard to see you're surrounding without actually peeking around. Again referring back to Gears of War, you can still see your surrounding when in cover and it was still a challenging game, but in Weapons of Fate about 80% of the screen (when in cover position) is covered by the characters, which can make it hard to see and may even be hard to get used to at first. This becomes more of a problem with spider rifle and turret gun scenes (both in which are unavoidable). When using the spider rifle (or the turret gun), you can't move from your current covered position. As hard as it is trying to see when in a covered position, even time to look or peek up from cover you automatically zoom in with your sniper rifle making you very disoriented as to where your enemies are. Using the turret gun is probably the most redundant thing in Weapons of Fate. Just like using the sniper rifle, you can't move from your covered position. You use the turret gun as a means of cover, so the most damage the turret gun takes, the less cover you have. When the armour of the turret gun is fully damaged, you can no longer go into cover, thus leaving you partially an easy none-moving target for your enemies. Again like using the sniper rifle, you are limited to what you can see in cover making you constantly taking aim just to see where your enemies are. Every time you take aim, whether your playing on easy, normal or hard, it seem you always get hit, making the sniper rifle and turret gun scenes more frustrated and annoying instead of fun and challenging.
Throughout the game you play two characters both within two different time periods, Wesley Gibson being in present time (after the evens of the movie) and his father Cross set in the past when Wesley was a baby. As you play you'll unlock more playable characters but they all have the same abilities, animation movements and characteristics making the other characters not really that appealing to play as. Playing as Wesley Or any other unlocked character) you only has one pistol, and playing as Cross you use twin pistol for much faster gunfights. Later on in the game Wesley inherits his father's suit and guns so that only limits you to two different weapons in the game. Whenever you kill an enemy, his weapon is replaced by ammunition for your weapon. You have two main abilities within game-play. One ability (probably the most used ability) is curving bullet, which is definitely the coolest thing about the game and no matter how many times you see or do it, it never gets old. There are two types of bullet bending effects in the game. Using Wesley's normal pistol does a normal curve effect whilst using Cross's twin pistols curves out a series of bullets at your target, causing the bullets to explode with contact. Your second ability is a special jump out slow motion shot. This can only be done when in cover. Bending bullets is definitely the most satisfying thing in the game. Sometime at random, when triggering a bullet bending effect, the camera follows your bullet in slow motion, which making bending bullets even most exhilarating to watch. In order to do your abilities you will need to kill enemies in order to get an adrenaline boost. The first level just consists of you going from A to B and killing a boss at the end, from then on you will gain one adrenaline boost, thus allowing you to bend bullets. You get a total of four adrenaline boost throughout your playthrough. Bending bullets requires one adrenaline boost, while bending explosive bullets and performing jump out shots require two. In addition to your bending bullets and slow motion skills you also have a melee attack. Using the melee attack is a one hit kill to any enemy in the game, even with a boss. There are 9 acts (levels) to playthrough and each act is just as linear as the last, consisting of you moving from one area within an act to another repeatedly killing enemies without any fear of getting lost. At the end of an act you are granted with a boss. The game-play suffers from a lot of frame-rate problems causing the game to slow down and sometimes speed up. The main problem with the game-play is a glitch that affects your gaming sensibilities, your enemies can take way to much damage to kill. This does not happen until later levels (I don't know if the game company intentionally did it to make your enemies harder when near the end), but most of the enemies take way to many bullets to kill. Sometimes you'll find yourself wasting a full magazine clip shooting an enemy in the face, when you know clearing your hitting him in the face, and sometimes the enemy jerks indicating the bullet made contact, but nothing. Sometimes even using your bending bullets ability doesn't do much ether. The enemy A.I. system is quite poor. Most of the time enemies feel the need to cover next to exploding barrels and mines. There are enemies that wield shotguns that can kill you in a few hits, guys with sniper rifles that just prove to be most annoying then anything else, and guys that feel the need to run with knife in hand screaming straight at you. The boss fights are pathetic, seriously no thought process at all. All bosses are extremely easy to kill, no matter what difficulty setting your on. Throughout your playthrough you will encounter some slow motion action cut scenes that require you to move a crosshairs around the screen shooting very slow moving objects (bullets) and enemies within a time limit. It is cool the first time you see it, but shooting very slow moving object becomes very boring after awhile.
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*****The Sound*****
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Sound Design:
The sound design is not bad but again it suffers from miner glitches. Sometimes a certain sound effect, whether it's the sound of a gunshot, expiation, in game voice acting or any other sound effects, it can get cancelled out due to other sound effects over lapping. Slow motion sound effect i.e. bullets whizzing through the air are great with surround sound, but it's not so great when sometimes all you hear in nothing due to them getting cancelled out. The music is great and is taking from the movie. Listening to Danny Elfman's "The Little Things" Wanted theme song is awesome when taking down enemies, but that can't be said for the voice acting, and performances. Wesley Gibson is voiced by Jimmi Simpson and not James McAvoy and Sloan is voiced by Tom Kane and not Morgan Freeman as like in the movie. The voice dialogue can be very cheesy. The movie has cheesy dialogue as well, but it was still entertaining. Some of the voice dialogue can be so cheesy you'll cringe, like did he really say that? Overall cut scene and voice dialogue within cut scene are not bad, but again there cheesy.
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*****Life Value*****
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Lifespan / Replay Value:
Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a short game, and the replay value is close to average. It will probably take you 4 hours to finish the game on your first playthrough (I did anyway) and it will probably take you about 10 to 15 hours to unlock everything in the game, and collect all the trophies (again, I did anyway). Lets take Metal Gear Solid 4. MGS4 is a short is. I mean you could probably finish it within 4 hours, which is expected with a MGS game. But it's not the length of the game that makes a game fun to play. Metal Gear Solid 4 has a lot of replay value because of it's game-play. With Wanted: Weapons of Fate, I was expecting the game to be somewhere within the 10 hour mark to finish on a first playthrough. There is no multiplayer online feature, no co-op play, no versus mode and a game-play is just repetitive and not really fun in a long run.
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*****Editor's Final Thought*****
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Overall Wanted: Weapons of Fate was not a bad first playthrough but after that, it's just numbs your brain. The visuals are not to inspiring. The game-play again is not bad on your first playthough. The game suffers from a lot of technical graphics problems, game-play and sound glitches that make the game less more appealing. The awkward and redundant sniper rifle and turret gun scenes, the quite easy and less challenging A.I. system, the pathetic boss fights. I was disappointed at the fate that James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman did not voice the same characters from that of the film. Wanted: Weapons of Fate may disappoint Wanted fans but overall, it's not the worst game in this generation, and it's not bad for a weekend rental. I can definitely tell you one thing positive, it's an easy Platinum.
Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a game you should not expect a lot out of and you should not expect it in being anywhere near the top title out today. It's not a bad game, but it's will be forgotten within the months to come.
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*****FINAL OVERALL SCORE*****
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Story - 5/10
Online Multiplayer - N/A
Life Value - 4/10
Presentation - 5/10
Graphics - 6.5/10
Atmosphere - 6.5/10
Game-Play - 6/10
Controls - 6/10
Sound Effects - 7/10
Concept - 5/10
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***** EDITOR'S OVERALL THOUGHT SCROE: 6/10 *****
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Wanted: Weapons of Fate review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]
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