Raven gives us a game where you can FINALLY experience Wolverine.
The story starts you off in Africa where you play as Logan (before he became Wolverine), but boy what a beginning. Your plane is shot out of the sky and basically Logan free falls over the jungles of Africa until he lands on top of a soldier, killing him instantly. After fending off a few waves of enemies where you are introduced to the basics of the game, you move on throughout the jungles in an attempt to make contact with Victor Creed (otherwise known as Sabertooth or simply Logan's brother to those that don't know) and the rest of you squad so you can find the ore of adamantium (an indestructible metal alloy). You fight everything from machete wielding maniacs, to machine gunners, a helicopter, and even a gigantic mutant called the Leviathan.
After the events of Africa, Logan leaves the squad and goes to live in Canada with his girlfriend. Eventually Creed finds Logan's girl and "kills" her sending Logan into a rage. You have a fun hate-filled fight against Creed in which he breaks your bone claws and leaves you to writhe in agony. Soon, Wolverine is contacted by Colonel Striker and opts in for the adamantium process in which the alloy coats his bones. Little to Logan's knowledge, Striker is building a "super mutant" using Logan's, as well as other mutants', powers and DNA. So, after the process, Striker orders his troops to kill Logan, Logan hears this, and so starts the reality of the game.
You'll guide Logan through an adventure of revenge and savageness in order to get your hands, or should I say claws, on Creed and Striker. Every now and then the story jumps from the past to the present, to show what happened in Africa and what Logan is going through to get to Creed. You go to many different locations including New Orleans, "The Island", Africa, and a handful more. The same goes with the enemies; depending on the location you'll fight different types of enemies. So lets say your in Africa, you'll fight the enemies I stated before. When you are in New Orleans, you'll fight machine gunners but in SWAT-like uniforms, mutants with multiple arms, grenadiers, etc. You get the idea.
Unlike other Wolverine / X-Men games, this game is rated "M" for mature, and this rating is really what makes the game. Wolverine is able to decapitate, mutilate, dismember, and destroy all of his opponents which range from soldiers to attack robots to other mutants to a full blown Sentinel prototype, which is probably one of the best fights in a game! By giving this game the mature rating, you can FINALLY experience how Wolverine is suppose to be.
Although it's a hack and slash game, Raven software threw in a couple of role playing elements to try and satisfy every aspect of a gamers psyche. You can collect "mutagens" which range from making your claws stronger, to making you heal faster. You also earn points for fighting certain enemies which, once you go up levels, will make fighting those enemies easier.
Ontop of all that coolness, Raven placed action figures around the levels. Once you collect 3 of a certain color, you can unlock different costumes for Wolverine. One is the brown and orange one, theres the yellow and blue one, and then a black and grey one. Its pretty nifty, and I enjoyed the idea.
No game is without its faults though. Being as you're Wolverine, dying is nearly impossible unless your terrible at hack-and-slash games. Just like in all hack-and-slash games, this game gets severely repetitive. Sadly, once you beat the game there isn't much need to go back except to collect all of the dogtags. And finally, fighting the robots before the awesome Sentinel fight is just lame.. They actually drain your rage meter and are just a pain to fight.
Overall, Wolverine: Origins is totally worth the money just to see a game where Wolverine is FINALLY unleashed. Like I said, once you beat it thats it, but it's a really fun game and fighting Gambit was just awesome. Bravo Raven, bravo.