X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Certain types of games are maligned right out of the gate, for example we have had so many awful games based on movies or comic book properties that it is hard to trust new ones to be any good. To make things worse, this has been a two-way street; many video game properties have been adapted into awful comic books and movies. That means that the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game for the PC already had two strikes against it, since it is adapted from a comic book movie. You could add some more negative preconceptions to the list, such as console port or God of War clone, but honestly despite the odds it still manages to succeed in entertaining its audience.

You play as Logan aka Wolverine and each chapter of this game serves to retell a little bit of the characters history while giving you the opportunity to carve up opponents with the claws that stick out of your knuckles. Besides the claws, Logan was also born with the ability to survive and heal from all sorts of damage, so bullet holes close up before your eyes and even when he gets big chunks of skin burned off it is a matter of minutes before he looks like nothing happened to him. Now if this sounds a bit too gruesome for you, I recommend skipping the game because it is nothing compared to what Logan does to his enemies. His metallic claws are always chopping off limbs or punching through peoples bodies, and when you have a bunch of enemies attacking you at once it quickly devolves into a button mashing massacre.

Seeing how the characters history is vague and contrived, I will continue to focus on his powers instead. His enhanced senses allow you to study your surroundings and detect invisible threats or hints to solving puzzles. Also your character is quite agile and I never tired of watching him jump across chasms to pounce on far off foes. Despite all these advantages you still feel like you are in danger from time to time, so although you can finish the game without losing a single fight you will often get very close to getting killed.

The thing I dislike about the game are the artificial dangers they added, in the form of poorly designed jumping sequences and challenges that will kill you instantly if you fail. And failing outright sucks in this game, it means that you need to reload the game and doing so takes way too long. An example of this is a segment where your healing powers are taken away for no reason other than to make you appreciate them more. During this period you are extremely vulnerable and you will find yourself dying, taking a minute to reload, and then dying again. Being a PC gamer I rarely find myself wanting to throw my keyboard across the room, but those awful challenges really got me close.

Finally, despite the excellent battles the game provides, there is little in the way of variety. One of the examples of this are the Wendigo Prototypes, humans altered through some experiment to turn into gigantic muscled monsters. Your first fight against one is exciting and dangerous, but the more of these things you kill the more boring the encounters get until you finally just don’t care. Had they avoided abusing mini bosses and instant kill challenges I could have called this an excellent game, but in the end I only recommend it for fans of the character or for PC gamers who want a very console-flavored experience.