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Of all of the myriad of comic book titled produced over the past 25 years of my collecting, one in particular has captured my attention more often than all of the others combined. I'm talking about the Mutant powered superhero underdogs of the Marvel Comics' Universe, The Uncanny X-men. While other kids (and adults) clamored over Spider-Man, Superman, The Fantastic Four, and other popular comic titles, the X-Men always had the ability to draw me into their set of colorful pages like bugs to an electric zapper. Not a surprise that a ton of other fans have sprouted over the years, no doubt fascinated by the excellent and realistic writing, incredible character portrayals, and the mostly superb art and imagery found in each and every issue. Even less of a surprise that the latest X-Men film adaptation, X-Men United by writer/director Bryan Singer, scored big in the box office just as the original film did back when released back in 2000. Unfortunately, the latest video game adaptation of the X-Men, Wolverine's Revenge, fell short of the glorious comic book and film versions of the superhero troupe, causing us to wonder why publishers and producers hurry to shove these types of games out the door when they've obviously not ready for general consumption.
One of the first problems we came across lied within the game's controls. A direct port from the PS2 and X-Box versions of the game, Wolverine's Revenge utilized the typical action arcade setup, making anything but a gamepad useless for playing the game. But even having a decent gamepad didn't actually make the controls that much easier to use, turning the game into a 'mash-pad' fest during pretty much every moment of the gameplay. This was a real let down especially when obtaining Wolverine's combo moves later in the game (and half of the time, we just couldn't figure out how to purposely use those, either). Even regular combat was a mess beyond the control problem, due to the fact that the games' graphics engine would slow drag every time more than two or three thugs entered the frat at one time. Simply put, the frame rate would drop to abysmal levels, giving us the impression that our video card wasn't doing a single thing at all. Unfortunately for Wolverine's Revenge designers, the problem was with their game and not my year old hardware. Not only that, but during extremely graphic intensive moments (like multiple explosions, tons of enemy on screen, and other goodies) the game would just give up entirely, crashing our poor PC entirely. A very disappointing experience, to say the least.
For all intents and purposes, Wolverine's Revenge played like a pre-beta game that should have been gone over with a fine toothed comb before being released to the general public. I'm sure that the big screen release of X-Men United had something to do with Activision putting out the title when it did, but it still doesn't excuse the plethora of problems that are inherent within Wolverine's Revenge. One just can't help but to think that another 6 months or so of refining this title would have done a hell of a lot of good in the end, leaving us with a well produced game worthy of the grand Marvel Comic's heritage that is the X-Men. Instead, we were left with a lackluster game for the PC, and a bad taste in our mouths.
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Loosely
based on the adventure behind the latest big screen X-Men installment,
Wolverine's Revenge is a third-person action adventure game starring everyone's
favorite Canadian claw-wielding mutant, Wolverine. Players are immersed in the
past and present exploits of the X-Man, following his origins within the secret
Weapon X program, to the more modern adventures with Professor Xavier's Mutant
Super-Hero Team, the X-Men. The entire arc of the game revolves around
Wolverine's hunt to locate the cure to the deadly Shiva Virus implanted within
him during the late 1960's. With only 48 left to live, Wolverine must not only
find the creators of the Virus (and hopefully its antidote) but must also face
many of his archrivals from both the past and present, including Magneto,
Sabretooth, and even the mythical Wendigo. As
an X-Men game, Wolverine's Revenge does an accurate job of not only portraying
the main characters littered throughout the game, it also keeps the X-Men/Mythos
and storylines intact (the Weapon X subplot and the addition of the little known
villain character Wendigo are two examples of this). The sorry writing we've
seen with other games based on popular comic book titles didn't' ruin the game
this time. Even the voiceovers used in the game were of high caliber, with such
high end actors as Patrick Stewart (Professor X) and Mark Hamill (Wolverine)
adding their obvious talents to the mix (apparently movie star Hugh Jackman was
not available to reprise his on-screen role for the game). Wolverine's famous
mutant abilities such as his super-healing factor, enhanced senses, and
berserker rage were also accurately portrayed in the game, right along side the
X-Man's trademarked indestructible Adamantium claws and skeleton. Even with all
of the positive aspects going into Wolverine's Revenge, everything seemed to
fall apart once the game got going: never able to pick up the pieces again
throughout the majority of its gameplay.
When
Wolverine's Revenge was running unhindered, we found the gameplay excessively
repetitive: fight tons of cloned bad guys then sneak through some obstacles,
wash and repeat. The occasional pop-up of a boss like figure (like some of the
Weapon X rejects at the beginning of the game, for example) added a little bit
of diversity to the gameplay, but not enough to keep our attention for too long.
The trip from Wolvie's past to the present did add a bit more dimension to the
game, however, especially when big time toughs like Magneto and Juggernaut
showed up to pound our X-Man into the ground. Adding some interesting power-ups
like changing Wolverine's Uniform from the classic look to the one featured in
the latest movie was also a nice feature, but nothing different than in other
super-hero games like last years release of Spider-Man. The added bonuses like
uncovering classic covers of X-Men and Wolverine comics from the past 20 years
was also pretty neat to check out during breaks in the gameplay (you have to
search through many secret crannies and nooks in order to find these goodies, by
the way). Unfortunately for the players, these 'breaks' in the gameplay became
too common, due to the arcade save game aspect incorporated into Wolverine's
Revenge (where saves occur at specific points in the game only). Just when we
thought that game designers had learned that having to replay the save levels
over and over again when we get aced instead of giving us the at-will save
option that most of us approve of, the later gets thrown at us again for no good
reason except to annoy us incessantly.