X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a hack ‘n’ slash tie-in with the film of the same name, which features Hugh Jackman in all his chiseled, pointy glory as Wolverine, the most badass of all the X-Men. From the demo I get a feeling Wolverine is going to be a decent game, especially for a movie tie-in. It won’t beat God of War but, then again, you probably weren’t expecting it to.

The demo starts with an unskippable 3 minute CGI cutscene (which looks great) that features a lot of blood and slow motion and a bit of storyline before you’re thrown out of an exploding helicopter into what is a wholly unnecessary freefall to ground that does, admittedly, end in a pretty damn cool way – Logan slams claws-first onto an enemy, gets up, relocates his arm, then you take control.

The controls are simple; square is a light attack, triangle is a heavy attack, circle grabs and X jumps. L1 does a Shinobi-style dash that can be used for dashing between enemies if you so wish to. After beating the enemies you run through a large gate and, if you’re thorough and don’t mind getting wet, discover that you’ll be able to pick up dog tags from dead bodies found throughout the game which grant you extra experience points. XP is used to level up, and when you do level up you’ll glow, roar a bit, get a +5 health bonus and possibly a new move. You earn XP from killing enemies too, obviously.

A little ahead, you get a new move, called the ‘Lunge’. Hold R1 to lock onto an enemy, use the right analogue to cycle between enemies if you need to, then press L1 and Wolverine will launch himself at the enemy, stabbing him with the claws. This doesn’t always kill your enemy instantly, so you can then stab him a few more times by hitting square a few times, jump and do a strong stab with triangle or throw the enemy with circle.

One of the other moves you unlock through the demo is an attack you activate by holding triangle, causing Logan to charge and, when you let go, launch an enemy into the air and jump up after him, allowing you to launch him away from you and look awesome. Another move is the rage power Claw Spin. This one is unlocked towards the end of the demo and turns you into a cyclone of claws, it’s pretty devastating.

The graphics are pretty good, they’re not brilliant but they’re not bad, either, and they’re not made any better by the fact that it’s running on the Unreal Engine like so many other games are lately. Enemies’ limbs and heads will be hacked off in a shower of blood and you can even cut people in half, so the age rating is definitely earned when it comes to gore and the graphics pull it off pretty well. Gameplay is pretty fun, but, as previously stated, it isn’t a God of War beater, and you can tell just from the demo that it isn’t, but it is definitely enjoyable enough.

Another problem I found was that the most ‘woah’ moments weren’t actually controlled by the player. There’s a bit involving a bridge and the whole jumping around bit that makes you gasp is just a cutscene. It’s a pretty cool cutscene, sure, but there’s no interactivity in it. This is closely followed by a climbing section which felt both dull and unresponsive; you climbed a bit, hit an enemy, climbed a bit more, hit an enemy, and you just did that exact same thing again a few more times; there was no challenge. Hitting whilst climbing felt a little unresponsive, as it took a good chunk of a second toto attack after hitting the button. It’s not really a huge problem but it pulls you out of the experience a bit.

However, from the demo, the game certainly seems like it could be the best movie tie-in for a while. It’s probably worth a rent at least – if we can, we’ll get the full game and review it. Until then, you’ll just have to judge for yourself. Download the demo and, if you like it, buy the game. Hugh Jackman says you must.

Filed under: Games, Review, X