Going into Marvel’s Wolverine, I was incredibly excited. Insomniac proved with Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 that their game-making chops were the next level, and so, with a character whose powers are different, I was excited to see how they would tackle Wolverine.
The game left us, well, whelmed.
What’s the deal with Logan?
The game opens with Wolverine as a feral beast as a nice man opens his hand to him to gain his trust, then we jump forward to him on a daring adventure with Sabretooth and Mystique. This adventure takes them face to face with Omega Red, who spends plenty of time kicking their asses. This eventually leads to them saving the trapped, nice Mr Sinister. I mean Mr Esssex, who was imprisoned. I mean with a name like Mr Sinister, he’s clearly nice, right?
Well, it turns out that Mr Sinister was a nice fellow who liked to take care of his mutants, and built Team X to help rid the world of baddies who want to stop mutants existing. Logan left the team because he likes his space and for personal reasons, and his coming back has annoyed members of the team who never quit. Another mission has them looking into something suspicious at a nice mansion, where they need to save a bunch of mutants including the Spider-Man: Brand New Day hero, Jean Gray.
Then the story follows through Wolverine discovering more about what’s going on, good guys and bad guys having surprising moments, and so much more. If there is one thing I won’t criticise, it’s the story. It’s great, it’s a comic book adventure, with the dark twists and turns you expect from X-Men/Wolverine stories. I was solidly gripped up to the end, where it was still dropping surprises on me.
So what’s it like to play?
OK time for me to do some criticism. It’s great. The problem is, I wanted more than great. For the most part, the game is a solid action game and nothing exemplifies this as much as combat. Here you use a series of combos using two buttons, and some additional abilities by holding a shoulder button and then waiting for them to cool down to use them again.
You get to customise which special moves you use, like a healing boost, or a spinning blade attack. But this is where game and fantasy kinda collide uncomfortably. The super strong, super powerful Wolverine needs a break before he spins and slashes again. Even if that break is running around and slashing at enemies with standard slashes. I suspect this is where my bias is hanging over a bit from the excellence that is Spider-Man. Insomniac made the Spider-Man games in every way feel like the amazing Spider-Man. Here the game feels like a good third person action game.
For the most part, the game is polished, it looks fantastic, and plays silky smooth most of the time. It is a narrative heavy linear action game with linear levels. This is far from a criticism. Not every game needs to be an open world, and this game definitely benefits a lot from being a more focussed story. But there are moments where this hurts it with minor annoyances. Like when the narrative requires you to press X next to an object. There were heaps of times when the character’s position wasn’t quite right, so the X to interact would pop up and then disappear. Then I would turn around a couple of times, walk away and back, and wait for that sweet X to pop up again. This isn’t uncommon in games, but in linear, story-focussed games it becomes much more apparent.
Time to deal with that urgent threat, or take a break to dig into your mind!
Another issue the game creates is the side quests. Here Mr Sinister tries to help Wolverine uncover some memories. This happens throughout the game as a weird tree takes you to a memory of his cabin. Here you get to unlock challenges which get you some sweet perks by doing time challenges. Maybe you need to beat a bunch of enemies, maybe you need to traverse an area. Whatever it is, it’s worth doing. These unlock some of Wolverine’s memories, and actually add some serious depth to the story. But again, this is one of those things where a linear story game creates some weird moments. Like running through a Trask facility to deal with the time-sensitive threat, but the weird roots popped up, so you go follow those to take a break?
The game does allow a lot of customisation, some great, some pretty meh. There are a selection of suits you get to unlock, which varies from classic suits, to battle worn suits, to leather jacket styles. I mixed up the suits regularly throughout my playthrough. You can also choose his claws, which even when I was selecting them, on the character model I could hardly tell a difference between any of the metal claws. Given they are purely aesthetic, unless you are taking screenshots and zooming in, the options are effectively bone claws or metal claws.
A great Wolverine game
If you are a comic or Wolverine fan, then I highly recommend this game. It is so much fun, it’s a cracking story, and a lot of gratuitous violence. There is so much to enjoy here, but I still feel like something is lacking. I enjoyed the hell out of it though, so if you want a violent action game with a fun comic story, you will find it here.
Wolverine is a really great game, but nothing more. And that's kinda the issue, I was hoping for more. If you want a fun, violent Wolverine game, you will enjoy it! Just don;t expect to be blown away.
