Raven Software and Activision look to take the Unreal Engine and build the Wolverine game of our dreams. They succeed in some ways, bringing together a story from the movie and adding in their own special twist. Having seen the movie and played as much of the game as possible, you will have to realize that the game takes bits of story pieces from the movie and strings them up around the games own storyline. Raven Software was working on this Wolverine game long before it was granted the movie license and claims this is far from being a movie tie-in.

The opening of the game sees Wolverine aboard a helicopter with Team X that suddenly is attacked and brought down. Wolverine is suddenly skydiving straight towards an enemy gate and lands as if an asteroid just hit the earth killing the solider beneath him. If you didn’t get the fact that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a ‘mature’ rated title, then you do now. Just after getting up you’ll learn two quick things about the game, you can use the environment to deal even greater punishment on your enemies. The second thing is you will learn how to lunge at enemies from across the map. This will help you tremendously in the later levels and it never gets old, even though it’s prone to spamming. This is also where you’ll learn your basic attacks using the X and Y buttons and how to grab enemies with the B button. As you continue through the game and gain experience, you’ll learn more of Wolverine’s special moves that’ll help you in combat.

You’ll notice that the game takes heavy inspiration from God of War and it certainly doesn’t try to hide it. This brawler is built around using a variety of combos and instant kill moves. While there are a lot of quick time events (QTEs), they are scattered and are few and far between. As you reach deeper into the game, you might notice that there are video logs akin to games like Doom 3 or more recently Dead Space, these video computer logs help bridge in the back story if you’re interested. There is also one new ability added to give the game a bit of depth, and with Feral Senses, activated by pressing up on the d-pad, you’ll be able to see hidden enemies, objects and where you need to make your next move.

Outside of slicing and dicing, X-Men Origins Wolverine draws in a bit of RPG elements to give the game some depth and at least some sort of replayability. As you level up, you earn skill points in which you can add to your collection of moves and upgrade for strength through the later levels. Even though the game lasts around a good 8 hours or so, you’ll find yourself heading back to that character menu to upgrade your health, claws and special moves because you’ll need it. There are such moves like Claw Spin, Claw Cyclone and more. An interesting addition is Berserker mode which when activated (using the B button mixed with the right trigger) gives Wolverine an insane amount of speed and strength, think of it as when Mario jumps up and grabs the shiny star to turn invisible and instantly knock over anything in his path.

As a side note you’ll also find collectibles throughout the game. Dog tags which are attached to dead soldiers will help you gain extra experience and help you level up faster. Action figures will unlock various costumes, so you’ll be able to wear the nostalgic yellow spandex for instance. Finally we have the DNA icons which will increase and heal your health, so if you’re in the middle of battle you can save one of these on the map for when you need it because there are times where enemies will flood the screen overpowering you to the point of frustration.

There are only a few problems with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. There is almost no replayability and the fact that there isn’t much content to further give you a reason to revisit the game. Of course, there is the hope that it will come in the form of downloadable content somewhere down the line. Aside from unlocking hard mode after beating the game or getting the extra level from pre-order, there isn’t much to look forward to after the credits roll.

With Wolverine and his regeneration ability you really won’t be seeing any “Game Over” screens unless you decide to somehow jump off the cliff during one of the levels. So, in essence there really is no way to kill Logan. Some of the early boss battles just have you jumping on the back of huge manufactured monsters and slicing their back till they bleed out. Not very exciting until you reach the highlighted boss battles like the Sentinel Mark I, Gambit or even the much-loved Deadpool.

Finally, the most obvious problem is the puzzles. Throughout the game you’ll run into a fair amount of puzzles and even one will have you scratching your head. This is where the Feral Sense ability comes into play greatly to guide you in the direction to solve these puzzles. However, sometimes things aren’t quite as clear cut as you think. So, in the end of it all you’ll find yourself doing things over and over again before the end result ends up being something so easy you’ll want to bang your head against something.

The graphics definitely aren’t that bad for a game using Unreal Engine 3. It’s surprising to see how the engine is able to produce colors outside of brown and grey that we’re used to seeing from Gears of War. There is one scene in the trailer that shows Wolverine in a tub of water as he gets injected with the Adamantium to become indestructible that is about as cinematic as the game gets with high powered graphics. Outside of that, the engine seems to be able to handle the constant stream of enemies as nothing seems too out of the ordinary or jittery while the camera moves around to keep pace with you. Environments are nicely done and manage to convey what’s needed to get the job done, though the camera does get “stuck” here and there and finds itself in rather strange views. There’s nothing too out of place and all the characters are nicely rendered so you won’t notice anything strange.

Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and even Danny Huston all came aboard to lend their voices to their respective characters. Raven Software made sure they weren’t messing around when it came to the likeness of each character, especially when Wolverine himself looks much like Hugh Jackman himself, so it’s pretty obvious the character needed to sound like him. Outside of that, everything feels as if it should be blasted through a surround sound system. The musical score is very light so you won’t hear much from it to even care about its presence. The only sound you’ll need to hear is the Wolverine’s claws slicing up those enemies left and right.

Blood. If this Wolverine game ended up getting a Teen rating from the ESRB, there would definitely be a thousand screams in horror as most movie-tie in games ends up turning into. It would be a shame especially since Wolverine is a character that is just dying for blood. However, when the ESRB announced that this game was rated M for Mature, a big grin ran across my face and was something that never went away even while playing the game for this review. The blood factor in this game is magnified ten fold upon the first cut of the enemy. The fact that you can also use the environment for your kills is another big plus. Throwing enemies against the electric vent or a sharp metal pole never gets old.

X-Men Origins Wolverine is a game you should definitely rent first if for any reason you’re unsure about whether or not to make the purchase. There are definitely things that will get even the most experienced gamer confused and frustrated. Besides all of that, X-Men Origins Wolverine is a fairly solid third-person action game thanks to the Unreal 3 Engine it’s powered on. You most likely won’t get bored by the constant stream of slicing and dicing dudes every single level. If you managed to pre-order the game and picked it up, you’ll at least get some replayability just from the challenge room level alone. Overall, X-Men Origins: Wolverine should be a great addition to your library if for the sake of achievement collecting alone.