Here is the rare case where the licensed video game property is actually a superior product than the film it’s based upon.  I’m sure a multitude of other reviews have noted this, but the inversion of such a hard and fast video game rule (movie good/licensed game suck) is a phenomenon worth repeating.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the game, is awesome.

I am a whore for action beat-em ups and will even siphon enjoyment out of questionable hack ‘n slash outings like Beowulf or Viking.  As such, I’ve had my eye on Raven’s Wolvie effort since it was announced and eagerly digested screens and direct feeds of the blood-soaked mayhem.  I am pleased to report that this shred-fest has exceeded my lofty expectations.

First the general layout of what to expect.  The plot takes its cues from the film, hitting the big story points.  You’ll square off against Blob and Gambit and eventually Deadpool in some familiar settings.  Some of these instances felt shoe-horned in, no surprise since Raven claimed it had been working with the Wolverine property for several years.

In between the movie-specific levels, you’ll be traipsing through Africa in a series of flashbacks.  It is here, among ruins and spikes and secret switches and movable blocks that a God of War influence is particularly evident.  Wolverine’s platforming and puzzle-solving abilities are certainly Kratos-ish, but is in combat where Raven’s brawler separates itself from its brethren.

Wolverine has a robust selection of attacks at his disposal.  The two-button light/heavy combo list is par for the course, and allows you to carve through multiple characters at a time.  Special Rage moves (replenished by orbs from deceased foes) send Wolverine in a room-clearing frenzy of claw death.  Wolverine can also grab enemies and, if their health is low enough, brutally finish them off.

"I can see your spleen from here!"

And I do mean brutal.  Screw the T for Teen rating.  Wolverine is a shockingly violent game.  The finishing moves are eye-popping in their creative lethality (and vary from enemy to enemy) and when Wolverine skewers the last guy in a room the camera slows allowing the sheets of blood to dissipate in slow motion.  This is visceral combat that gives the gore of Ninja Gaiden 2 a serious challenge for the crown of most virtual bloodletting.

There are just a ton of ways to wreck fools, either through straight combos, special moves, finishing moves or the environmental deaths–my favorite: tossing dudes into concrete mixers–that I never got bored with the gameplay.  Granted I have a high threshold for repetitive action gameplay, but I just was grooving to Raven’s mechanics here.  The variety, the weight of the combat (it feels like Wolverine is tearing into the bad guys), the sound effects, the bloody visuals, it all works, totaling in an experience I am sure to be revisiting over and over again.

Last gameplay note: the lunge.  This simple construct of catapulting Wolverine across the screen, claws out, attacking enemies, is genius and is the kind of maneuver that will surely be copied.

A few shortcomings to tick off though.  While built on the Unreal engine, there are more than a few graphics glitches.  Wolverine will be able to walk through walls or may stand on an enemy’s head and when the action heats up slowdown occurs (though it was rare).  I also ran into some audio bugs.  Speaking of which, the soundtrack wasn’t great.

Gameplay-wise, my biggest criticism is that Wolverine can be too much of a bad-ass; enemies pose little threat.  I died only once from enemy damage and that was in the beginning.  The only other deaths were as a result of platforming screw-ups.  Add that to Wolverine’s regenerating health, I never felt overly challenged.  That’s on normal difficulty, however; we’ll see how hard shakes out.

Replayability is actually solid.  There are unlockables to find which give you old-school comic costumes for Wolverine and blasting through the game again once you’ve mastered the learning curve should be fun in that tear @#$% up kind of way.

Finally, a note about the Weapon X Arena GameStop exclusive content.  If you didn’t pre-order the game from GameStop you’re missing out, alas, because it’s a pretty nifty add-on.  You get four rooms, the Dismemberment Room, the Ladder Challenge, the Environmental Kill and the Custom Enemy room.  All but the Dismemberment Room are pretty cool.  Basically, these are free-form rooms with spawning enemies that you just hack through for a blood good mindless, cathartic smackdown.  Hopefully the add-on will get released as DLC because it’s genuinely worthwhile.

The Verdict: Not Guilty.  Snikt!