X-Men Origins: Wolverine was officially announced on 15 July 2008 together with “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. It was released worldwide on 1 May 2009 to coincide with the release of the film under the genre of action-adventure with an ESRB rating of M for Mature, for the Xbox 360 platform version. Incorporating Unreal Engine 3 technology, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was published by Activision, distributed by Activision Blizzard and developed by Raven Software for the Xbox 360. The 2009 action-adventure game is loosely based on the film of the same name, in which players take control of James “Logan” Howlett (codenamed Wolverine) and for the first time in a video game, discover the character’s origins. It is said that X-Men Origins: Wolverine takes influences from other action-adventure games such as God of War and Devil May Cry, with the Uncaged version of the game featuring a large amount of blood and gore. In terms of the storyline, it comprises of a combination of the Wolverine backstory which is being explore in the movie of the same name as well as original story created by Raven Software. The lead developer, Dan Vondrak claims that roughly 90% of the movie storyline is featured in the game. That portion makes up only less than half of the overall video game story, while the remaining balance is exclusive to the game. However, the primary storyline is the back-story of Wolverine who uncovers his origins from his birth in the 19th century, his military service and eventual recruitment to Col. William Stryker’s Weapon X program, and eventually his confrontation with Weapon XI. The game is set in locations including Africa which is implied to be Wakanda, due to Stryker’s interest in meteorite desposits in the regions, Alkali Lake, Project Wideawake and New Orleans.
Reviews
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is said to give players new insight into how much damage indestructible, razor-sharp claws can do to a human body. It revels in gore, with decapitations, eviscerations, and mutilations drenching the screen in blood. However, it may also be derivative, a cakewalk and at time buggy. Fortunately, the sheer visceral impact of the extreme violence is enough to cover that up. The decent gameplay in X-Men Origins: Wolverine helps to back up the violence in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It is said that the game’s environment, especially its indoor ones are plain-looking, featuring various corridors and laboratories which lack real distinctiveness. However, the characters in X-Men Origins: Wolverine fair a bit better, sporting good animations although lacking a little in the detail and sharpness departments.
“Should any of the criticism I’ve launched keep you from playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine — Uncaged Edition? No, this is an awesome guilty pleasure. Usually, I’ll sit down to review a repetitive game that’s filled with the same attacks and just tear it apart because the repetition sucks the fun out of the experience. X-Men Origins has repetition in spades, but it’s the kind of repetition Wolverine/action game fans are going to love; I mean, can you get sick of literally slicing someone in two and watching the blood explode across the screen? Can you get sick of hoisting a bad guy in the air and savagely stabbing him in the gut over and over again? Can you get sick of watching Wolverine get beaten down to his adamantium skeleton only to sit there and marvel as his muscle and skin grown back in real time? I can’t.
The story is convoluted, the bosses are boring and the whole experience isn’t that deep, but this game sure is fun.” (IGN, 2009)
