N-Philes

X2: Wolverine's Revenge

Posted by Archived.

The summer movie season officially kicked off May 2nd with the release of X2: X-Men United. While I didn't like the first movie, I still went to see the second and didn't care for this one too much either. There wasn't nearly enough action in my opinion. Alongside the movie Activision, Marvel, and Genepool have released X2: Wolverine's Revenge. The game has a different storyline than its movie counterpart and more action. Does this mean that I enjoyed the game more than I did the movie? Well, perhaps.

Story

Of all the X-Men, Wolverine is probably the most famous. His mutant healing ability is cool and all, but what really sets him apart are those adamantium claws. The story of the game starts off when Wolverine had the adamantium grafted to his bones. At the same time the Shiva virus was injected into his body. While a normal human would have died within a year, Wolverine's healing ability has allowed him to hold out for longer than most. Now he has 48 hours to return to Alkali Lake where it all started for Wolverine and find the anti-virus.

Gameplay

The game actually kicks off when Wolverine first had the operation done to him. The first levels teach all that needs to be known as to how to fight and survive as Logan. Assuming you have help on in the menu each time you try something for the first time a pop up window will stop play for a second and inform on how to do a maneuver. The system is well implemented in the game, not getting in the way, but still allowing for a new player to adjust to the system. Being thrown in immediately against guards sets up the game as an action game and the first thing that needs to be learned is the combat system. The combat system is actually quite simple, intuitive and fun. Hit A to punch and B to kick, while repeatedly hitting them will make for fancier and more deadly combos. The game will automatically lock Wolverine to his attacker so that punches and kicks are true. The lock works really well except for at the beginning, when you can't lock on to an enemy manually. This makes for random kicks and punches in hopes of landing a first punch. The other problem is that most enemy guards have guns which they'll use when you're locked on a different enemy, if you're not positioned correctly. While this doesn't happen too often, it makes for cheap health loss when a separate enemy is shooting at you and locking off is iffy on the L button.

While beating up enemies, you will incur damage. No worries, since Logan has the ability to heal, right? In the comics, yes he does, in the game he does also but only when his claws are sheathed. You are actually encouraged to walk around with your claws sheathed to heal. There are even parts of the game where you'll need to stand around and wait for your health to come back, which could take close to two minutes. This gets to be very boring and frustrating standing around waiting for bars to fill up. I even changed to a hockey game while waiting to heal. While actually fighting you can't regain health so there's no difference in that regard when locked on to an enemy. There is yet another reason, though, to keep Wolverine's claws sheathed. When Wolverine has his claws out he can kill opponents quickly, but can't get them dizzy. When they are dizzy they can be picked up to be thrown, or Wolverine can pull off one of his finishing moves, which are the fanciest moves in the game. These are pulled off just by hitting X when the word strike appears, then a random killer is chosen. All this makes up for a weird encouragement of not using Wolverine's claws in a Wolverine game.

There are other ways to perform strikes. If more than one person is around a strike can be performed at any time hurting or killing two or three people at once. These are extremely cool to see and also easy to pull off. Just like the finishing strikes, these are pulled off just by hitting X when Strike appears on screen. This would be great if it worked every time. Too often I would see Strike and try to pull off the move, but it wouldn't work and I'd die. As you may have guessed, that can be extremely frustrating.

The final way to perform a strike is actually a totally different way to play the game. By holding down the R button Wolverine will go into senses mode. This mode uses his ability to sniff out humans so that he can tell where guards are based on the direction of a trail of green. It also helps when trying to detect mines in a minefield. Wolverine will sneak up on people in this mode, silently, can walk along walls by pressing up towards a wall, or crouch and crawl. In stealth Wolverine can gain stealth kills when he sneaks up on enemies. I personally enjoyed trying to play the game in this style more than action, but it wasn't necessary. The advantage to getting stealth kills is that Wolverine can collect Dog Tags which will give him more powerful strikes. There are still some minor problems with this mode as for some strange reason, even while holding down R, sometimes you'll leave stealth for no apparent reason, which can really leave you in a jam while in a minefield. At other times you can't press yourself against walls just because the game won't let you, while in some areas it's impossible to tell if a guard will spot you or not. In the exact same situation once I was caught, and once I wasn't. There are some other areas where it doesn't matter how stealthy you are it is impossible for you to sneak up on guards. There is either a camera situated where you must walk, or they will just know, maybe through some extreme psychic powers. It ruins what can be a second way to play the game when some areas you are forced to do it one way over another.

There are two other main issues with the game. The level layout is horrendous. There are some extremely difficult stretches scattered at the very end of a twenty minute segment. I must have spent four hours on one level just because I couldn't get past one point. A couple checkpoints would have done wonders here. Other portions of levels are set out really well, so I don't know why they felt like beefing up at the end, but it led to too much frustration. The other issue is the camera. The first problem is controlling it. Everything is inverted, so pushing left on the control stick will have the camera rotate right. It is impossible to get used to this when every other game out there contradicts it. Then once you have set the camera where you want it, once Wolverine moves it swings around a quarter ruining your lined up camera. There were so many instances I wanted to scream at the camera to stay put. There really should have been a better camera engine worked out.

The game itself is short, but due to dying on some levels repeatedly there is a lot of play time involved. The duality of the game also makes for some nice replay value, letting you try out different styles for different levels. Once you beat the game once you can also jump to any level, so picking up your favourite level to try different things is easy. You simultaneously unlock extra challenges for play when finishing the game. There are also different costumes to collect and files on different X-men. All the X-men trivia is welcome, and if you want to play wearing Wolvie's classic yellow and blue from the cartoon you can.

Visuals

The heart and soul of this game is Wolverine and that is where the most work went into graphically. He looks very good, with a gruff face and plenty of detail. The only thing I didn't like was his sideburns. It looked more like hair extension than sideburns. The other characters in the game seemed to have gotten the shaft. Juggernaut, Magneto and Sabretooth all have extremely flat textures almost to the point of being uni-colour. The Beast is nothing more than a blue polygonal figure with eyes.

The cutscenes in the game have their ups and downs as well. Some seem very nice with good detail and nice texturing. Then there is a flight over mountains and it's a slab of white. More detail would be greatly appreciated. The levels themselves have the same problem with some places being alive and others being dead. There are even some whole wings of buildings with nothing in them.

While there aren't a whole lot of special effects in the game, the best one is definitely Wolverine's senses. The whole screen goes orange in a weird sort of night vision. The green trail has movement and flows. Footsteps appear where people step, dissipating over time. It is definitely well done.

Audio

The best part of the aural work in X2 is the voice, or more correctly the voice actors. With Mark Hamill doing Wolverine and Patrick Stewart doing Professor X there is both a sense of authenticity and quality. Wolverine comes off as the rough loner he is and Patrick Stewart takes the role as if it were X2 the movie, not X2 the game. Other voices ranged from alright to awful, but even Mark Hamill had his bad moments. Maybe due to how many times I played one level, or maybe it was just so annoying but hearing the same thing over and over will get to you.

The music in the game is cinematic. It goes for a sweeping score which is supposed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Instead it falls into the background. I found one tune stuck in my head, but I think that had more to do with me being stuck on that level and hearing that tune for four hours straight. All the usual sounds are there, though they can come off as hollow. Wolverine's claws make a nice sound when being sheathed and unsheathed, but always make the same sound when cutting against something. I'm sure adamantium doesn't make the same sound against every surface does it?

This game gets an N-Philes score of D.

When I first started up this game, I really enjoyed it. The first level was fun, and left promise for more. I then reached the first level of Act 3. This level killed the game as I needed to do it over and over and over. All the bad points of the game came together there making it frustrating with bad camera work and button presses that wouldn't stay pressed down. If you want to enhance your X2 experience or are a big X-men fan this isn't another horrible licensed comic book game. Just be warned that it can get very frustrating.

Posted in: Reviews

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