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X2: Wolverine’s Revenge

Score: 6.6 / 10

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge coincides with the new X-men movie. While the game isn’t based on the movie, it does take some of the beloved X-men characters and allow you to play the coolest X-Man, Wolverine. X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (WR) is based around Wolverine and occurs during the same timeframe, which saw him become the beloved character he is today.

You start off in the laboratory where Wolverine was created. Logan soon finds out that he has 48 hours to live because of a virus implanted in his body. He must scramble to find a cure before it’s too late.

The game tries to blend in the elements of a hack and slash title with a fighting game across 6 big levels. It mixes well for the most part, but does have its weak points.

You start off the game in the weapon X facility where you were created. From there you must find your way to the Professor and tackle bosses in order to find a cure. Wolverine comes equipped with some impressive attributes, including the ability to track the heat signatures of enemies, lasers and landmines. WR does a solid job blending in the elements of a fighting game with a hack and slash game. Everything flows so smoothly and nicely and the interface is excellent and the controls are solid. Stealth plays a surprisingly big role in this game as well. The standard moves are easy to execute (less so with the combo moves), but it’s the small things that bring this title down.

 

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First of all I had a few camera issues with this game. At times when your fighting in close quarters the camera will narrowly close in making it extremely difficult and frustrating to battle enemies. The camera can be controlled with the right stick, but it feels limited in certain areas.

The enemy AI is surprisingly bad. Sometimes it takes the AI a while before they realize how close you are. There is not much enemy variation either, which is surprising considering the amount 

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of villains the X-Men face in the comics or movies. The only variation occurs during boss battles. This leads me to my final problem with the game, which are the boss battles. Each boss battle plays out quite similar. You always have to get the boss in a certain position and throw them to a certain location in the level to inflict massive damage. It would have been nice to see the developers implement a design in which you would be able to use the boss’s strength against them.

The graphics are not great but not disappointing. The cut scenes are good, but a lot of more work could have been done and don’t compare well to games such as Metal Gear Solid 2. The weather effects in some missions look great. The second level, which takes place in a cold snowy environment, looks excellent. You’ll often see the snowflakes press against the screen, which resembles the same effect in another Activision game, Rally Fusion. Wolverine can destroy some things in the environment, but not everything. It would have been interesting to see a type of Geo Mod Technology (from Red Faction), which would allow destructible environments. Overall the character models look good and for the most part the environments look good as well.

The voice acting is superbly done, but some may be disappointed that Hugh Jackman who plays Wolverine is the X-Men movies doesn’t play the voice of Wolverine. Not to fear, Activision went out and snagged Mark Hamill (Star Wars) to play the voice of Wolverine. Mark Hamill does an excellent job. Patrick Stewart also makes numerous appearances as Professor X throughout the game. The soundtrack is not groundbreaking by any means and doesn’t seem to have a great deal of tracks during climatic parts in the game.

Wolverine’s Revenge does have a good amount of replay value for fans of the X-Men series, but those who aren’t fans could check out this game if they are curious and can put up with poor enemy AI, a so-so camera, and hard-to-master combo moves. So much more could have been done with this game, but it’s a move in the right direction. I only wish that there had been more involvement the X-Men characters.

-  Siddharth Masand

(May 24, 2003)

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