X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the movie on which this game is so loosely based, tells the story of Logan and the events preceding the original X-Men movie. Devout fans of the comics will already know the details of the plot—including all of the integral Japanese tidbits that were completely omitted—which is somewhat of a prerequisite for playing the DS version since it skips the prologue entirely and jumps straight to Logan’s escape from the Alkali Lake facility. Even the smattering of story that is relayed between each level simply amounts to a few screens of horribly written text and hokey character art. What an exciting way to start a game about one of the most ferocious comic book characters of all time. Just for comparison’s sake, the Xbox 360 version begins with Logan skydiving 30,000 feet without a parachute directly onto a henchman’s head.

Despite failing miserably, the Wii version at least attempted to emulate the Xbox 360 version to some extent, the DS version on the other hand throws all of Raven Software’s admirable efforts out the window and opts for a strictly 2D button masher. Logan will run from room to repetitive room fighting a tediously annoying onslaught of never-ending enemies. He has a few slash attacks that get old before the game has even started, and an air combo that is almost interesting if not for the fact that he’ll need to pull it off about once every five seconds. Enemies will pile into the claustrophobic rooms and, thanks to the blocky 2D graphics, stack on top of each other making it hard to efficiently defeat them. Usually a shielded enemy--the more difficult to deal with—will block any of Logan’s attacks while the rest of the enemy forces are free to shoot him from safety. A screen-clearing berserk attack comes in handy, but never seems to be available when Logan needs it most.

Whereas the console versions of Origins celebrated Logan’s regenerative powers, the DS version almost completely disregards them. Logan will often get jumped by a swarm of enemies and have his life bar fully depleted in a matter of seconds. The game is actually quite difficult because of this, but not in a satisfying Ninja Gaiden-esque manner. Instead, this game has about as many frustrating battles and cheap bosses as any three-hour-long game can possibly have. Enemies themselves are cartoonish at best, with flying robots and ridiculous baby Sentinels replacing the movie’s line-up of claw fodder.

Although no amount of pleasing aesthetics could hide the terrible gameplay, Origins is technically as impressive as the rest of the package, which is to say it’s not at all. Visually it is on par with the worst PlayStation One game you can imagine, and Logan’s claws are about as big as his entire upper body. The music is completely out of sync with the atmosphere of the film, and there is literally no dialogue to speak of. Obviously no one expects the DS to provide HD graphics on par with this-gen consoles, but even the most obscure JRPG available on Nintendo’s handheld pushes the limits far beyond what is seen here.

The PSP version was given considerably more attention than this inexcusably lazy port. The developers should be ashamed of themselves, and the reason Activision purposely withheld the DS version from the press until the absolute last minute becomes abundantly clear within the first few seconds of playtime. It is the epitome of movie games; a rushed, soulless afterthought hoping to sell on the movie’s hype alone.