X-Men Origins: Wolverine
IT REALISED THE BLOODY BARBARISM WOLVERINE’S CLAWS WERE CAPABLE OF.
X-Men, you say? More like X-rated. Long before Logan introduced us to the concept of an 18-cert Wolvey, Raven Software beat James Mangold’s sombre road trip movie to the punch by eight years. After cutting its teeth on the violent Soldier Of Fortune, the studio was perfectly placed to deliver a virtual Hugh Jackman who could shred his foes with such ferocity it’d make even Kratos spew.
Though X-Men Origins: Wolverine lacks the set-piece spectacle of God Of War, it can easily match the slaphead deity’s outing when it comes to sheer savagery. Never before had a game captured the deadly nature of Logan’s iconic claws quite like this.
Just as nearly all Star Wars games are guilty of portraying lightsabers as glowing sticks rather than deadly laser swords, past X-Men titles always failed to do justice to Wolverine’s pointy party pieces. In Marvel canon, the material Logan’s claws are made out of – adamantium – is indestructible once cooled. In theory, we’re dealing with implements that could slice through titanium, not a set of oversized nails that can barely scratch through rice paper.
The Uncaged version of Origins realised the bloody barbarism Wolverine’s claws were capable of. While the PS2 edition shied away from extreme violence, the PS3 version outdoes most Mortal Kombat entries for OTT brutality. Whether he’s eviscerating soldiers in Angola, performing executions that make your average Fatality look tame, or shoving a dude head-first into the rotors of a whirlybird, Raven’s Wolverine is the most savage superhero ever to appear in a videogame.
How Origins unleashed the untapped potential of Wolverine’s vicious claws is undeniably the game’s big success story. Yet Raven’s homicidal hit also got one other aspect of the character spot-on: his regenerative powers.
While the Bryan Singer movies could never show the gruesome reality of Wolverine’s skin-healing abilities due to their family-friendly ratings, Origins wasn’t limited by the same squeamish sensibilities. Should your stogiesmoking hero get pelted by too many bullets, not only will his tank top be torn to shreds, so too will the muscle and sinew underneath. Take damage, and gaping wounds and lacerations quickly pepper Wolverine’s hide. Bone pokes through skin, cuts begin to look like potholes, and soon enough, Logan becomes a walking skeleton with a few pieces of flesh hanging from his frame, not an indestructible killing machine. It’s a grotesque yet compelling sight.
ORIGINAL WIN
Considering it was based on a thoroughly average flick – why the hell would you mute Deadpool?! – it’s quite something that Origins has endured to become one of PS3’s most memorable movie tie-ins. While the violence may be gratuitous, the underlying tech taps into Logan’s unique abilities and feral fury like almost no other piece of X-Men fiction. Nearly a decade on it’s Wolverine’s limb-lopping combat we remember, not those samey turret sections or overly long boss battles.
Sadly, the game was delisted from digital stores back in 2014, when publisher Activision lost the rights to the Marvel licence. If you want to give Wolvey another deserved whirl, hunt down the PS3 disc and embark on a slice (and dice) of history.