By Cody Webb

Whenever a new licensed videogame (game based on a film, book, etc.), I tend to pass them by while looking for new games to play. Most of the time licensed games turn out to be poorly made and poorly executed, and are quite obviously only meant to further a franchise. Don’t get me wrong, there have been a few exceptions to this trend; most notably the Chronicles of Riddick games and the King Kong game released a few years ago. Now a new game is attempting to break free of this trend: X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Origins is a single-player only action game designed by one of my favorite developers: Raven Software. You can find it for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, but comic-loving kids beware, it’s rated M for Mature. I know the Marvel Comics hero kills occasionally in the books, but Raven has made this incarnation darker and more violent. This new Wolverine isn’t afraid to kill enemy soldiers left and right, or spill blood all over his surroundings.

The most interesting feature in the game is how realistically Wolverine takes damage and deals it out. Everybody knows his claws are sharp, and this game makes sure they’re just as sharp as people have come to believe. You’ll be shredding your way through group after group of soldiers with ease, thanks to an amazingly easy and brutal combo system. Also adding to your arsenal is a lunge move, where Wolverine pounces on whatever poor sap you happen to target. The lock-on feature for this is easy to use, and adds a strategic flavor to combat.

Any Wolverine fan can tell you that one of Wolverine’s trademarks is his ability to instantly regenerate after being injured. Now in other games this would be simply shown as your health bar refilling, but definitely not in Origins. As you play and lead Wolverine into the many fights, he’s bound to get wounded, and this takes the form of his body realistically taking damage. I won’t go into detail here, but trust me, it can get pretty bad. After a short timer, his injuries will start to heal, taking form as his bodily injuries repairing themselves with a fantastic animation.

Enough about the violent side of Origins, let’s talk about how it looks. It just screams movie-quality, from the expertly designed levels to the exquisite voice acting. Hugh Jackman voices the clawed hero and he fits the role perfectly. Raven even put a lot of work into the enemies’ screams of pain and terror, I found myself cringing a little during every fight.

It’s a shame the story isn’t as good as the voice acting or gameplay. It starts off simply enough, but soon becomes filled with flashbacks and flashforwards that it just gets too hard to follow. The story even manages to ruin Gambit’s and Deadpool’s parts at the end! I’d advise you to play the game for the intense action and just ignore the story later on.

Origins is further brought down by occasional puzzles, but most of them you can easily get through without much trouble. The true forces of evil are the repetitive mini-bosses you’ll fight every few minutes. They wouldn’t be so bad if they amounted to more than just whacking them over and over to deplete their life bars.

The pros outweigh the cons in Origins, though, so I highly recommend it to any fan of Wolverine’s. Please remember that this game is rated M for a reason, so be warned before you decide to play it around the kids. I give X-Men Origins: Wolverine a B+, now sharpen your claws and get to shredding through enemies!