107retrostationQHugh ain’t on Greatest Showman form here. QUgh. Wolvey, get yourself to an A&E department. QLogan will happily slash robots to bits too.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.YetRaven’shomicidalhitalsogot 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 stogie-
smoking 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.Every month we celebrate the most important,
innovative, or just plain great games from
PlayStation’s past. This issue we dig our claws
into an underrated movie tie-in, as adamantium-
skeletoned Logan slashes his way to success
Just claws
X-Men Origins:
Wolverine
CLASSIC GAMEIT REALISED THE
BLOODY BARBARISM
WOLVERINE’S CLAWS
WERE CAPABLE OF.