X-Men Origins: Wolverine Game Review

You know that old saying, "If you don't try it, you don't know what you're missing?" Ever been in a situation where you did know you were missing a good thing? That was my situation for the last two years after trying the demo for X-Men Origins: Wolverine prior to the film's theatrical release. Parenthood intervened and obtaining the game was put on the backburner until last Friday when I finally was able to rent the game and run through it. The demo had already left a sweet taste in my mouth but while I was playing the game, I was still asking myself, "Holy crap, why in the hell didn't I pick this up sooner?"

Sabretooth (played by a pixelated and voiced by Liev Schreiber) and Wolverine

Not surprisingly, you play as Wolverine, as portrayed by Hugh Jackman, and sort of retread the same story as the film. I do stress the term "sort of" because like many film-to-game transitions, a lot of extra things are thrown in that would either slow the film down or uproot it from trying to be as close to reality as a movie about an unaging, claw popping, occasionally streaking, homicidal Hugh Jackman can be. However, unlike most film-to-game adaptations, the extra stuff included makes the between the film and the comics it is loosely based on (reading the official Marvel.com bio on Wolverine, it seems like the movie messed up quite a few things), taking the best of both worlds and making, again, unlike most film-to-game adaptations, a good and fun game. In fact, I would say that this is probably the only game adaptation that was better than the film it was based on.

Example: Sentinel. Great in the game, but wouldn't work in the movies. Fuck the tease from X3.

Let's start with the look of the game, which is just enjoyable to look at. The characters are all very well rendered and the environments are well detailed to boot. The lip-syncing can be a tad off at times, but that not withstanding, X-Men Origins is one of the only three games that sport the Unreal Engine that I've played and have actually been impressed with it, the other two being Batman: Arkham Asylum and Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. I'll admit, X-Men Origins isn't AS impressive as the other two mentioned titles, but it's still impressive.

Sorry, Commander Shepard. You can grin all you want, I just wasn't as impressed with your graphics.

The gameplay is similar to Activision/Raven's X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance titles with the four colored buttons being used for melee attacks, strong attacks, grapples and jumping. Holding the right trigger while pressing one of these buttons will trigger a special rage attack, provided you have it unlocked. However, it's not like the controls are a carbon copy from Ultimate Alliance. A few things have been added, most notably the lunge attack. This is one of the many attacks to help Wolverine rain sweet adamantium death upon his enemies by leaping across the area and plunging his claws into their faces. This is an attack that is fun to do and is actually useful, whereas usually moves like this are either one or the other. It's fun to see exactly how far you can jump to pummel someone into the ground and lunging is also useful for staying out of the crosshairs of your enemies. Whether you're ambushed by 20 troops, wanting to take out that annoying helicopter, or beating it into Weapon 11 that he is, in fact, NOT Deadpool but Barakapool, make sure your LB and RB buttons are in working order because you're going to be using them a lot, especially on the hard difficulty.

If the lunging gets boring after a while, don't worry. You'll get a few achievements out of it at least.

Finally, I want to address the rating of this game. How often is it that you get an M-Rated game for a PG-13 film? The xBox 360 and Playstation 3 versions are known as the Uncaged Edition and sport an M-Rating because when Wolverine takes damage, you will see the wounds open, bleed, expose organs & skeletal structure and eventually heal in real time. Since the main character at times will look like a bullet-ridden extra from a George A. Romero film, the game was rated M and developers went for broke and made the game as bloody as possible. The game allows Wolverine to show his true colors in ways he never could in the films because...well, let's face it: Wolverine fucking stabs people. Its what he does, and when someone gets stabbed, they bleed. Not only does Wolverine stab in this game, he dismembers, impales, decapitates, rips in half, sets ablaze, crushes with debris, stomps skulls and overall eviscerates every poor son of a bitch unlucky enough to cross his path in this game, and every pint of blood you'd expect alongside that is here too. Obviously I haven't tried the game on Wii, PS2, or PSP yet but I am interested in seeing what the differences between the T-Rated and M-Rated versions are.

The opening cinematic for this game paints a very pretty picture of how the rest of the game plays out.

Final Verdict: While the film had very solid performances but not much else going for it, the game is a far more enjoyable experience. Great voice work, wonderful environments, gleeful combat and more blood than a donation clinic, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a great game and a must play for fans of hack & slash style games. Even if you hated the movie, give the game a shot. If you have the same outcome I did, by the time the 3rd day of playing it rolls around, you'll have 45 of the 50 achievements and they aren't chores to get either. By the time I took the game back to Blockbuster, I had 48 out of 50.

"Clean Up On All Isles" being the most fun, in my opinion. Almost as fun as the "Destructor" achievement from Ghostbusters. Almost.

-The Cynic

Demo Reviews: Quake IV

Today we're pulling one out of the vault, as it were. Quake IV was released in 2005 for PC, and was later ported to the 360 and Mac. But, you can still download the demo on X Box Live, so that's why we're here today. I'm a big Quake fan, having played Quake II on PC back when we first got a home computer, and it was in fact the first PC game I ever finished. But enough about that, let's have a bit of background on the games themselves before we start.
Quake IV is a direct sequel to Quake II. Quakes I and III are not part of this story. The first game follows a similar story to fellow FPS (first-person-shooter) Doom, and the third entry is based heavily in multiplayer with little story. In Quake II, you follow a Marine stranded on the alien world of Stroggos. The Stroggs, a cybernetic race that uses prisoners and enemy dead to replenish and fuel it's massive war machine, have invaded Earth and you are sent as part of a counter-attack. Your character is alone throughout the game, and in the end you manage to destroy the Stroggs' security grid as well as the Strogg leader, the Makron.

Yeah, this guy.

The demo for Quake IV picks up with a human armada coming out of (warp speed/hyperspace/mass relay/etc.) at the planet Stroggos. There's a nice bit of exposition as your squad leader briefs you and outlines what happened in Quake II. Your landing ship is shot down and you spend the rest of the demo reuniting with your squad and heading out on what I assume is the first mission.
I had a lot of fun with this demo, not just because of the nostalgia factor (although familiarity with the story, enemies, etc. didn't hurt I'm sure). The graphics were very nice (for being five years old), while still having that "Quake" feel to them. As such, the enemies also got an update, while still recognizable to someone familiar with the game. Take for example the Strogg Beserker from Quake II (left) and Quake IV (right).



I also really liked how the opening cinematic for the game really sets the tone for what's to come (see it here ). It pulls no punches, and let's you know right away this is an M-rated game and it's going to hold to that rating. It's not going to shy away from all the brutal and gory bits as you wage war on the Strogg. In investigating this game I found another cinematic that shows you in unabashed and graphic detail what happens when someone gets captured by the Strogg. It may not be pretty, but it shows you what your up against and the price that all humans will pay if you fail. That is intense stuff and that's what I like to see. This game is already for adults and I like that it doesn't gloss things over, it shows you what the stakes really are. And keeping it in the first-person-perspective is a nice touch.
A difference, and I don't think it's a bad one, is having other humans in the game (at least for the duration of the demo). In Quake II you are alone, from the time you land till the end of the game. Here there are other soldiers, and medics who can heal you. This is a very interesting difference, and makes for a slightly different gameplay mindset than being a one-man army. I don't know if this persists throughout the game, but having some human interaction for at least part of it is a change I don't mind. The voice acting for the characters seems to be pretty good, especially since it seems a lot of first-person shooters have average-to-bad voice acting* (except you, Bioshock, we love you <3), and I would say Quake IV rates better than something like Turok, which was pretty good but often hit-or-miss.
But what about the weapons, you say? Well, I can only tell you about what was available in the demo, which was the blaster, the machine gun, and the shotgun. The blaster is your usual starting gun, limitless ammo, not terribly powerful, but gets the job done when you need it to. Next you have the shotgun. It fires eight rounds before reload, and is great for close targets (although a bit slow to fire and reload) but sucks at range. Finally, the trusty machine gun. This one has a forty round clip, a flashlight, and ability to use the scope to snipe. It's a jack-of-all-trades weapon that is very effective and my personal choice for early levels. Sadly, I didn't get to try out fun superguns like the hyperblaster, the railgun, or the nailgun, but I remember the hyperblaster and railgun from Quake II and I'm sure they are just as much fun this time around.

So, would I recommend this game, based on the demo? Hells yes! It's nice to have played Quake II first, so you have a better idea of what's going on, but I'm sure you can more or less put it together as you play if you haven't. In fact, there is a Collector's Edition of the game (for PC and 360) that comes with Quake II if you need it. I've read that Quake IV runs badly on the 360, with framrate issues and long load times, but none of that was present in the demo, so I don't know if that was patched or was just because it was the demo. I would still recommend this game on whatever your preferred platform. It's a fun, gory, Strogg-blasting good time, and there's nothing wrong with that. For anything familiar with the story from Quake II, this will give you a nice bit of nostalgia, especially during the opening briefing when you realize "hey, that was ME that did all those things in the last game!". So I say, go give it a try, it's lots of fun. And join me next time on Demo Reviews where I will do a more recent game, I promise. :D

The P.M.S




*I could be wrong about this of course. I don't play the war FPSs like Call of Duty so they might be great for all I know.

Demo Reviews: Gothic 4: Arcania

Hey there all, Picky Mama Scholar here with a new blog segment: Demo Reviews. In this segment, I will play demos I download from X Box Live and share my experiences for your reading pleasure. So let's dig in.

Our first game is Gothic 4: Arcania. Now I haven't played Gothics 1-3, but I do love me a good RPG so I figured I would give this one a try. This game was actually just released on Oct 12th (unless you play PS3, in which case, you will have to wait till the new year). Now then, this review is somewhat comparative between this game and Dragon Age: Origins, since the latter is kind of my "gold standard" and due to similar styles between the two. It will all make sense as we go, I promise.

Now the first thing I noticed is that my character, the hero, doesn't have a name. Or perhaps the full version gives the option to change the name, I don't know. So during my time wandering the village and talking to people, a good chunk of the people called me Shepherd. Now I get this, seeing as how that is apparently the characters job, but it's kind of weird for me to hear this as an avid Mass Effect player. So whenever someone referred to my character that way, this* is what came to mind, and that didn't help this game any. That wasn't the only reminder of another franchise in this game. At one point, I met with a man named Diego, who had apparently been teaching my character fighting and swordsmanship. Now maybe it's just me, but upon seeing this character, I immediately said aloud "is that you, Ramirez?"He doesn't have the Scottish accent, but it's still kind of weird.

The dialogue in this game left me with something to be desired. From what I have read online of reviews, playing the full game doesn't change that. In my case, what the characters were saying and what the subtitles said sometimes didn't match (hours became days at one point). As for the dialogue itself, it's seriously lacking. There are almost no dialogue options. Only twice did I find myself with two options for what to say, and I ended up saying both options in the course of the conversation. This is a major departure from RPG's like Dragon Age, Mass Effect (which I know is action/RPG) and Fallout, where many options are present.

Arcania Convseration: PC and Ivy (Sit-And-Watch)


Dragon Age: Origins-Awakening Conversation: PC and Nathaniel (Dialogue Options)


this brings me to my next point regarding Gothic 4: the voice acting. With the exception of The PC and Diego, it pretty much sucks, the witch Lyrca being the most outstanding example (as well as example of subtitles not matching spoken dialogue). Her voice acting was atrociously the most stereotypical, pointy hat, wart on nose, broom-riding, black cat owning witch voice EVAR. And it grated on the ears to listen to. Ugh. Her voice in the German version, where this game is from, is much, much better. The PC voice I actually liked a lot, it was probably the best one. Diego's voice was pretty good too, although I still think it would have been more awesome for him to talk like Sean Connery. It's not the worst I've ever heard out of my 360 (Bullet Witch and Jurassic: The Hunted take that title) but it's no where near the best (in the regions of Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters). Mediocre at best, we'll say.

The next thing I looked at was the graphics of this game. The landscapes are rendered gorgeously. They look awesome. The people, not so much. From what I have seen from the full game, there is improvement with the people, but they are still not nearly as nice looking as the world they inhabit. Quite frankly, I like the landscapes, but Dragon Age has the better character renders.

Arcania Landscape (Pic doesn't really do it justice)


Dragon Age Landscape


Arcania Character Render: Ivy (your girlfriend)**


Dragon Age Character Render: PC (right) and Sigrun (left)


I noticed as I played this demo that the character movements seemed clunky and slow, as were the controls. I did not find a button for running, so I was stuck with this wading-through-molasses pace for the whole thing. Combat wasn't any better. It was slow and repetitive button mashing, as I also found there to be no auto-attack. You basically hit x to attack with your weapon, and it reacts sluggishly. And you have to hit the button for every weapon swing. I could see combat in a dungeon with lots of enemies turning into marathon grind-fests of endless button mashing. Perhaps had there been better reaction time (even dinky one-handers seem quite slow in speed) it would have been better.

Finally, my biggest problem with this game: I couldn't any of the friggin' text. From the quest logs to the looting screens to even the radial menus, the text was so damn small I couldn't read a word of it. And I'm not that far away from my TV when I play. I measured. Six feet. That's how far I am when I play. I suppose this game was made with PCs or high def TVs in mind. It must be, because otherwise this game would be unplayable. It really kills the game experience when you can't see what you're suppose to do, what you're picking up, or the stats on your equipment or yourself. It was ridiculous. I noticed the text in the codexes of Mass Effect 2 were quite small, but I could still read them from where I usually sit to game without too much difficulty. In Gothic 4, it was impossible, even when very close to the TV. Even if the rest of the game had been completely phenomenal, this would still have been a huge problem.


Arcania Loot Screen***


Dragon Age Loot Screen


Arcania Quest Log


Dragon Age Quest Log/Codex


Mass Effect 2 Codex


So my final verdict? This game is meh. Granted, the full game may blow my socks off compared to the demo, but everything I have read indicates that this isn't the case. The character movement looks better and smoother and less sluggish, but the voice acting will still mostly suck and the character renders are still ugly. The demo tells you very little of the story, and in fact most blurbs on the plot are vague and hint at it being not terribly original. Now the story in Dragon Age isn't exactly the epitome of originality, but the characters and stories woven into the plot make it well worth it. As for Gothic 4, I would say a rental at best. As for me, renting it is unlikely, as I don't feel like going through a whole game (which takes 10-25 hours, depending on who you ask) unable to read anything, especially not an RPG. I'm not recommending this, unless you've played the other Gothic games, but then you would not likely need me to tell you one way or the other. It's mediocre, a rental, but not a buy. There are much better RPGs out there waiting.

Well folks, thanks for reading, and hope you join me for another Demo Review very soon.
Remember to check out our YouTube Channel, Facebook, and Flikr page (NEW! and with more pics from this review!)

Cheers!

PS: If anyone can tell me who voices the PC in Arcania, that would be awesome. He sounds familiar and I can't find an English cast list anywhere.




*I'm an exclusive FemShep player. The Cynic has played MaleShep, as I discussed in my video review of the game.
**I had to grab this pic from Google. It appears to be from the finished game.
***I sat in the same place to take all of these pictures, for consistency.

Kickassia Review

 So Saturday I watched Kickassia again, seeing as it was my birthday and we didn't want to do anything really over the top. I debated doing a video review about this one but I figured since we have Blogger at our disposal, we should use it. Now, you're probably asking: what's Kickassia?

Kickassia is the two year celebration of the website That Guy With The Glasses, a pop culture reviewing site (and one of my inspirations to do Coffee With The Cynic), and follows the story of various alumni invading the micronation of Molossia for their own purposes. And yes, Molossia is a real place.

This movie is like the Destroy All Monsters of That Guy With The Glasses. The majority of the site's personalities are here. Being led by the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker), the army consists of Nostalgia Chick (Lindsay Ellis), Cinema Snob (Brad Jones), Handsome Tom (Thomas Hanley Jr), Angry Joe (Joe Vargas), Bennett The Sage (Bennett White), Jew Wario (Justin Carmical), Linkara (Lewis Lovhaug), Phelous (Phelan Porteous), Film Brain (Mathew Buck), Benzaie (Benjamin Daniel), Spoony (Noah Antwiler), Marzgurl (Kaylyn Dickson), 8-Bit Mickey (Mickey Paradis), Still Lee (Lee Davidge), LordKaT (Jason Pullara) and PawDugan (Paul Schuler). Rounding out the cast is Chris Larios as the news reporter from Channel Awesome and Molossia leader Kevin Baugh as himself.

The story itself is pretty good. Feeling slightly insane, The Nostalgia Critic confronts Molossia president Kevin Baugh on his doorstep and basically tells him, "We're gonna take over your land so get out." Baugh slams the door in his face so The Critic rounds up various members of TGWTG for an all-out invasion. The appearance of Baugh's SMG thwarts their first invasion attempt but the second attempt goes much better, thanks to the hulking out of Still Lee. Of course, trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, the power goes to Critic's head and during a series of unfortunate yet hilarious events, everyone is at each other's throats and Kickassia goes to war with itself.


The performances here are really great.  It shows that these reviewers aren't just pessimistic socially awkward geeks in their reviews/rants but actually actors.  Good actors, in fact.  Doug's presence in an M. Bison costume is just fun to watch, as is Lindsey's Sarah Palin impression, but it's some of the other characters who are more or less the same way that they are in their reviews that really surprised me.  This movie more or less tells you what you've been missing by showcasing these other characters.  Of all of the reviewers involved, the one that stands out the most is Cinema Snob.  Brad Jones is like the Robert Downey Jr. of That Guy With The Glasses in the way that it's just fun to watch him do anything and to hear him talk.  In parts of the film, he channels Stacey Keach & Jack Nicholson in brilliantly well timed performances.  Seriously, check out this guy's stuff.  You won't regret it.

The timing of this movie doesn't waver, either.  It doesn't ever feel slow in any given part of the film and has a nice balance between action, suspense and comedy.  To go from a scene where Critic and Film Brain are just acting strange to a plotting scene and then to a fight with Critic & Spoony's alter ego, Dr. Insano, flows so well.  It never feels forced.  The fight with Critic & Insano is very well done in the same sense with balancing the various elements of comedy & action.  It's like a comic book movie fight on a Wal-Mart budget with Home Alone bits thrown in, and I loved every second of it.

I could go on and on about every little bit of the movie from Linkara's Patton impression to the cameos of various other internet personalities (including James Rolfe, aka The Angry Video Game Nerd, as his Board James character), but this review would never end, so I'll try and sum it up.

The final verdict?  Kickassia lives up to its name.  If you follow these kind of pop culture reviewers, you OWE it to yourself to look into Kickassia.  Even if you don't follow these kinds of things, you should check it out anyway to see the performances and just how much effort was put into this film.  It amazes me that Doug & Rob (Doug's brother) Walker was able to orchestrate something of this magnitude.  Not everyone in this film is even from the U.S.  Phelous is from Nova Scotia, Film Brain is from the UK, and Benzaie is from France.  I don't know if Doug actually pulled for their hotel rooms the way he says in the movie or if they themselves are loaded or if they are just THAT loyal to him, but in the end it doesn't matter.  The effort that went into this movie is astounding and can rival that of Hollywood.  Honestly, my only gripe with Kickassia is that The Distressed Watcher (TJ Kincaid) isn't in this movie, not even as a cameo.  I would have loved to see him as something like an Ambassador to America then see him argue with a 7-11 clerk of the price of something mundane like a pack of cigarettes or something.  However, Cinema Snob made up for this in spades.  Nah, lemme rephrase that, EVERYTHING in this movie makes up for any missing TGWTG alumni.

It was also announced that a Kickassia DVD is in the works and should be released sometime in August.  Rest assured, I'll put up the link to buy it once it's available.  It's that good.  Click the links below to watch it:

Part 1: Uh, Part 01
Part 2: Triumph & Treacle
Part 3: Inglorious Glory
Part 4: The Beginning Of The End Of The Beginning
Part 5: The Fall Of The Risen
Part 6: All The Really Bad Shit Happens

There's also a ton of Making Of, Commentaries & Bloopers on That Guy With The Glasses & Cinema Snob's websites, so check those ones out if you have the chance to do so.