During last week’s PlayStation Showcase, we got a lot of news regarding the Marvel IP. The one thing that caught my eye was Marvel’s Wolverine. I love Wolverine. He’s a completely flawed character that is extremely well portrayed in the movies, and this teaser for a game looks like it runs with the movie franchise’s interpretation from the word go. We see Wolverine in a bar where he’s beaten everyone up. One last dude comes to try to stab him, and he unsheaths those incredible blades. That’s it. While that scene may not be in the game, I hope the bar is in some way, because it’s precisely where Wolverine would end up, and fits the comics and his character.
Looking at the game, I was reminded of the best Wolverine game I’ve ever played: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While the film is a questionable entry into the universe, the game is brilliant. It’s filled with loads of meaty combat, has a fantastic regeneration system on Wolverine himself, and even lets you fight a Sentinel as the clawed fighter. It’s a game that delves slightly into the character’s past, focusing more on his relationship with Sabertooth rather than the actual transformation, and I think it works well because it tries to ignore the movie rather than running with it.
It’s got everything you need from a Wolverine game, and there’s even a super hard difficulty mode to keep you interested long after you’ve finished it. The thing I love most is the easter eggs. It’s packed with them, and does a great job of injecting them into the world organically, such as a hatch in the floor that’s a big old reference to lost. The only thing that lets the game down is the film, but if you can get past that, then it’s fantastic. You’ve got all sorts of crazy boss fights, a huge dose of X-Men fun, and Wolverine is front and centre all the time. If you desperately can’t wait for Marvel’s Wolverine to come out, this is the game you need to be playing, because it’ll scratch every itch you have and so much more.