X2: Wolverine's Revenge

"Does Activision not believe in playtesters?!"

When will Activision learn that putting out crappy games based off good movies doesn't help? And why do companies keep on turning to Activision to make their games even though we've already seen the bad results (i.e. Spider-Man, Minority Report)? Enough rambling, on with the review...

GRAPHICS: 4/10

Wait a minute, this is on the GameCube? I could have sworn I was playing an N64 game. The character models are grainy and look nothing like they're supposed to. Wolverine looks nothing like Hugh Jackman, he looks more like a bum they pulled off the street. Professor X looks nothing like Patrick Stewart, he looks more like a 25 year-old anorexic guy with cancer. Why do almost all of the soldiers in this game look like Wampas? I mean because they're bulky and covered in snow. The backgrounds are also grainy and blurry. The explosions are terrible, I've seen better explosions from SNES games. It's nice to see Activision put in blood this time but only when you claw someone or when you get shot. I'm being nice today so I'll give category a 4/10.

SOUND: 6/10

The sound is mediocre like this game. The voice acting on everyone is okay on everyone except on Wolverine. Why did they get Mark Hamil and not Hugh Jackman to do the voice of Wolverine? Oh that's right, that would require some common sense and that isn't what Activision is known for. What really brings down the score is hearing Wolverine's repetitive screams when he dies or gets blown up by a landmine. I give this category a 6/10 because of some decent voice acting.

GAMEPLAY: 5/10

The gameplay is good, that is if you like insane difficulty and repetition. There are no checkpoints and that makes the levels very difficult. Why does Wolverine die from normal punches and kick that easily? So Wolverine can take a bullet in the head at point blank range and be fine 2 seconds later but he can't survive getting punched a lot of times? What also makes the game so hard is that nearly all the enemies have assault rifles and all you have is a pair of claws. Why can't Wolverine just pick up a gun and shoot the soldiers? It's not like he's an independent superhero who refuses to touch a gun. He mans a gun turret at one point in the game so why can't he use a gun? There are some pretty cool combos you can do and they're somewhat easy to pull off. There's stealth but it's kind of dumb and repetitive. Whenever you do a stealth attack on someone, why does blue light come out of them instead of red blood? And why do have to hold L whenever you want to slide against a wall? Morons at Activision...

STORY: 7/10

The story is decent but this game does not follow the movie. Why did they even call it X2 then? Was it another one of Activision's failed attempts to bank off the hype of a good movie using an effortless game? Anyway, the story is that there's a bomb inside of him and he has to go somewhere and get it defused or it'll go off in 2 days. Good story.

Buy or rent: Neither, unless you're a huge fan of X-Men rent it.

After everyone waited a long time for this game, we get a rushed and non-enjoyable game. Everyone knows that games based on movies are always pure crap and this is no exception. Till next time!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/03, Updated 06/16/03