Tag Archives: patrick stewart

September 14, 2026

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge

By Joe
Original release date April 15, 2003

For much of my childhood, Wolverine and the X-Men had a pretty mediocre track record when it came to video games. The games released for the Nintendo Entertainment System were atrocious with X-Men being borderline unplayable and the solo Wolverine game just a miserable experience. During the 16 bit era, it did get better. While Spider-Man and the X-Men was one of the biggest disappointments of my youth, the outings for the Segan Genesis were at least decent. I would classify the first X-Men game as mediocre, but in the moment it felt special because everything else was so terrible. The sequel was genuinely good and over on the Super Nintendo Capcom was able to give us Mutant Apocalypse – a game no one would confuse for a classic, but it did make the X-Men legitimately fun to play as. Come the PlayStation and Saturn era, things got murky again. The X-Men stayed with Capcom for a series of fighting games that did become classics, though during that era the home ports were hit and miss as the PlayStation wasn’t really built to handle them while the Saturn just wasn’t a console many people owned. Activision still hung onto the license though and put out a pair of 3D fighters where the first was fine and the follow-up less so.

Come the PlayStation 2 era, Activision still retained the rights to the X-Men only now the franchise was on another upswing thanks to the movies released by 20th Century Fox. Licensed games, especially move tie-ins, had never really recovered from the early days where the products were mostly known for being shoved out the door half-baked and often half-finished. For every Golden Eye on Nintendo 64, there were numerous examples of games that were awful like The Crow: City of Angels or The Matrix. And Activision itself didn’t have a sterling reputation, but it did put out a perfectly cromulent Spider-Man game based on the movie. Still, that wasn’t enough to get me or my best friend to lay down our hard-earned money for a copy of X2: Wolverine’s Revenge.

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge should really just be called Wolverine’s Revenge, or just something else with Wolverine in the title. What shouldn’t be featured in the title is X2 and Hugh Jackman should absolutely not be on the cover. This game has nothing to do with the movie released the same year. Sticking Jackman on the cover was just to lure folks in, I guess, even though there was plenty of video games coverage for people to know what was going on. This is a true comic book video game with a script by Larry Hama himself. The only connection beyond the cover is that Patrick Stewart is featured as the voice actor for Professor X in the game. Was Jackman already too big of a star to voice Wolverine? Possibly, but in his place is Mark Hamill who does a pretty nice Wolverine. I’m surprised he didn’t go on to voice the character again, but future games replaced him with Steve Blum who may have come cheaper. Or maybe Hamill just wanted to do Wolverine once to say that he did? Either way, this is a game that has stuck in my brain for years because it’s the last game I can recall where a friend and I rented it and stayed up all night to beat it. We alternated back and forth since it is a solo experience which honestly probably made it a better experience. I’ve always wanted to replay it as a result, and with a brand new Wolverine game that looks to be the best of its kind set to be released (or maybe not since early reviews have been mixed at best), now feels like a good time to go back and check this one out.

The game introduces its gameplay mechanics via flashback to Wolverine’s time in the Weapon X program.

Wolverine’s Revenge is a pretty typical 3D action game of its era. You control Wolverine in a fully 3D environment and are expected to hack and slash your way to the end. It’s a hybrid stealth-action game where it’s undoubtedly easier to go the patient route and take enemies out one by one as opposed to running into the fray claws brandished. Wolverine and the styling of other characters is of the era with him in his attire featured in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men where the characters were designed and illustrated by Frank Quitely, but Activision and Gene Pool Software UK probably knew fans would want something more classic so those costumes are available and not especially well hidden early in the game. In this one, Wolverine has discovered he’s been stricken with a virus implanted in him during his time in the Weapon X program. He has only 48 hours to discover the cure or else he’s toast so it’s back to Winnipeg (or wherever the facility is in Canada) to uncover the secret and probably tangle with some old foes in the process.

The presentation in Wolverine’s Revenge is one of the best things it has going. Hamill is quite good as Logan and the other voice actors are all pros. When it wants to be, the score is of a near theatrical quality though there are many quiet moments since this is a stealth game after all. The graphical presentation is mostly decent. It’s a little early in the life of the PS2 so it does kind of resemble a PlayStation 1 game just in how the models are constructed, but with much better textures. And since this is technically a movie tie-in, I’m guessing there were some time constraints involved. It’s not ugly or anything, but no one would be singing its praises where graphics are concerned. The environments are not especially spacious, but you do spend the majority of the game in underground facilities and the like so it was never going to have an open world feel to it. There are some scenarios that are open, but they’re honestly the more boring portions of the game as there usually isn’t much to do or discover within them. And since the emphasis is on stealth, the tighter confines are welcomed as they provide more opportunities for Wolverine to hide and sneak up on foes.

Stealth is the name of the game for much of this one and it makes sense when guards are too stupid to check the roof of a truck.

Where things start to go off the rails though is just in the general controls and camera. The camera is basically free floating and needs to be constantly fiddled with. When moving along in a stealthy manner, it’s passable as manipulating the camera when Wolverine is stationary or moving slowly is fine. When things get chaotic it can be hard to focus on where danger is coming from or what a boss might be doing. And despite the game putting an emphasis on stealth, there are a lot of times where it forces the player into something else. When engaging in stealth, Wolverine has a simple selection of tools that mostly work. Holding R1 allows him to quickly move in a low, almost on all fours, crouch that counts as stealth. Holding L1 keeps him upright and has him walk slowly and quietly while holding L2 does the same, but with “heightened senses” enabled which is essentially infrared. This makes it easier to see enemies and even displays a scent trail to help locate enemies not in plain sight. Wolverine can also flatten himself against a wall and creep along it. When he reaches the edge of said wall, he can peer out from behind it without penalty which shifts the camera. It can feel a bit cumbersome at first, but it’s relatively easy to get a handle on after a little while and the game does do a good job of getting the player’s feet wet. When an enemy gets within striking distance while in stealth, the word “Strike” flashes across the screen and pressing the circle button will cause Wolverine to go into an animation where the enemy is taken out. While he does brandish and utilize his claws without hesitation, there’s no blood or gore to be found in the game as Activision likely wanted it to retain a Teen rating.

When stealth fails the game also starts to do the same. Wolverine can trade blows using square and triangle with square being punch and triangle kick. Pressing R2 deploys his claws which deals extra damage, but having them deployed negates Wolverine’s healing factor. When enemies get damaged enough to have most of their health depleted, they’ll be stunned. Wolverine can then finish them off with a strike command or pick them up. If they’re picked up he can stab them to death or toss them at another foe. When Wolverine is engaged with multiple enemies, multi-strike maneuvers become available. These are unlocked throughout the game by collecting dog tags which Wolverine receives as reward for stealth kills. When two or more enemies are in range, green arrows flash on the floor indicating a strike command is available. Activating them will allow Wolverine to take out up to three enemies in range. At first, the player will only have the circle attack available, but four levels can be unlocked and these are triggered by alternating circle and triangle. These maneuvers are not to be confused with finishing strike commands though as often it won’t be enough to take them out – especially later in the game which is one of my biggest pet peeves with this game.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time just waiting for that health bar to refill itself.

The enemies are just too damn strong. Basic grunts encountered take awhile to bring down. Wolverine, whether he has claws deployed or not, will need a good thirty seconds to take down a single foe. That may not seem like a lot, but when trapped in a room with six enemies it gets pretty tedious. Big groups of enemies often need to be taken down with running attacks. When running, pressing triangle causes Wolverine to go into a baseball slide which knocks enemies down. This doesn’t do much damage, but it does dislodge firearms which is really important for crowd control because a room full of guys blasting Wolverine with rifles will not end well for him. Despite being the best at what he does, Wolverine can’t take the sort of punishment one might associate with him. Aiding him is a fury meter located above his health. When full, this triggers a rage that allows Wolverine to do damage, but forces his claws to be out until it dissipates. He’ll do more damage and take guys out quicker, but it’s fleeting and works against the stealth approach. And when the game just wants to up the difficulty during the later stages (in particular, the hated Act IV), it just forces the player into taking on a bunch of enemies at once. One of the worst sequences in the game tasks the player with sneaking into a room with a command tower in it. Wolverine needs to enter the tower to unlock a door, but once the terminal is interacted with, two groups of five soldiers enter the room and four turrets in the wall emerge. There’s no way to stealth your way out of this because the enemies know Wolverine is in there. Jumping out and making a run for it won’t work because one of the soldiers is carrying a key needed to advance. You pretty much need to take them out. The only good thing is striking the wall turrets just once with Wolverine’s claws will cause them to deactivate, but doing so is easier said than done with all of the guns trained on Wolverine.

I tried and failed a bunch at this point. I’d wait in the tower as after a few minutes one of the enemy groups would walk out into another room as if to patrol. I’d run out, slash the two turrets on the left, then retreat back into the tower where the enemies wouldn’t follow. This would take out about half of my health and once in the tower I could let Wolverine’s healing factor bring me back up, which is not something that happens quickly. Once healed, I’d try to repeat that with the other two turrets, but unfortunately they were on the same side as the soldiers who didn’t retreat. That’s where I’d fail, sometimes while climbing the ladder back into the command tower. What allowed me to finally clear this is actually letting a stationary turret in the preceding room detect me before leaving it. It makes no sense as a gameplay mechanic, but instead of sneaking past it if the turret catches sight of Wolverine the turrets in the next room become activated. I then slashed at them to make the turrets retract and when I activated the terminal in the command tower they did not reactivate it. That made it much easier to take out the guards which is still tedious, but much easier.

Some of the other X-Men make cameos including Colossus.

As is common of action games, each act ends with a boss encounter. Some of the parts within an act itself also feature one and they pretty much all have a gameplay mechanic needed to be understood in order to defeat the boss. Wolverine can’t just go in claws slashing. One boss requires you to knock back thrown barrels while another tasks Wolverine with doing his best “So long, gay Bowser,” imitation to toss a boss off a platform several times. Some are more obvious than others while there are some encounters that are borderline archaic. It’s not a boss, per say, but there’s a “vortex” Wolverine needs to quell in one stage before it reaches a power source and the only way to do that is throw enemies at it. There’s really nothing in the game to clue the player in on that though and it’s basically an instant death if Wolverine contacts it so have fun replaying everything up to that moment again and again. Most become easy to figure out though, but actually clearing them can still be a chore. Collision detection is not the game’s strength. In the platform fight, objects rain down on the battlefield and you need to be further away from them than you would probably expect to avoid taking damage. On that same fight, getting knocked off the platform is also an instant death. I’m not one to complain about a game “cheating” me, but twice when I had the boss down to literally no health (you have to throw him one more time post that achievement) I got swiped at by him from the left only for it to knock Wolverine in the same direction. As in, it would be like hitting a golf ball square and it somehow goes backwards. Both times, this attack knocked me off the platform and it looked ludicrous and I have no explanation for why the game would do that. Another fight puts Wolverine in an electrical cage of sorts. In order to win the fight, Wolverine needs to lure the enemy into charging into specific spots on the electric fence, but the camera is brutal. The game wants to keep the full arena in frame which forces it to drawback too far. Wolverine also isn’t particularly nimble or equipped for that type of dodge mechanic and it feels pretty clunky. To make it more annoying, enemies outside the field lob toxic gas grenades which stun Wolverine and negate his healing factor. After the bad guy hits the force field, he gets stunned and Wolverine has to hit him a couple of times to make a “Strike” prompt appear and the window is tiny. I would basically hit the attack button twice and then mash the circle button and just hope he went into the strike animation.

Most of this review is me just complaining about the game and that basically sums up my experience with it. This is a Wolverine game that fails in making the player feel like they’re controlling Wolverine. Sure, the avatar on screen looks enough like Wolverine and has cool claws, but he’s pretty clunky to handle, dies easily, and isn’t the killing machine one would expect of him. The story is decent in that it provides some motivation to see it through and there’s a ton of familiar foes in this one. It does end on a cliffhanger which is amusing now since no sequel followed. The designs are squarely in that 2000s era which isn’t my favorite, but I don’t fault the game any for that. I also do kind of like that it’s of its era. The most important question today is should this game be experienced by someone in 2026? And I’d say only if you’re really curious. You don’t need to play the whole game to get the full experience so shut it off once the frustration kicks in. For those who just want to play a Wolverine game and actually have a good time, Wolverine Origins is much better. It’s not a masterpiece or anything, but is good, mindless, fun and the only true drawback is that it’s tied into a truly awful movie. And as this goes live we’re on the eve of a brand new Wolverine game by Insomniac for the PlayStation 5. While I’m not completely sold based on what I’ve seen, there’s a good chance it will be the best Wolverine game to ever come out even if it too is a far cry from better titles like God of War or even Insomniac’s own Spider-Man.

For more video game content check these out:

Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge

Expectations influence just about everything we come in contact with.  Expectations can help lead to a more fulfilling experience when those expectations are met.  Other times, they can help make the bad seem worse when something fails to meet those expectations.  When I was a kid and I heard there was going to be a…

Keep reading
by Joe

Arcade 1Up Marvel Super Heroes Counter-Cade

Arcade 1Up has been around for a few years now selling arcade cabinets at a reduced size and also a reduced price. The cabinets are significantly smaller than an actual arcade cabinet, but still plenty large enough to take up a lot of floor space in your home. And while they’re cheaper than the “real…

Keep reading
by Joe

Spider-Man (Arcade)

Forgive me if I’ve said something similar before; but younger people are shocked by the norms of the past! Yeah, it’s a very “old man” thing to say, but it’s also an easy way to impress someone younger. And in this case, the shocking thing to say is that Marvel Comics often found itself in…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Video Games

March 14, 2017

Logan

By Joe

logan

Logan (2017)

A popular “gotcha” question from when I was a kid concerning comic books and the X-Men was, “What’s Wolverine’s mutant power?” The desired response was a reference to his claws, at which point one could interject with a “Nuh-uh! It’s his mutant healing factor!” Of course, later in the 90’s it would be revealed that his claws actually were a part of his mutation, thus putting an end to that one, but it was always kind of a stupid piece of trivia anyway. Wolverine’s defining trait are his claws, the healing stuff was just a way to excuse the beating he took in the pages of Incredible Hulk and X-Men. If he didn’t have those unbreakable claws, he probably never would have become the most popular member of the X-Men.

And yet, Wolverine’s claws were always a bit of an obstacle for comic writers and artists, and eventually animators and film makers as well. You have this violent, bad ass character, equipped with blades that can cut through almost anything, but he really can’t use them because of the obvious gore factor that would involve. Instead, Wolverine would often use the claws for show, deflect some attacks, cling to walls, cut through a fence, and everyone’s favorite – hack up some robots. That’s why it’s particularly liberating to see Wolverine go all out in the opening moments of Logan.

To a newcomer, or even someone who has just fancied themselves a casual fan, the violence and gore present in Logan will seem over the top, perhaps juvenile. The R rating the movie garnered may be viewed in a cynical fashion to appease young males who want f-bombs and blood out of their movies. For those who have been with this character since their childhood though, it’s a stark reveal of just who Wolverine is. This is the Wolverine we hear about from other characters, spoken of in hushed tones and feared by his enemies. This is a superhero who’s primary offense, and defense, is to just start hacking. And since this is applied to an older, very cynical, Wolverine we get a character who doesn’t operate in half measures – if you get in his way and threaten him or those who cares about, Wolverine won’t hesitate to remove your face from your skull.

maxresdefault-7

If you’ve always wanted to see Wolverine do this, then Logan will make you very happy.

Logan is a film set some 15 years or so in the future. It’s not a dystopian world or a wasteland. There are no flying cars or laser rifles, the setting is just an excuse to take a look at an aging, dying, Wolverine. When the film opens we see Wolverine has taken on a very mundane job as a limo driver. He walks with a limp, is an apparent alcoholic, and his wounds don’t close as quickly as they used to. When he’s not working, he’s scoring drugs and hopping the Mexican border where his perhaps only friends are hiding out:  Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart). The drugs Wolverine purchases are for Xavier, who’s past the ninety-year mark and struggling to keep his wits about him. When the world’s most dangerous telepath can’t control his old brain bad stuff can happen. Wolverine is apparently saving up some cash to buy a houseboat where he and Xavier can live out the rest of their days without fear of harming anyone, or anyone bothering them (in the case of Wolverine).

Wolverine’s day to day life is disrupted when a borderline hysterical woman (played by Elizabeth Rodriguez) comes seeking his aid. Offering a substantial amount of money, she wishes for Wolverine to smuggle her and her daughter into Canada. Wolverine wants nothing to do with her, apparently not wanting any trouble. Soon a young man barges into his limo looking for info on the woman. He is Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), and we know from his demeanor and bad-ass cybernetic hand that he is certainly a bad dude and probably what the young woman is running from. Upon hearing this, Xavier naturally wants to help the woman as he senses a mutant presence, Caliban smells it as well (his mutant power). This is a big deal as there hasn’t been a mutant born in this world in over twenty years. Wolverine is sort of conned into helping the woman, and things get messy before they get any better.

Since she’s featured so heavily in the promotion, and the film makes little attempt to create any mystery about it, I might as well continue along and talk about Laura (Dafne Keen), the young mutant Wolverine and Co. end up taking in. Laura, known as X-23 in the comics, is a young girl with a very familiar set of powers and abilities, and also temperament. She is referred to by other characters as Wolverine’s daughter, but it might be more accurate to call her his clone. She’s on the run in search of a place called Eden and is running from Pierce and the people responsible for her existence. After the lengthy setup, the film turns into a road movie with Wolverine, Laura, and Xavier.

logan_charles

Jackman and Stewart are just beautiful in their portrayals of Logan and Xavier.

Logan is not a feel good movie, and it doesn’t offer much mystery. I found myself anticipating almost every beat the film hits, but I also didn’t care. The world of Logan is harsh and unfriendly, but there are small moments to break up the grim that either provide humor or just a small slice of life. Xavier and Laura make for a fun pair and easily form a warm relationship, even if Laura is essentially mute. Perhaps to the surprise of some, Xavier is the character most often relied upon for comic relief. He and Wolverine clash well, but underneath the surface conflict it’s obvious the two love and respect each other. Wolverine is a surrogate son of sorts to this version of Xavier, and waits on him like a doting son, though he seems to take some enjoyment in complaining about it every step of the way. The relationship feels very authentic, which is a word that kept coming to me as I took in this picture. Patrick Stewart comes across as especially authentic as Xavier. There’s a scene where the trio sits down to dinner with some strangers and Stewart plays Xavier in a way that’s reminiscent of every dinner I’ve ever had with an elderly person I had only just met. He’s delighted to speak with someone other than his irritable traveling companion, but his performance never teeters on parody.

Hugh Jackman is a captivating Wolverine in this film. I suppose that comes as no surprise since he’s been playing this character for almost twenty years now (the same can be said of Stewart). Jackman worked with director/writer James Mangold on the story, loosely adapted from the Old Man Logan story from the comics. It’s clear from interviews with Jackman that this was an important film for him and an important story for him to have a part in telling as Wolverine, for it’s to be his last turn as the character. The Wolverine of this film is best described as the exact assumption most would have of an old man Wolverine. All of his lesser traits -his irritability, cynicism, vices and so on have only been strengthened by father time. He’s still a good guy inside, but his pessimism makes him more of an introvert than he’s ever been. The film doesn’t dwell on the past, but it makes it obvious that all of the X-Men are dead. This is a Wolverine who has lost everything. He doesn’t want to start over, he’d rather just die. He’s pulled through this movie by other characters as well as his inner sense of duty, but it’s a struggle. The film tells this story through action and not so much dialogue. In doing so, Mangold is able to avoid a lot of the tropes that plague other films attempting to tell a similar story.

NEPbctPbbkOESW_2_b

I wonder where she gets it from…

Laura proves to be a compelling character in her own right. Portrayed by newcomer Dafne Keen, Laura is a wide-eyed girl experiencing the world for the first time. Everything is interesting and new to her, and Keen is forced to tell us what Laura is thinking through her actions alone while also being restricted from changing her usual stoic facial expression. She’s a fun character to watch when the film slows down, but also a sad character during the action sequences when we are forced to watch a young girl brutally eviscerate other people with cold precision. She’s in a way been denied humanity, while also being denied a childhood. Again, Mangold does a great job of just putting this out there in the film without editorializing it. We don’t need a character to tell us now depressing her upbringing was. The film slowly gives us more and more of the Laura character and it’s one of the few aspects that feels rewarding. I would guess most people will leave the theater wanting to see more of this character in the future.

All of this is to say the movie isn’t perfect. Like most superhero pictures, it’s probably longer than it needs to be. While there are no obvious scenes that could have been axed, the film does move slowly and if an editor had been ordered to keep the runtime under two hours they probably could have found a way without much compromise. The film is also so centered on Wolverine and Laura that the antagonists feel like after-thoughts at times. And as I mentioned, it is very predictable and there is a sequence in the middle of the movie that bothered me as a result because the characters should have been able to see the danger up ahead.

The flaws within Logan are minor and do little to bring down what some are calling the best superhero movie yet. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, as Logan could function as any kind of movie if you took away the super powers. The film isn’t centered on a conflict of good vs evil with the fate of the world in the balance. It’s a character driven film, and for people who have considered themselves fans of the Wolverine character, this is probably the film you’ve been waiting for. It’s a film for those who appreciate the essence of what makes Wolverine special, and it’s able to present the character in an authentic way without devolving into a ton of fan service. More importantly, this is also clearly a worthy story for Jackman to go out on. This is his finest performance not just as Wolverine, but of any film I’ve seen him in, and I assume that was the personal goal of Jackman going into it. I was totally fine with this being Jackman’s last time playing Wolverine, but once the credits started rolling I must admit I was starting to wish for more, and as they say in show business, always leave them wanting more.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Film