Battlemouth

Every once and a while my three favorite forms of entertainment merge, and form an experience that is both earth shattering, and life altering. “Wanted: Weapons of Fate” was NOT one of those experiences. First of all for those of you poor souls that don’t know, Wanted was a comic book BEFORE it was a movie, and one of my top 10 favorites at that. All I will say is that Mark Millar’s (Kick-Ass http://is.gd/7xgp ,The Authority, Civil War, Ultimate Fantastic Four) alternate universe is the best of any I care to read about. Ask yourself this, “What if all the super villains put aside their differences, and joined forces to fight those pesky super heroes….and won?” Of course, as the saying goes, the movie (http://www.wantedmovie.com/ James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie) was nowhere near as good as the book, but the movie was still good. Personally, I wish that they had made the movie and just refrained from affiliating it with the book at all! They use the same main characters, and a lot of the action is similarly inspired, but the story line is really much less entertaining (IMO). The game, is worse. I feel bad thinking that, I loved the comic (and truth be told) the movie as well…,but as a moderate gamer, there were just too many video game mistakes that couldn’t be overlooked.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

First of all, bending bullets is awesome, slowing down time is neat. the costume is kick-ass (pun intended). However, most of the enemies are far to easy to kill, thanks more to horrible AI than the ability to shoot around cover, and the story is so weak that it is hard to keep playing. The plot in a nut-shell is not even really that interesting, you of course are Wesley, soon after his recent abduction and subsequent betrayal of “The Fraternity”. Awaken from slumber by the same reoccurring dream of your mother being shot you realize someone is in your apartment. Upon inspection you find two “police officers” digging through your office, where they crack open the frame of your only picture of you mother and withdraw a piece of paper of some sort (the paper ends up being completely irrelevant to the story) all while speaking French. “Of course”, you say, all bad guys speak french right!? WRONG…everyone knows that since the dawn of time (1984) bad guys are Russian….RUSSIAN!!!! A game is just no fun unless you are killing Communist/ fascist regime supporters (what can I say I grew up on the propaganda machine that was G.I. Joe). Anyways, this re-occurring dream becomes the engine powering your killing machine, as you go on the hunt to find the connection between the Frenchman in your apartment and the murder of your mother. The story of your childhood unfolds as you play through the past as “Cross” (your dad) trying to protect your mother and baby you as you all flee The Fraternity. A discovery that the dreaded “Loom” is being repackaged and moved to an unknown location by members of the French Fraternity becomes your main focus after you learn (thanks to some not so cleaver hints from an ex-Fraternity brother) it may be those same Frenchmen that killed your mother!!!! NO WAY! I was excited to find that the “main” bad-guy is the one and only “Blond From Fargo”, Peter Stormare!

Now that you have the basic gist of the story, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
So you start out chasing this French cop type fella across the roof tops and even though you can get him in your sights plenty of times, you must of course kill the baddies that run out to throw down cover fire for his getaway first. Annoying, and as you can’t bend bullets yet for some reason in beginning of the game, you are forced to wait for the bastards to poke their little heads up so you can blow them off. In fact that is pretty much the entire game. It is sadly formulaic…of course, all video games will have a hint of this, but it just seemed so forced in this game. Another frustrating point is that in all this running about jumping from rooftop to rooftop, you never once get to be acrobatic yourself! As soon as you clear the area next to the edge of the building it flips to a pretty looking cut scene that does the neat gymnastics for you….I thought this was lame. The game is set up so that each little area you have to fight guys in there are boxes or broken down walls or what -have-you for you to huddle up to and fire from cover. This all works exactly the same as Gears of War. “A” button hugs you up against your protection, and a direction and a will perform a neat little roll/slide move to the next available piece of cover. The only way you can die in the entire game is to not use cover, and the ridiculous land mines “sneakily” placed about the levels.. Stand in the open and 2 shots will drop you. The speed at which you can be killed did not bother me at all, in fact, I would consider it a plus. Of course like I said, the whole thing is moot if you just stay in cover…especially once you can bend bullets. Starting to get the picture yet? Then there were the boss fights….just plain sad. By the time you get to the first boss you have unlocked the super neat bullet bending and the sometimes useful “super slow motion.” However, neither are free to use…….even though you have been trained extensively on how to do both….every time you kill someone with a head shot or stab them or something you get “adrenaline”. Adrenaline is what allows you to do your little tricks. Now I am really not sure why they even through this in the game as when you go to fight the baddie as soon as you use up all your adrenaline….oh look here comes three or four regular douche bags for you to kill and get more adrenaline….and in between all of that, just stay behind cover….no deaths hear. The next thing that annoyed me pertains to those bullshit land-mines I mentioned earlier….OK someone please tell me what the fuck kind of mine can differentiate between me and the person who set it? Those bastards would run right over them and nothing would happen….I get within 10 feet and they blow my ass up! The mines have red strobes on top that flash a little when you get close…but with the flash of gunshots everywhere…you can’t ever see shit! By the time you get close enough to HEAR them…they blow up! And of course there are no movement options besides walking with, or without, your gun drawn…so you cant even jump or roll away! FUCKING LAME.
Another thing that was a bit rediculous is the implementation of “turret gun” levels…Look I can bend bullets…I dont need a chain gun…in fact some of the only times I even died…was behind the stupid chain gun! And for all the cool sniper rifle action in the movie it is a serious let down on the game…completely pointless….
I have to stress again that I really struggled with what my actual overall opinion of the game was…the fun of bending bullets and killing guys with such flair, verses the repetitiveness, the obserd simplicity, the poor controls, AHHH I couldn’t decide!

*END GAME REVEALED*

And then a couple big factors came in to play…..and made up my mind.
Towards the end of the game you decide to go on search for the tooooomb ooooof yoooouuuurr daaaad!!!1 OOOoooooOooooOOO!!! Ya ok seems a little flimsy and not really connected to the story, but I’ll keep going……and then I find him….after going through some ridiculous Indiana Jones shit you find your pop…mummified in a casket….holding two crossed machine gun pistols….which you take from him.
Ok now seriously, you can already bend bullets around corners, and all the other stuff, but machine gun pistols! Seriously? And to top it off, when you bend the machine gun shots, not only do you fire a completely unnecessary 6 shot barrage….but they EXPLODE….seriously come on now! After that the game does get more difficult, as if anticipating you using those machine gun things more, but I REFUSED to do that….
And the last straw that broke the glass house…the final battle…Wesley vs. The Blond. It took me 10 minutes, all you had to do was use the slowdown and unload both clips of those cheap ass machine gun pistols into him and boom….game over. Just before he dies though he tells you the “amazing” truth behind the murder of your mother. Apparently….wait for it….IT WAS YOUR FATHER!!!!! Ya the Blondie was just trying to kill you, but “APPARENTLY” your parents still believed in the power of “The Loom” and when it passed judgment for two of its agents getting it on….daddy Cross was told (by the loom of course) to end mommy…and then he was going to protect his new baby boy. Yes it is as stupid and anti-climactic as it sounds… sooo sooo disappointing. And the only reward you are given for beating the game, is the ability to now play as one of the bad guys…mind you the story is completely the same, as is the diologue…which makes it completely useless……

In conclusion, I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised, Wanted: Weapon of Fate just reminded me of the old video game standard (that I hoped would be retired after) games based on the movie….SUCK
So if you want to have some fun bending bullets…I can’t bring myself to say “no don’t ever play it”, but I can definitely tell you not to ever buy it. This game gets 1 and a half thums Down. All and all, just not a good game….