One of the hidden gems of last gen was a movie-based game that was promoted as sort of the antithesis of a movie-based game, it was Raven Software's X-Men Origins: Wolverine The Game. The title was actually a heck of a lot better than it deserved to be, and that's what's highlighted in the Honest Trailer.
Over on the Smosh Games YouTube channel, they decided that their newest Honest Trailer should take it back old-school to 2009. They picked out Activision's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and decided to take it apart and see what made it tick.
In the postmortem parody trailer review, the game seems to come out with fairly high marks. They compare it to the movie of the same name and note that it's a better X-Men: Origins product than the film itself. Of course, the movies had a thousand and one things wrong with it, most of all its incoherent plot, awful pacing and ridiculous characterizations that broke all sorts of continuity with every other film in the series.
As for the game, one thing that absolutely does stand out is the fact that the graphics hold up really, really well to be almost a decade old. From 2009 until now the game aged marvelously. You can actually tell that Hugh Jackman is Hugh Jackman, and the models and lighting fit the theme of the game perfectly. I forgot just how good the game looked.
But the Honest Trailer doesn't gush on the graphics, but focuses on the game's honest brutality, stating that it's literally the most violent depiction of Wolverine you've ever seen. Again, I forgot about the fatalities that could be executed in X-Men: Origins Wolverine. In the clips we see the clawed-one holding a man's head up to the rotors of a helicopter, we see Sabertooth ripping the arms off a soldier, and we see an innumerable amount of "meat-bag" soldiers being ripped to shreds. Heck, some of the fatalities looked more brutal than Mortal Kombat X. It makes sense given that Wolverine is just as deadly as anyone from the long running fighting game series, and all it takes is one get swipe from his indestructible claws.
They also talk about how much the game pushed the M rating back then, showing some of the absolutely gruesome and gory situations that befell Logan, one of which is quite similar to an iconic scene from Berserk.
The Honest Trailer rounds out by joking about how movie tie-in games have mostly all disappeared and then quips about how we could all be playing a "terrible John Wick game".
Don't tease my heart like that!
I'd imagine a John Wick game would be like a cross between Hitman and Max Payne 3, and it already makes me sad knowing that there are no games out there like that, other than the two I just mentioned.
Anyway, this almost seemed like an endorsement to go check out the old X-Men Origins: Wolverine game if you're looking to get in some time with 'ole Wolvy, given that his latest and last movie, Logan, is currently out in theaters.
