X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- Uncaged Edition [PC]

As I watched the opening CG cutscene for X-Men Origins: Wolverine I couldn't shake my amazement at the fact that what I was seeing was a game based on an upcoming movie. In general, licensed movie properties suffer from small budgets and accelerated development cycles which make high quality opening cinematics like this something of an anomaly. That wasn't the part that amazed me. This particular cutscene, and in fact the whole game demo that followed, was bloody, brutal and a more honest depiction of Logan than you can probably ever expect out of a blockbuster summer action flick.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is being developed by Raven Software, a team you may be familiar with from past work on Marvel Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends. This title, though, is a pure action brawler with a few light puzzles, platforming elements and massive boss battles tossed in for variety. The team is looking to create as true to form a version of Wolverine as possible, complete with his signature fighting moves, mutant abilities, and unbridled rage.

Our demo began with Wolverine in freefall, whipping past clouds whit the ground rapidly approaching and not a parachute in site. The over-the-top entrance is topped with a landing that crushes your first victim. From there, things only get more violent and bloody as Wolverine tore through a jungle environment.

All of the action in X-Men Origins takes place in the third-person and is filled with your standard combos and grabs. There's a bit more to the gameplay than simple button mashing, though. You can interact with the environment to do things like throw enemies into spikes (likely leaving them wondering why they put the spikes there in the first place) or toss them off cliffs. There's also some timing to your attacks where in the midst of a combo or grab Wolverine will flash, indicating that you should hit the Y Button (Triangle on PS3) for a quick kill. My personal favorite move on display, though, was a quick lunge kill where Wolverine leaps across the screen to impale some poor sap on his claws.

The real fun comes in with the gore shaders, an aspect of the game that Raven Software is particularly proud of. Each layer of Wolverine can be torn off, straight down to his adamantium skeleton. If a bullet rips through his torso, you'll see the hole it left. If a knife cuts into his flesh, you'll see the blood and guts inside the gash it tears out. If you take enough damage, you can actually die and be forced to restart from a checkpoint, but you'll see Wolverine torn to shreds and still walking long before that happens. And if you manage to make it out of the scuffle without dying, you'll get to watch all of the scrapes, cuts, and holes heal up in front of your eyes in real time.

The gore isn't limited to Wolverine, naturally. From the opening CG cutscene where Wolverine repeatedly tears into a guy's stomach, tossing blood this way and that, to the heads being lopped off by his claws, this mutant knows how to finish things in style. This game is going to be more bloody and brutal than the movie it is based on.