Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review artcle that looks at all things Nintendo Enterainment System. It’s that time of year again. When we see blockbuster superhero flicks hit the theaters. We saw Iron Man get his third movie last month, and Superman will be rebooted yet again. And in July, we’ll see yet another film starring the subject of this week’s review. This week, we’re looking at Wolverine. Does this game slash the competition, or will it put you in a berzerker rage?
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1991
PUBLISHER: LJN
GENRE: Action Platformer
Wolverine is one of the most iconic comic book characters of all time. From his first appearance in The Incredible Hulk #181, to becoming a major member of the X-Men, it’s no shock that the popularity of the character has since spawned everything from movies, TV shows, and even video games. And, of course one of those video games was on the NES. Unfortunately, the downside was who published the game.
LJN had the rights to pretty much every major Marvel license at the time (in fact the only one NES Marvel game that wasn’t made from LJN was Silver Surfer), and with the popularity of the X-Men, they made sure to use them as much as possible. There were two games featuring X-Men characters on the NES. The first one, The Uncanny X-Men, was a mess of a game that I may talk about some time if I can actually stomach playing that game. The other one was Wolverine, an action platformer starring the beloved mutant. It was developed by Software Creations, who have worked on several Marvel games including Silver Surfer, Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge, and Maximum Carnage. They also released games like Solstice, Plok, and Equinox. The game was released in October of 1991 to mixed reviews. Some like it, while others loathe the game. Which does it truly deserve though?
COVER STORY
I love this cover. Nice use of colors, great design of Wolverine, and has a great action pose that captivates the eye. Also it’s neat to see them actually mention some of the game’s plot with Sabretooth on the cover of the box. It’s a really dynamic cover, and easily an eye catcher.
STORY
Wolverine wakes up to find himself stranded on a desert island. as he makes his way further, he discovers a giant fortress being controlled by Magneto and Sabretooth. Wolverine has to get inside the fortress to stop the diabolical duo, but before that, he has to survive the many trials that Sabretooth has put in front of him. Can he survive this deadly “vacation”?
GAMEPLAY
Wolverine is a 1-2 player action platformer. You control Wolverine as he must survive the many trials in each level to eventually make it to enemies Magneto and Sabretooth. You move Wolverine with the D-Pad, jump with the A button, and attack with the B button. Select will release Wolverine’s powerful adamantium claws, as well as another ability that we’ll get into shortly. Pressing down will put Wolverine in a crouched position, that can be useful for crawling under dangerous situations.
As just stated, Wolverine’s main ability is to use his adamantium claws to slash into his enemies. You can choose between the claws and regular punches to deal damage on your enemy. While the claws do the most damage, the downside in using them is each individual slash will lower your health bar by one tiny increment. When all of Wolverine’s green health bar has lowered, the claws won’t be usable. You can restore your health with hamburgars scattered throughout the levels, as well as bottles of “life potion”.
You’ll also notice at the bottom hub that there’s a meter called “Berzerker”. Each enemy you defeat adds more energy to your berzerker meter, and when it gets full, Wolverine will become invincible for a short period of time, and will be able to destroy any enemy he comes in contact with. The downside to this is that sometimes Wolverine can be difficult to control, and won’t always move when you want him to.
As you advance through the game, you’ll meet other X-Men characters in hidden areas. Psylocke will give you a radio that will signal Havok, who by pressing select when your health is low, will attack enemies while Wolverine heals himself. You’ll also find Jubilee, who will give you the ability to increase your air supply while swimming. To swim, you tap the B button to rise higher as you move, and you press A to jump out of the water. There is an air limit for Wolverine, and if it runs out, you begin to take damage the longer you’re in the water.
There are nine levels to battle through. “The first trial”, which is your basic platforming area, which works well in teaching you the basics of the game in general. “Trial By Air”, which has you jump from high platform to high platform, while being dragged by magnets to your possible doom. “Trial By Traps” which has you trying to avoid obstacles like spike walls and falling rocks. “Trial By Water” which will be your swimming portion of the game, which can be annoying with the amount of deadly enemies in the water, including the infuriating killer bubbles.
“Trial By Nightmares” which is a graveyard that you’ll have to deal with monsters and grim reapers. There is a neat little gimmick in the level where you can crouch behind these catapults that throw skulls at your enemies. “Trial By Fire” which has instant death fire everywhere, as well as platforms that can easily break beneath you. “Into the Fortress” will have you platform over spike pits and other obstacles like tornado machines that do damage.You make it to the 8th stage where you will have to, as the level title suggests, “Defeat Magneto”. This stage more tricky platforming with conveyor belts and spike, but isn’t all that hard if you have gotten used to the game by this point. Make it through and you will make it to Magneto, one of the two bosses in the game. He is first protected with an instant kill electrical barrier that you have to destroy before you get to him. Once you do so, you just dodge his blasts and go for quick strikes to send him to retreat.
Once you defeat Magneto, all that’s left is Sabretooth. You meet him at the edge of the island. The only way to defeat Sabretooth is knocking him off the cliff, which can be both easy and difficult. Easy because all it takes are punches to knock him off the edge, but difficult because he’ll often jump over you, and make his way back to a safer part of the ground. Defeating him will get you the ending, which is just a still image of Wolverine, that while nice to look at, doesn’t feel all that satisfying.
You have three lives and one continue to start the game. There are no passwords or level selects. But a plus side is that you can find more 1-ups and continues (labeled “Free Game”) throughout certain hidden levels. You will die a lot in this game, mainly thanks to the lack of any invincibility flicker, and many instant-death spots. But a plus is that you will start at the area you died when you die, even when you get a game over.
The game is annoyingly difficult mainly because of hit detection issues, but is still not impossible to get used to in order to beat the game. Despite some hit issues, the controls are responsive, and the jump works great, though you will often have to get to the very edge of a platform to even hope for a successful jump over the trickier pits later in the game. Other than that, it’s still playable despite some difficulty issues.
GRAPHICS
Graphics are okay. The caricatures of the characters all look great, and level design is pretty decent, though nothing truly amazing. The character sprites are tiny, but the X-Men characters all look detailed enough. However, the downside is that most enemies in the game are these bland white attackers with no detail, which really feels lazy. So in the end, it’s par for the course. Nothing spectacular, but nothing offensive to the eyes.
MUSIC
Now the music in the game is absolutely amazing. Once again, it’s the fantastic work of Geoff Follin, who always managed to use the NES sound chip to its finest, and this soundtrack is no exception. I think the best songs in the game are the title theme, and the first trial level. It’s a definite ear candy soundtrack.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
It’s kind of hard to really say if Wolverine is a good game or a bad game. On one hand, it’s got a great soundtrack and decent controls, but on the other hand, it has some annoying difficulty, the special ability of the berzerker not really being that helpful (especially in jumping areas), and a lack of any really decent payoff for completing such an annoying task. So in the end I’d say that this game’s annoyances make it far from enjoyable. It’s definitely not a game I’d go back to any time soon. But I will say that compared to the other X-Men game on the console, and even many of the Marvel games by LJN, this is definitely a vast improvement. So in the end, even with some positive notes, it still is an unforunate thumbs down, this game just doesn’t make the cut, bub.
RATING: Thumbs Down