PSP Game Review - Wolverine Origins

The story of the game is loosely based on the eponymous movie; even though the game is based on the movie there are some divergences in the game story compared to the movie version, as the story takes an original approach created by Raven Software to expand what it couldn't be shown in the movie; but essentially the game story and the movie story are the same as they explore the birth of Wolverine and his formative years in Canada in the late 19th Century until his recruitment in Colonel Striker, Weapon X program.

The game takes where the movie Origins left, William Stryker is trying to get to Wolverine's lost memories with some electro therapy to access these suppressed memories, while experimenting the shocks Wolverine goes back in his mind to Japan, to the first mission of the game and the one that serves as a tutorial, but eventually with more memories appearing the game slowly takes a violent twist almost typical from the Wolverine comics, but there is another twist; the story is narrated by William Stryker and he expose the more violent side of Logan that wasn't show in the movie, technically we see the animalistic side of Wolverine that was missed almost entirely from Origins.

The gameplay is really interesting, as it takes a realistic approach in Wolverine abilities as well as the interactions with the environment. The graphics and sounds are fairly decent, compared to the other console version the PSP version is not the best in terms of graphics or sounds, they can be repetitive and sometimes there is an odd polygonal sensation while you play the game and Wolverine has a really long neck, something that in real life is impossible as Hugh Jackman has a short neck.

As it was said previously, one interesting factor about the game is that Wolverine healing ability will be influenced by his settings, if the character takes certain amount of damage, let's say if he is hurt by a katana it will take a little more time if he was hurt with a knife or a smaller weapon; maybe that is the only interesting thing in the gameplay as the controllers and details in the scenarios are kind of scarce compared to other PSP games who took advantage of the console capacities.

Other negative aspect about the game (probably it was made on porpoise as a marketing strategy) is that Wolverine lost his identity and he looks more like Hugh Jackman, rather than the original character design, not even in the comics there has been a modification to the character to make it look like the Aussie actor, but this game takes the image interpretation a little bit further because the character design looks way more different than Hugh Jackman or the original design of Wolverine, but at least the developers kept the sideburns and the animalistic movements.

The given score to the gameplay is a 3 over 5 stars; it could be a better game, but it fails and keeps short, the other versions like the Wii version is way much better than the PSP in terms of gameplay.

Wolverine Origins for the PSP, is a good game but not the best adaption of any of the consoles; the game ends failing as is not fun as the movie, sometimes can be repetitive and dull because it don't take advantage of the PSP capacities; sure, take a look at the Crash Bandicoot games they are way better than the PSP version of Origins and they are one of the first games of the PSP or even Grand Theft Auto (maybe one of the best games for the PSP) who has a free exploration map and the player can interact with the environment way better than Wolverine Origins.

As a conclusion, the game can be fun to play but if you want to play something better play the home console versions of this game.