Ok, so I know I have probably become a bit jaded since I play the PS3 and rarely play a PS2 title. However, X-Men Origins: Wolverine just doesn't look good. The characters are pretty blocky and the areas just don't shine. That being said, Wolverine and Sabretooth do look a lot like their on-screen counterparts, but overall, the game could just look better. In this day and age, when most everyone has moved on to next-gen systems, if you are making a PS2 game, it better look damn good. Like God of War good. And since God of War was a gorgeous game and also done on the PS2, there's just no excuse for this game looking so bland and unattractive.

The sound is better, however. Wolverine and Sabretooth sound like they should (I believe they were voiced by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber), but the one-liners that the countless enemies spout out are just annoying and grating. You can only hear "There's so much blood!" so many times before going completely insane. Further, every time Wolverine senses a sentinel observer, which are usually lurking invisibly around the levels, he completely stops and says something like, "What was that?" The bad part is that whoever is kicking your butt at the time continues doing just that while you pause and reflect about a potential "enemy" that doesn't even hurt you. These are merely collectibles that you can destroy. Sheesh.

The gameplay is abysmal, in my opinion. You begin the game as Logan, a logger in the Canadian wolderness. You haven't yet been infused with adamantium goodness, however. That comes later. Your brother, Creed, comes to town looking to settle an old score with you and wreaks havoc in his wake, killing your lover, Kayla. It sort of follows the movie's storyline, in this regard. Your fellow loggers don't take kindly to Sabretooth and his destructive ways and they take it out on you.

The basic gist of the game is that you'll brawl your way through, killing everyone in your path. Sounds more like Sabretooth's style to me, but anyway. From time to time, you'll encounter Sabretooth as a mini-boss (among others) and these encounters are more frustrating than anything else. At one point, you will fight Sabretooth on top of an 18 wheeler blazing down the road. Your first order of business is to destroy the invisible sentinel or else Wolverine will stop in his tracks to "sense" it and Sabretooth will beat him from behind. In the middle of the fight, you'll enter some quick-time events, but the response time is off. It just feels wrong and you will probably die many times. As you progress, you'll work your way through different areas, chasing Sabretooth and finally getting your adamantium infusion from William Stryker. The cut scenes come straight from the next-gen console versions and that only adds insult to injury. Then you'll work your way through facilities, destroying robots and such and facing down familiar faces.

Every kill you make earns you experience which can then be traded in for new and more powerful combos, more health, etc. This doesn't make up for the fact that the game is just not fun, but it does help a little bit, especially since you can upgrade mid-level by pressing Pause and going into the Upgrade option. However, the combos seemed a little pointless and you can accomplish basically the same thing with mindless button-mashing. Probably the worst part of the game is being forced to use moves like Wolverine's lunge, which is not the least bit enjoyable. You'll use this to jump from tree to tree or to traverse wider spans than Wolverine can normally jump. You can also use a similar move to beat up bad guys, but it just doesn't feel natural and again, simple button-mashing seems to work better.

In addition to Wolverine's Health bar, which will refill as he heals over time, there's a Rage bar that will fill as he kills people. Once it's full, you can deal much more damage when you pound bad guys. Eh.

Wolverine also has his Feral Sense, which can be activated to see places that are destructible or the aforementioned hidden sentinel observers. However, when this sense is active, everything turns a reddish color and normal enemies are more difficult to see. Also, there was a certain point in the game where you needed to hunt Sabretooth and you were to follow a path that could only be seen using Feral Sense. This path disappears under a fence you can't get through and you are supposed to get on the roof and use the lunge to progress, but it's not the least bit intuitive or obvious. Would it have killed them to implement a map, for crying out loud?

There are three levels of difficulty in X-Men Origins: Wolverine that essentially amount to Easy, Medium, and Hard. I played the game on the Medium setting and while pounding through countless enemies wasn't difficult, the game was so frustrating and dull that it added another level of "difficulty" to the experience. Having to try and figure out where to go with no map or helpful guidance whatsoever also added to the difficulty. Boss fights amounted to avoiding the boss until you figured out the trick to hurting them and were just another layer of suck. Overall, playing this game was more difficult than the game itself.

I didn't like the controls in X-Men Origins: Wolverine at all. Heavy and light attacks were controlled by pressing the (X) and (Square) buttons and jump was relegated to the (Circle) button. Huh? In what game of this sort has jump ever been controlled by the (Circle) button. To successfully play it, you had to retrain your mind and this game is so not worth that. I found myself striking when I wanted to jump more times than not. Ugh. Then there's the lunge move which is initiated by pressing the (L1) button and then moving the Left Analogue Stick in the appropriate direction. However, you could only use your lunge move if there were appropriate targets right in front of you. Further, once you got into the lunge move, you could make successive jumps, but only if you could tell which direction the little icon was telling you to move your Left Analogue Stick. Did I mention it was hard to tell? Well, it was.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the PS2 is an absolute mess. It is not fun. If you have another option as far as a game system, try that version. Aside from the Wii, from what I understand, your experience will be much better, yes, even enjoyable on the next-gen systems. I cannot remember playing a game on the PS2 recently that is more pointless and less fun. Oh wait, Coraline. That game sucked too. Avoid this game at all costs.