Game Review – X-Men Origins: Wolverine is better than the crappy movie of the same name

Here's a sentence you don't see very often: “The video game is better than the movie.”

Most of the time movie-based games are rush jobs, made to cash in on whatever success the movie might have at the box office. They have a low shelf-life and even lower expectations among gamers. Most of the time, they're a safe bet to avoid. But what about when the movie's really bad (like X-Men Origins: Wolverine)? Will the game be that much worse, or will it manage to overcome its nasty origins and work as a good game all on its own?

In this case, it's absolutely clear that it's the movie pulling the game down, and not the other way around. I can say with some confidence that the vast majority of the problems I had with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the game) are directly related to story and plot elements they were saddled with from the film. Whenever the game developers had freedom or pushed boundaries, the game excelled.

This article appears in May 6-12, 2009.