EFTWR
Entertaining For
The
Wrong
Reasons
WOLVERINE (NES)
Deep down, it bothers me when they make video games about
Wolverine, for the same reason it bothers me when they make games about
Superman. Because it makes no sense.
For a game to be good, it has to be challenging. To make
it challenging, you need to make it possible for the main character to
lose. But Wolverine is invincible.
If you're semi-versed in marvel comics, or saw the movie,
or that TV show in the 90s where Wolverine called everyone "bub" then you
probably realize that Wolverine has super-human healing ability. He can
recover from almost anything almost immediately. The only way to kill him
would be to cut his head off. But his neck has the most indestructable
substance in the world in it.
Of course, to make the game playable, Wolverine is able
to be killed by walking into a man wearing a stupid white jumpsuit that
shoots fireballs and disappears. I'm sure this makes sense to the guy who
signed the contract with Marvel because he really didn't care. Neither,
I'm sure, did the three high school students hired to program it in their
spare time between pretending to study and pretending to like the music
all their friends like.
GRAPHICS
Get thee behind me.
Wolverine's death frame looks a lot like his ducking
frame. I'm sure the player can tell whether he's ducking or dead based
on whether there are enemies nearby and whether he/she is holding the down
button. But I consider that argument the same as someone who's reading
a book and the plot seems to end on page 42 and just becomes drivel but
they keep reading because "there are more pages"
Don't assume for a moment that you can just skip over
details because the people who play it will figure it out for themselves.
This is why Mario wears red and Luigi wears green.
I think really what I'm trying to say is that the graphics
are crap, the animations are crap and on the whole the game is crap. That
should make everything clear.
SOUND
The sound and music aren't worth mentioning. Not good,
but not the worst thing you ever heard.
They're a little on the annoying side, but the creaters
were good enough to offset this by making them few and far between.
The music's not great either, but you probably won't
notice it.
SO, WHAT MAKES IT ENTERTAINING?
Wolverine has never looked this stupid.
When I was in grade five I drew pictures of wolverine
without even trying to make them look good, and I'm not exactly an art
student either. And the game's graphics are worse.
That fact makes the game on the whole very entertaining.
To me, the graphics closely resemble the game Spider-Man except there are
no missiles or giant explosions. But there are ninjas and electro-magnets,
not to mention Sabretooth taunting you at the end of every level.
Here's something I see in video games a lot. Especially
NES games. There's always pictures of the villian with a caption, presumably
him talking to you. I'd assume because the guy is talking to my character,
he's nearby. But he isn't. Sabretooth is nowhere to be found on any of
the levels I've gotten to. So how the anus can he talk to me?
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Note: Even in prison movies,
I've never heard of anyone getting raped by NINJAS.
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Getting back to the graphics, though, there's nothing
more entertaining than watching Wolverine run. Sometimes I run back and
forth in a small hallway. Note: This only works at the beginning of a level.
Once you enter the main area, annoying jumpsuit guys will try to kill you.
And I can tell you in my vast experience in the matter that getting killed
has serious repercussions on your trying to act like a moron.
The moral to this story:
Beta-testing. If you think there's nothing at all wrong
with your game, you're almost definitely wrong. Get someone to show you
why.
| GRAPHICS |
4 |
/ |
10 |
|
| SOUND |
4 |
/ |
10 |
|
| GAMEPLAY |
3 |
/ |
10 |
|
FLY, YOUNG WOLVERINE! FLY FLY FLY!
THOU MAYEST REVENGE, O SLAVE! |
6 |
/ |
10 |
|
| OVERALL |
4 |
/ |
10 |
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