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And welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. And today I am so excited because I have a guest who is coming back. And even though I have failed them in getting them something for their show, which by the time this comes out, they will have gotten, I swear, Matt Storm decided it's still okay for them to come back on my show. And so today we have Matt Storm here to take a look at X2 Wolverine's Revenge. Matt, how are you today?
Hi. I'm good. Thanks for having me back. I don't fault you. I still in still running. There is a video games journal friend who will remain nameless, who owed me an episode for like two and a half years. So you're fine. You're doing okay?
Good.
You're not. You're not the worst.
I'm really glad you told me that number because I will definitely be faster than that.
But, yeah, I'm really excited. You were looking for more guests and you had reposted your list, and I saw a game that gave me a goddamn brain blast because I owned this day and date when it came out and forgot it existed like a lot of people. And when I saw it on your list, I was like, oh, I definitely want to go back and replay that. So thanks for having me back. I'm excited to be here.
I'm always excited when people want to come back because it just means that somebody got tricked and then they think I know what I'm doing.
We're all faking it till we make it. It's fine.
One thing with this list is the X Men games always go pretty fast, and it's almost like people like X Men. So what is it for you that made you say, ooh, an X Men game? I don't care that it's this one. I'm coming on to talk about it.
So it's a few things. One, Wolverine is one of my two favorite comic book characters of all time. The other one is Venom. And so anytime there's an opportunity to play a Wolverine game, of which there aren't as many as people think, like solo Wolverine games, I'm all over it. But this game specifically, like, I remember it like, you know, the X. Like a lot of people talk about how seminal the Spider man movies are, which they were the original Tobey Maguire ones, but for me, it was the X Men movies. The first two X Men movies were so seminal for me because the X Men were my favorite comic book series. The Wolverine was one of my favorite characters. I love Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine. And so when I heard that there was going to be a sequel game coming out to tie into the movie, I was excited to buy it. And so when I saw it on your list and promptly remembered its existence because I saw it there, I went, oh, I wonder if that's still good. I remember loving that. I want to play it again. And so that's kind of why I jumped on it, because I remember playing the shit out of it on the PS2 when it first came out, but I've probably never touched it since. And so those games are a blessing and a curse sometimes, right? You never know if they're going to hold up or not. And I was excited to see if this did.
It seems like whenever I talk to people about Wolverine, they're either, oh, my God, he's the greatest character ever, or Wolverine. Why do we need more Wolverine?
Yeah, I think he's in that echelon of Superman and Spider man at this point of a character that everybody knows and even like non hardcore comic book fans know, which can be exhausting for folks who do really love source material. The source material and like, like more characters than just Wolverine. It can feel like fanservice a bit, maybe. I mean, I often groan about Superman stuff just because it's not done very well a lot of the time, especially in the video game space. But I can totally see that. But yeah, I. I mean, not only do I love Wolverine, but I also quite love Hugh Jackman. And also part of it is Deadpool and Wolverine, as of when we're recording, only came out a little while ago. And I loved that also, which kind of got me back in the Wolverine spirit as well.
I mean, let's be real though. Deadpool and Wolverine was amazing.
I loved it. I thought it was phenomenal. Like, it's not the best comic book movie ever, but it's the best fan service movie ever. And it's what I wanted as a fan of the Fox properties, because it's basically an homage without spoilers, but it's basically an homage to all of the Fox Marvel films, not just X Men. I think this first one is still a stronger movie, but this is my favorite of them because I'm such a huge Wolverine and Hugh Jackman fan and it was just done so well.
What is it about Wolverine that has just drawn you over to him like a magnet to his adamantium skeleton?
I mean, it's funny. Like Wolverine and Venom both are a similar archetype. The kind of anti hero has hard luck, like grumpy, not friendly. Although truthfully, the personality of the Tom Hardy Venom movies, Venom, I think is the superior version of Venom because being a goofball himbo is like all I've ever wanted for that character. But for Wolverine specifically, I think it was just, you know, being an angsty teen when these movies came out and like, really, you know, oh, cool, he's got knives in his hand. And then reading his backstory and understanding the character like, oh, there's all these cool intricacies. And he just. He was the cool character, right? Him and Gambit were the cool looking characters who had an attitude, were kind of quippy and funny and sarcastic. And so those would draw in teenagers, I think, more often than not. But also, as I've gotten older, Wolverine remains a favorite because of how complicated his backstory is, how heartbreaking it is. I recently finished watching X Men 97 as well, which he's still portrayed by the same voice actor who did it in the 90s in that and is phenomenal. And his arc in that is is even better than his arc in the original run of the cartoon. So I think all of those things, I think how like, quote unquote real he is. And what I mean by that is just, he's kind of just this hard luck guy who is trying to do his best, often screws up. And like, I like flawed characters a lot. And so I think it's what pulled me to him the most, is his stories are really interesting and his. He as a character was often quite flawed and imperfect.
And right now, over on Legends of SHIELD that I'm also on, we're going through X Men Evolution. And in that you get that same kind of Wolverine of I'm going to sit here and mentor the younger kids. That's a better word to use there. And there's just this sense of I want to be gruff and I want everybody to leave me alone, but I'm also going to make sure that everybody is okay.
I'm secretly a teddy bear. Yeah, X Men Evolution is an excellent cartoon. I remember really loving it. I believe Stephen Blum is Wolverine in that I think that might have been before his run. It's hard to remember because Stephen Blum is Wolverine and like everything now, but I can't remember if he was in that too. I'm trying to check here. Internet. No, Scott McNeil was still Logan in that, but everything after that was Stephen Bloom. But yeah, that show is great. And I love that depiction of Wolverine as like the put upon mentor which will come back again in like Wolverine and the X Men and the later movies and all of that stuff for you.
What is your quintessential Wolverine run of the comics?
Oh, that's so hard. I mean, I really love the run. The brown, the brown and orange run, like when he fights the Hulk and all of that. I think that's really great. The original Weapon X run is also fantastic. Like his backstory and like I have such a strong image which we get in this game and we'll get to, of the action figure of Weapon X Wolverine with the shorts and like the, like the different tech stuff on him and the helmet and like, it's just such a vivid memory. I think those are the big ones. I mean, I do love Patch as well. I love that version of Wolverine. It's just so different from the modern versions of Wolverine. I have stronger attachments to the cartoon arcs than the comic arcs, but I do like all of them. And I've definitely read like the omnibuses of the early stuff, but I do. I think the Hulk, the several. Because I think Wolverine's fought Hulk several times and those. I love those comics. I just think it's so fun to watch Wolverine fight this seemingly impossible creature and where those comics go and how they deal with that conflict.
And we can't really talk about this without addressing the elephant in the room here. This game is nominally based on the X2 movie, and I feel like this is the place to knock that out.
Yeah. So this game is really interesting because it's called X2 Wolverine's Revenge and it has Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman in the black leather on the COVID But literally the COVID the box art, and one other thing in the game are the only things that have to do with the movie. The only other thing is that Professor Xavier is voiced by Patrick Stewart in this. But those are the. That's where the ties to the movie begin and end. Which is fascinating because the marketing is so closely tied to the movie. And I think even the ads for it when it came out were tied to the movie too.
I almost made the mistake of going and watching the movie to get ready for this, and I'm glad I didn't. Not because I don't like the movies. That's time that I couldn't have spent that was actually going to be productive for this. But it's insane to me that you would sit here and take all the effort to make this look like it's tied to the movie when you could very much just say, hey, here's a game. It's got Wolverine. It's cool. There's also this X Men movie.
Yeah, well, I mean, think about Arkham Asylum coming out within a year of, I believe, the Dark Knight, the Nolan film. But having, like, its darker tone is probably collaborative with the movies. But beyond that, like, it's. The voice actors are from the Animated series, you know, like, it's. The character designs are wholly original. So, like, that's common now. Pretty much like if, like, you know, the Spider man games kind of having the same release year as the movies or whatever, featuring costumes from the films, but like, back in the PS2 era, and I think even the early 360 era games were rushed into development and out of development so they could come out the same week as the movie. I remember the Batman Begins game came out the same week as the movie. It's loosely connected. Like, it has the same overall plot as the film, but it's obviously not the same thing, you know, Whereas now that's less common that most of the properties are, like, they have their own gravitas now. I think about how awesome the Guardians of the Galaxy game was that came out and was wholly its own thing. It pulled from the comics a little, but, like, it had nothing to do with the new films other than kind of some of the snark and, like, how it's written. But, like, the characters were wholly on their own. They weren't trying to do impressions of the MCU characters. And so, like, this was like an era where, well, we've got the movie coming out. We need a game. Let's put in development a Wolverine game. And then the developer was like, sure. And then they did their own thing. They didn't connect it to the movie at all. And I have no idea if that was the. Like, that was direction from above, from Marvel, if that was direction, just that's what they wanted to do. Like, it's interesting. I'd be more curious to know the development history of this and, like, why it's not connected to the movie. I'm glad it's not because the X3 game that came out several years later was awful. And was connected to the movie. And so I'm glad this was its own thing. It makes it easier to enjoy, I think, as a standalone property, once you get past the weird marketing on the box.
And like, one of the things with X Men is, you know, here's your team, here's your family that you found, here's everybody that's taking care of you now because either your actual family or just the rest of the world in general isn't going to take care of you. And then Wolverine, for some reason gets to be by himself all the time. But he's also good on the teams and I just think it's cool that they can somehow pull that off with him where it's not weird either way.
Yeah, I feel like there are only a handful of other characters that get away with that, like Iron man and Captain America do also. But on the X Men, like all the X Men have had their own runs, but Wolverine is the longest running solo member. And I think part of it is also he's been on other teams because he's been on Alpha Flight, he's been on X Force, he's kind of migrated and he's always. It's funny because he's played as this like loner character who then finds his family and begrudgingly loves them. Like, that's the whole thing about Wolverine. But it's interesting that this game and I guess X2 was kind of focused around Wolverine, right? Because in X2 I vaguely remember that like we meet Striker, he finds out about his past and like the Weapon X Program and Lady Death Strike is in that and like they go shut down the Weapon X program and all of that. Like, that's a huge part of that plot in X2. So, like, I get why they would make a solo Wolverine game to tie to it. Because Wolverine wasn't. Wasn't really the main character of the first movie. Arguably Rogue was the protagonist. And like Wolverine, they made Rogue this like, amalgamation of Jubilee and Rogue and still partnered with Wolverine a bunch. But this one, after Hugh Jackman's popularity as the character, the character itself's popularity continuing to rise, Wolverine became the centerpiece for the, for the second movie and then continues to be in some of the later movies like Days of Future Past, which is still Hugh Jackman. He's basically the main character of that as well. And that's how a lot of the arcs have gone in, like the comics and the cartoon too. A lot of stuff of revolving around Wolverine, which I think is interesting. I know it annoys Some fans, but because I love Wolverine, I'm just eating over here. I don't. I, you know, just straight up feasting on this stuff.
Yeah, no, Storm has some really big runs. Magic has some really big runs. Some of them with Storm, which is just cool. Like everybody, like you said, they have their own thing, but it's like they have their one or two and Wolverine has about 30. Yeah, I think a lot of that is just that 90s, let's put blades and bags on everything and Wolverine has the blades. So.
Yeah, it's also just, it's satisfying. Like watching Wolverine take his claws out in the movies and the comics and the games is always satisfying. Like it just looks cool. Um, and so I think it's, it's part of that 90s kind of like, yeah, cool knives in his hands, awesome kind of a thing, you know, which is oversimplifying, but I think is still somewhat accurate.
And I don't know any kid who didn't grow up like putting things between their fingers like that, pretending to be Wolverine even if they didn't know that's what they were doing.
Oh, 110%. Absolutely. Yeah.
Honestly, I think that Wolverine existing is the reason why we get. Get those like pulled meat, barbecue shredder things. Because it's not that forks are hard or anything, but you get to pull meat apart pretending to be Wolverine.
Yeah, yeah. No. And for sure if the person who invented it wasn't thinking that someone was whispering in their ear who was, you know, like, hey, what if you made something like this?
Well, on that note, we're going to go make some food because now I'm hungry even though I just ate. And I'm going to drop some promos for a few other things.
Hello, I'm Anthony.
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I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
Those are some great things to check out. But first let's finish up here. So Matt, like we've said already, today we are looking at X2 Wolverine's Revenge. This game came out like mid January 2003 is the date that I've seen released on the GameCube, PS2, Xbox, Game Boy advance and computers. But you know, who needs computers?
Yeah, and basically the same on all of them too I believe. I played it on the GameCube and the PS2. I revisited the PS2 version for this recording.
As usual I completely ignore the handheld versions because I'm just a horrible person and I am a big TV console purist elitist there.
I mean I love the gba but I cannot imagine it plays as well as the console version. Just a game like this though I should try it out sometime because the Game Boy advance is one of my favorite consoles and so who knows, maybe they got lucky and made a good one.
This game was developed depending on which console you are looking at it on by either Gene Pool Software, Warthog Games or Vicarious Visions. We have seen nothing from Warthog games or Gene Pool software so far on the show. Vicarious Visions we've seen Spider man stuff so not a lot. But it's the PS1 Spider man games so yeah, you're getting quality there.
Oh yeah, I love those PS1 games. I forget how good they are, but when you go back to them they really do still hold up. Even though everyone lauds the Spider Man 2 PS2 game, which did bring us bridge the gap to the insomniac games. But those PS1 games slash N64 game because the first one was on N64 were really good. They were really tight games that kind of put you in the space. They were quality adaptation because they were more concerned about creating the world and then filling it with the characters instead of Just worrying about the characters.
This game, though, that we're looking at today. X Men 2x2 Wolverine's Revenge. I don't even know where to start with the plot on this one. Like, I can super oversimplify it and say Wolverine finds out about Weapon X and then goes and rips it apart.
Yeah, it's interesting. So something we haven't said yet is that even though Hugh Jackman's likeness is on the box, the voice actor portraying Wolverine. A very prolific voice actor is Mark Hamill. And like Mark Hamill is a very talented voice actor who's done tons of stuff, of course, most well known to the Joker. But I wasn't sure, like, when I read that, because I was a voice actor nerd at a pretty young age, I was like, oh, I don't know if that'll work. But I have to say, having played the entire game, I love his performance as Wolverine. I think he does a great job. And again, I shouldn't be that surprised because he's an incredibly talented voice actor. But like, I love his take on this character. But yeah, the basic story is Wolverine is having trouble remembering the Weapon X program, but with the help of Charles Xavier, does remember it and realizes that the heads of the project put a virus in him that would eventually kill him, but because of his healing factor, was delayed. But then we get an exposition dub from Hank McCoy, aka the Beast, telling him, well, it's now it's kicked into high gear and you only have a handful of days to live. You need to go back and find information so he can make a cure. And then Wolverine's off on an adventure to get the cure and encounters his old buddy Sabretooth along the way and some other guest villains. And it's funny, I like that this starts sort of in media res as far as they assume that you know a little bit about the X Men and Wolverine. Here. We don't get the whole origin story. We get the Weapon X program because it's fun to play as Wolverine raging in the Weapon X facility and to teach you the basics. But there is no expectation that we have to tell you everything about Wolverine. You just, you either know or you don't, and the game kind of goes from there.
And honestly, I think this is one of those characters where you're probably okay if you don't know what's going on playing the game, but you're going to get a lot more out of it if you know what's going on with stuff.
Yeah. And I mean, there are exposition dumps and it's not. It's not. I don't think it's too hard to follow along what's going on here, but I do. They treat it like they're established characters. And because this is based on the second movie, at least in marketing, there was already a movie establishing Wolverine and a little bit of his backstory and the kind of character he is. So they didn't really have to do this here. And honestly, I'm glad that it doesn't follow the movie because the designs kind of lean towards the Ultimates timeline as far as style, but they are stylized humanoids, so they don't look exactly like people, but they are stylized people. And so I think the graphics really hold up on this. I think the design is really cool. I like Wolverine's hair has got kind of the more the slick back look instead of the like arched look. Professor X kind of looks like a space alien. But like beyond that, I think the rest of the character designs are really good. I love Sabretooth's design in this. Magneto's pretty kind of comic book accurate, but I like that it kind of had its own personality because other games of this time haven't really aged as well because if they're trying to do realism, that obviously doesn't live up. I think about Goldeneye on the N64. I love that game and it has cool graphics, but doesn't really hold up super well because they're trying really hard to make them look like humans when they don't. But here they look enough like made up comic book characters that I think personally at least that it still looks pretty great.
That's one thing that Kaylee has mentioned to me on a lot of these games is either, oh, that those graphics when they're trying to get that realism or like as we're recording this, I have recently recorded an episode looking at one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games going with the 2003 series. That episode is definitely not out yet as we're recording, but might be out by the time this one is. I'm not sure yet. But they did the cel shading graphics in that one. And I mean like that holds up the graphics here. Hold up, you know, minus Professor X, because bald person on a PS2 just always looks weird. I don't care.
Yeah. Oh, that turtles game was great. I remember having that one too. And I like that series that was based on the like more darker series, like the more kind of anime inspired series. Yeah, that one was pretty good. Really has never been A bad Turtles cartoon. I would argue that even though the ones that are less good are still pretty good.
But.
Yeah, and, like, the thing that was hardest here was the platforming and the controls. They're not awful, but they definitely. Those things are showing their age. But even then, it wasn't unplayable on any level. But I really love the sound design and the voice acting was good because you've got a talented actor and Professor X, a talented voice actor and actor in Mark Hamill. And then the rest of the voice cast are all folks who have done a bunch of stuff too, and they're all doing something, especially Sabretooth. They're playing into the character Hank McCoy, whose voice actor in this is doing the kind of higher brow, kind of intellectual voice that was popularized by the cartoon. Everyone's really leaning into the cartooniness of this, which I think really helps to sell it. I would argue the narrative is kind of thin and not great, but it's an excuse to play a game as Wolverine. And honestly, I thought that was enough for me.
And the villains they happen to have in here are, I think, just amazing. You know, we've mentioned Sabertooth and Magneto. I think we mentioned Lady Death Strike being in here already. But you're also getting a Wendigo, and you're getting Juggernaut and Omega Red. And it's just so many iconic villains in here that. Oh, it's like, yes, it's just reaching right at my heart and making it perfect.
Yeah, it's fun. And even here on the hero side, we've mentioned of Cyclops and Jean, we see Rogue and Beast and Colossus and a few others. It's funny. So I'm a huge voice actor nerd. I love the Mass Effect series. Jennifer Hale is one of my favorite voice actors. Had no idea she was in this game as Rogue. I saw it on the cast list because you don't really see Rogue until the end of the game. And once I heard her, I was like, oh, yeah, that's absolutely Rogue. But I completely forgot. And the further irony is that Jennifer Hill will go on to voice Jean Grey in The X Men 97 run of that cartoon. She wasn't the original voice actor of Gene, but she plays Jean in this new version. And so she's played multiple X Men, which is pretty fun. But I love that feeling, too, of, like, going back to old games and hearing voice actors that I didn't know would be in those things. I knew Mark Hamill was in this. I did remember that once I looked at the list and went back to this and downloaded it. I was like, oh. Because once you see the character design, I'm like, oh, this is the one. That voice, Mark Hamill voice. The narration is great in this too. I don't think I mentioned before, but Mark Hamill's doing the kind of hard boiled detective, like, talking over the scenes kind of voice acting too, which is a lot of fun, which added an element to it. But yeah, it's a great. That's another reason I think I love the X Men is their rogues gallery, I think could rival Batman's. Batman has a pretty great rogues gallery, but I think the X Men as a whole could rival that because they've just got such an incredible grouping of characters. And like, there's so many popular X Men characters who weren't in this game that could have been right. And so I think the ones they chose were great. And none of them felt like, why is this character here? The whole Wendigo section I thought was excellent. And like, I like that this game often showcased Wolverine's not immortal. Like, he is pretty hard to kill, but he can be killed. And we fight a lot of his villains who can do damage to him, which I think is great. There are also a lot of nods to the comic books in this game or things that have happened in previous comic books, which I also appreciated.
Yeah. Just the fact that picking up all those dog tags along the way kind of helps you get those comic book cover collectibles. I think that's a really nice touch. I didn't see what all of them were because I just focused on other things getting ready for this one. But what I did see are like, yeah, of course that's there. Of course you get the Wolverine with his claws crossed in front of his face. Of course you get Wolverine fighting Hulk. Like, everything is, you know, this is almost a love letter to Wolverine. And you can tell that at least somebody working on it was sitting there probably wetting their pants because they were so excited that they got to make this.
Yeah. And I mean, the comic covers unlock costumes, and so you can get the classic brown and orange, you can get the classic blue and yellow. And then, like, there's the ultimate X Men, like, kind of body suit. And then a few others. I didn't unlock them all, but, like, they really leaned into the comic bookification of it, which I really enjoy. And that the comic books lead to the costumes, I think is really neat as well. And then there are, like, Easter eggs, like when you fight magneto Wolverine comments about the time you ripped the adamantium out of his body. So like in this world, that happened already. And then he got the adamantium back, which I can't remember if that happens in the comics. I think it does. But like, I love that too. Right? Or like we get to see the fastball special between Colossus and Wolverine, which is like a hugely famous thing for the two of those characters. Like, I love that. I think that it really. You're right. A love letter is a good way to put it. I think that this game was definitely. I think the reason to me it still holds up is it's made. It's clearly made with care from people who either love Wolverine or did enough research to do Wolverine justice.
And a lot like people either loving or hating Wolverine. When I was looking at reviews for this, because that's what I like to do right before I start recording, it was a lot of people either loving or hating this game. And it's like one of my favorite review places. The guy on there was, oh, this game is horrible. And why would anybody play it? It's so stupid. And other people, oh, this game is just so nostalgic for me. I love it. This is how I got into X Men. And you mean I can see it. You know, if you're somebody who is coming into this just as, hey, here's a game, I don't have any connection to it. Yeah, that makes sense. Like, why would you care if you're somebody who's loving Wolverine or loving the X Men? This is your. Not only your jam, this is a whole gallon of your favorite flavor of jam.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, to talk to flaws, the, you know, the game froze on me a couple times. Then again, I was playing it in a super legal manner, not emulating it. So it could be that stuff too. But like, there are definitely. Like I said, the platforming is rough, it's easy to fall off stuff. The combat is fun, but it's repetitive. Although the finisher attacks, you get where you can strike the enemies and do multiple enemy takedowns. That was awesome. And always fun and never boring. But like doing some other things like picking up enemies to throw at other enemies, which is a mechanic several times in the game, isn't always easy. You know, there are things that are cheap. Like the whole Magneto fight in this game is almost impossible. I ended up using the level select to skip that because right after that you do the final stage. I just couldn't get. You have to like leap at him from a ledge. I just couldn't nail it. I couldn't do it. And so it's a little finicky there. But this game also has a level of select and an invincibility code. So like, even if you are having trouble engaging with the systems, you can still see it through to the end pretty easily, which I love. When games do that, I think modern games should do that more, giving that kind of accessibility. But also what's fascinating about this game is how specifically they tailor Wolverine's talents. So like a lot of games have let you put Wolverine's claws in and out, but in this they tie that to his healing factor. So like when his claws are out, you don't really heal very much, but when your claws are in, you heal faster and you can pull his claws in and out, which everybody else. I sat there on the first screen for a few minutes going haha. And like just taking them out, putting them in, taking them out and putting them in. But like, and then like you learn new skills as you go. Other finishers and other things and I don't know, the progression was fairly basic. You. The more dog tags you get, the more you unlock. But like, as a kid I hated stealth games. But having been through the Arkham series and some other stuff and learning an appreciation for stealth when I can figure it out. The Assassin's Creed games, some other stuff. Doing stealth in this was actually a lot more fun and was satisfying in a similar way that the Batman stealth stuff is in the Arkham games. Right. They designed it so you feel like Batman this, the stealth stuff feels like you're Wolverine. Like you sneak around a corner and then pin someone to a wall and stab them. Things like that. Which I think is also done very well.
I love how you stealthily just started talking about the stealth. Like, because this is an aspect.
I'm slick like that.
I know, right? That's why you're coming back on the show. But obviously, I mean, this could very easily be a game of just Wolverine hacking and slashing his way through everybody. And I wouldn't have a problem with that. But Wolverine is more than just a tank. Wolverine is a tactical airplane thing. I'm forgetting all my military vehicles right now. But he's one that can go in and take out people, but also be sneaky. Wolverine is a cat. That's what it is. Even though Wolverines are not cats.
Yeah, well, also part of it is like Wolverine was on multiple elite task force in his past. Right. Like the whole Weapon X project was to create that task force he was on with Sabertooth that were like infiltrators and so like he know between his sense of smell. I also like that we got like. I forgot that this basically has the precursor detective vision with the like the senses where you get this heat vision and you can see footsteps and follow trails and scent trails. It was basically detective mode before it existed and I completely forgot about it. But it was great and it was another fun mechanic. I think that nothing here, I don't think there's. There's really no extra stuff. It feels all pretty precisely tuned. And while again, not all of the control is great because it is still a PS2 game, I think. I think overall it holds up incredibly well. And I'm glad I replayed it because now it's going to go in my, like, pantheon of like favorite games. Like, it's definitely on my top 25 because I think it's just such a good representation of this character. We'll get more into that minute. This will shift, obviously, when Insomniac finally puts out their Wolverine game, which if it's half as good as the Spider man games, it'll still be incredible. But until then, I think this is one of my favorite Wolverine games that I can remember off the top of my head.
Anyway, as we start to wrap things up, what do you think are the big things that this game really gets right? Looking at Wolverine, I mean, the character.
For sure, Mark Hamill does an incredible job. That really feels like the character. You know, it's tough when you're used to certain voices or actors, when someone else steps in. And at this time, Wolverine didn't really have a consistent actor besides the 90s cartoon. But now in the modern era, between Hugh Jackman, Stephen Bloom and a bunch of others that came before them, Wolverine has always had kind of this expectation vocally, and Mark Hamill nailed it completely. And I am glad he did this. And I would love for him to play Wolverine again at another time. And then the rest of the voice cast is really great too. It's fun to hear Patrick Stewart here. Some people might think it sounds phoned in, but honestly, his delivery as Professor X is often pretty dry and drone because that kind of cat, very stoic and even keeled. So I think he does a good enough job here and then as far as getting the character right. It's the whole shebang, right? The storyline, the characters, how he reacts, the grunts. Oh my God. The most important thing to Wolverine in modern media, you know, all of The. We've all seen those montages of Hugh Jackman doing the grunts for any of the films, and they're great. But, like, here too, the kind of roars that Wolverine always did in the comics and early games, I think of, like, marvelous. Capcom famously also has some really great Wolverine grunt noises. And that also comes across here really well. Again, I think Sabretooth's voice actor is phenomenal doing felt to me like the cartoon, the 90s cartoon version, if not that exact actor. It's an homage to. But, like, all of the voice cast was great. The guy playing Magneto sounds like Ian McKellen. It's not, but it definitely, like, for second, I wasn't sure. And then, like, I think the thing that's the least like the comics and the character is the story. It's a shoehorn story to give an excuse for Wolverine to dig up his past, which I don't mind. And they've done the comics a million times. It's just like a deadly disease. Okay, sure. It's an excuse to, like, hamper his healing in some places. It's an excuse to, like, make the climax work the way it does. So, like, there have been worse stories, but it's nothing special, I think. I think the story is pretty boilerplate. It's the characters in the world that really make it. Like, I think this is the whole shebang. I know you talk about some stuff where, like, some games sort of fit it or are, you know, walking alongside the source material, but not exactly. I think this is like this. I would read this comic. I think this could easily have been a comic storyline. I don't think there's a Deadly Weapon X virus in the comics, but there could have been. I'm open to being wrong, because I've not read every Wolverine comic, but it feels, even if the story feels a little weak, I think it still feels very much like something you could read in a comic book.
Yeah, I mean, well, first off, here's the complete list of bad Mark Hamill voice acting jobs. Like, that's the.
Right there.
And I mean, you're right. This is. This isn't the movie. Which, I mean, I'm sorry for anybody who wanted it to be the movie and was disappointed in that, but what we got, I think is a lot better. And this is going into a place where you get a full scope of Wolverine. It's not just you get to go in and slash people. It's you get to go in, you get to see him care about why he's doing this, you get to see him thinking about what is the best way for me to attack this problem. Knowing that, yeah, you could easily just go up and slash this guy in the back and be fine. And then what about the five guys around the corner? Because then they're going to know you're there and then you're going to have to deal with all of them like that. You know, who wants to do that? Just be sneaky and take them out one by one. I mean, would you say we've hit on the highlights of what this gets wrong? Looking at Wolverine already?
Yeah. I mean, I don't think there's really a lot. I think again, the weak ish story would be the only thing I'd point to. But again, I think it is just as equally could be a mediocre comic book story. Like, I could see it, it doesn't feel that alien. But I don't really think it gets anything else wrong. I mean, I guess you could argue that maybe they make Wolverine a little overly weak as a result. There's one mission where you crash land and your healing factor isn't working right. And it's an excuse to have you be stealthy and take your time, which I feel is a little forced, but also feels fine. Wolverine's not Superman. He is hard to kill, but not impossible to kill. You know, I think the worst thing about this game, which has nothing to do with the comics, is that there are no checkpoints. If you fail on a stage, you have to go to the beginning of the stage. That's an archaic game design. Right? There are no checkpoints. But that said, none of the stages were so long that that was like a difficulty. Even on the stages that I got sent back to the beginning, I felt encouraged to continue my way through it. But yeah, I can't think of anything comic or source material related that they get wrong. Like all the characters feel like themselves. You know, I don't. Yeah, I can't. I really, like often when we. You talk about games on the show, there are some like glaring errors or glaring, like why is this here? But I really can't think of anything. Do you have any that come to mind? Because I really can't.
The only things I can think of really go back to gameplay reasons for why they're there. You know, the fact that his healing power turns off like that, the fact that he heals less when his claws come out versus when they're in like that would have made perfect sense to me to use some of your health to get the claws to come out, because that is something that, you know, kind of hurts. You know, you're having part of your skeleton come out of you. That's not exactly fun. But, you know, when you get into all that stuff, you don't want to sit there and make a game where you're just running through it essentially on God mode. You know, you need to have a challenge in there. So, like, if that's how you're going to do it, okay, that's fine. It's a gameplay reason you get you. If you can't look past that, then I don't know why you're playing this game anyway.
Yeah. And like, again, if you don't want the challenge, there are the cheat codes which are super easy to use and implement. And then you are a God. But even then you can still die at certain things because again, they want you to have consequences. And I think that that's actually really great. Like, fail states aren't always fun, but I think they're important for a game that's like this where it's stage by stage based. It's not an open world. It's not. And that was also kind of nice. Just having played a lot of open world games recently, having it just kind of be. You get to the end of the stage, you save, you see your score, you go to the next one. I think is game design. We don't see as much now, but I don't think is inferior to modern stuff. I'm perfectly happy to just go from story beat to story beat with like some conclusions to those parts of those missions.
If you knew somebody who really wanted to get into Wolverine, would you give them this game as a bit of a primer course?
Yes, absolutely. I think it covers the basics. Wolverine's kind of an asshole. He has claws. They were, you know, the metal was put in his body by force and then he wants revenge. Like, I think, I think of all the Wolverine games that are currently out, especially this was one of the better ones and is a good primer. You know, I think someone might still want to read the comics, but if I wanted to get someone who only plays video games and doesn't watch movies or read comics to get to, like, this character, this is a great. I think this is an absolutely excellent version to hand off as a primer.
This is one of the really fun times here where normally I would say, yeah, you're kind of jumping into this in the middle and maybe you want to give somebody a game that hits on that origin more than this one does explains what's going on a little more than this one does. But Wolverine is like Batman so much just ingrained in our society that you can skip that. And, I mean, to be perfectly honest, Wolverine doesn't really have an origin. He just kind of is. So it doesn't matter if you don't know the origin. There's five other things that could be the origin in the comics. Nobody really knows what it is anyway.
Yeah, I think. And if you eventually cover this, I want to come back on for it, although I don't even know where I would play it. But this is the second best Wolverine game, because the best Wolverine game as of now, until Insomniac puts out their game is Wolverine is X Men Wolverine, which is based on a horrible movie. But that video game is one of the best Wolverine experiences ever made. And, like, sans that, this is a good second, and both of them have very good stories or good enough stories that portray the character. I'd argue that Origins has a better one. But, like, yeah, I think that this is just. This would be a fun thing to get someone who's like, oh, I'm kind of curious about Wolverine. Check this shit out.
If you got to make a Wolverine movie. But let's reverse the normal Muppet thing, and Wolverine gets to be a Muppet, and everybody else has to say the same. Who gets to play Wolverine?
Ooh, interesting. So Wolverine's the Muppet and someone has to do his voice. I mean, I would love. I think Mark Hamill would be a perfect fit for that. Right. Like, he's been on the Muppet show before. He's done cartoony characters. I think he'd be great for that if I had to pull on. So, you know, this does knock at the. Like, we know Hugh Jackman supposedly is going to retire now, although he said that once before. So we will eventually get a new Wolverine unrelated to anything. This doesn't have to do anything with anything. But I think Henry Cavill, who's been rumored to play Wolverine forever, would make a great Muppet Wolverine, because Henry Cavill also is a fun actor who's a huge nerd, and I think would do that real justice.
I think if he even got the slightest hint that that's something that could happen, he would probably run over, like, literally run over to whoever is in charge and beg them to let it happen.
Yeah, I mean, he basically talked himself into being the Witcher because he knows the source material so well. So, you know, if he can do it for that, he can do it for anything.
Well, Matt, it has been great talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you? Around the Internet?
So the best place to find me is at dj stormageddon.com it has a link to my Patreon for my video game podcast and all of the stuff that I work on. I'm djstorm again on most social media if you want to listen to what I do. I have two podcasts that I'm currently working on. One is Fun and Games, which is a two show feed. The main show, Fun and Games, is a broad conversation about video games that I do with Jeff Moonan. We interview developers, composers, we talk about different genres, we do console retrospectives. We do topics like can bad games be influential to the history of gaming? You know, is signposting good or bad in video games, things like that. And then we have a sub feed in the series that Chris was alluding to earlier called Side Quests, where a different person comes on and talks for like five to 15 minutes about a game they love and why they love it. And it can be anybody from just listeners of the show to podcasters, actors, game developers, pretty much anyone who wants to share a quick story about a game they love and why they love it. And then the other show I do is called Reignite. Started as a Mass Effect retrospective podcast, has now moved on to Dragon Age, and for the first time in the history of the show, me and Frankie Bradley Lestrange are hosting a show that's current ish. We're covering Dragon Age 2 as of this recording. But Dragon the Veilguard is in the news and as of when the recording isn't out yet, but is coming on Halloween. And so that's been fun. So if you like storytelling, if you like BioWare, that's a fun romp as well. We go episode by episode, talking about our choices and playing the lead character as ourselves and trying to make choices as we would in those situations. But yeah, if you want to yell at me about this or other episodes, Twitter is the best place to go. I will never call it X. I refuse. And like I said earlier, I'm DJ Stormageddon over there. Come chat with me.
The fact that you will always call Twitter is part of why we're friends.
Yes, correct.
And as always, we will have links to all that stuff down in the show notes. Because clicking links is so, so much easier than trying to remember how to spell things.
Yes. And thank you, Chris, for having me back. I love this. I'M going to keep an eye on that list. I mean, I'm calling it now. If you do Wolverine Origins, I want to come back because that game rules. But I love chatting. I like chatting about adaptations, and you cover it in such a unique way. So thanks for having me back.
I mean, let's be real. You're also happy you don't have to edit this, aren't you?
Oh, 100%. Any podcast I can guest on and not edit is always a win for me.
Me, as always. The best place to find me is over on playcomics.com where there's links to all the social media things, which is. I think we're pretty much settling in on Blue Sky. You know, once I stop being lazy and actually spend some time on social media where I should be doing. If you want to be on the show yourself, then check out that list that Matt was talking about here on this episode. Find something, let me know that you want to be on for it or. Or share it with friends, and they can tell me what they want to be on for. I mean, it's a list that's public out on the Internet. I don't care. Share it. That's fine. If you want to help support the show, then you can be like Dan McMahon and own a lit class and give the show money, which is giving me money, because, you know, it costs money to do this. It's fine. But also, you can just share the show with friends so they can hear it. You can just tell me how much you like it or tell me how much you don't like it and what can make it better. And, you know, that I can actually try to make it better. But mostly tell me how much you like it, because then I get to pretend that I'm the best podcaster in the entire world and can do no wrong. And that's a really good feeling. Speaking of good podcasts, if you want to hear some other good ones, then don't forget the Play Comics is a part of the gunnygeek.com network, where there's a bunch of other wonderful podcasts like Legends of Shield, where we're looking at what if? Because what if we do that? It's fun. Also capes on the couch, which needs to come back because I'm selfish and I want to hear more and new stuff, and I'm about run out of the old stuff while they're on their little break. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of right now, head on over to BackingTrack GG to check out their music. Find something for your own project. Use it. Give them credit because that's always a cool thing to do. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics and go find yourself a new favorite character. Released on the PS2 and Game Boy Advance. How do I have other consoles in my notes? This is so weird.
Oh, on the bottom there's definitely more Xbox, GameCube and Windows.
I know why it's because I just looked at the develop it.