Marvel’s Wolverine is out today and that means everyone can now experience Insomniac’s latest superhero romp which is…mostly fine, I guess. As a lot of reviews pointed out, the game is pretty much an old-school character action game that can get very, very repetitive as Logan scratches and sniffs his way through the linear environments. The sheer lack of ways to interact with the world in Wolverine means that on the few occasions it does something different, it stands out. I just wish it did it more often.
Logan’s metal claws and near-immortality don’t really give him much to do in a video game beyond slicing people up, so when he’s shouldering one all by his lonesome, it means the game can feel really, really one-note. However, there is one memorable moment in which Insomniac integrates his powers into your experience as a player in a way that feels like a glimpse into the more interesting game this could have been. I just wish we saw that kind of ingenuity more often throughout Wolverine.
Content warning: graphic violence
In the latter half of the game, Sabretooth, who most people will know as Logan’s rival across most Marvel media, has finally turned heel and the two are no longer begrudging allies as they appeared to be at the beginning of the game. So, naturally, you gotta fight him, and the two bestial mutants start hacking into each other. As the fight escalates, the pair end up brawling at the docks of Lowtown, with Logan getting thrown onto a raft on the water. He’s in a disadvantageous position, with Sabretooth on top of him, pulling his adamantium arms back and smashing his head into the raft. Yet Logan still chooses to taunt Sabretooth, saying he’s “blind” if he can’t see he’s being manipulated. Sabretooth decides to take that comment and turn it back on Logan, straight-up gouging his eyes out.
Wolverine isn’t afraid to get nasty. Logan’s healing factor means he’s constantly getting impaled and enduring what would be lethal blows for any normal person, but more often than not these are superficial wounds that happen in cutscenes and he gets back up like nothing happened. This time, however, Insomniac used one of these gradually healing injuries to create a cool gameplay moment unlike anything else in Wolverine. The game shifts to a first-person perspective, but since Logan literally cannot see, neither can you. You can look around and listen for Sabretooth, and because of Logan’s healing factor, your vision slowly comes back, but it might not be fast enough to avoid your opponent pouncing on you and getting a few good scratches in. As Logan’s eyes grow back, your vision returns in stages: You can gradually start to make out the general outline of Lowtown, then color returns slowly, and by the time it all comes back into focus, Sabretooth has probably rocked your shit a couple times.
Of course, this segment in which Logan desperately tries to hear and feel his way through the fight without the benefit of his eyes is only one piece of the whole encounter. It’s not long before he and Sabretooth get back to fighting with their claws the way they always do, and Wolverine doesn’t really do anything like this again. The game revels in a kind of mindless violence that can be monotonous or freeing and blissful when you enter a flow state of slashes and parries. I just wish it had more moments like this that got creative with how you fight, allowing Logan’s unique powers to be more than just a superficial visual effect as his bloody, burnt, and battered body takes untold amounts of damage mostly for the sake of gory spectacle.