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How many times have you been excited about a movie game and realised it didn't live up to your expectations? I'd be willing to bet that number has just gone up one. Wanted: Weapons of fate is a game that is both a prequel and sequel to the movie it is based around. This was a game that tweaked my Anticipatometer and I came away disappointed. Not that this is terrible game, I'm just disappointed that the potential was wasted. This is a perfect example of a game that leans too heavily onto the mechanics that are brought to the table.
Cover, cover, cover and more cover. That's the way this game needs to be played, spend too long out of cover and you won't last too long. Luckily one of the things the game does right is the cover system. I would even go so far as to say that I love the cover system in Wanted. The concept is not new, plenty of games have had cover systems lately such as Uncharted, Gears of War and Dark Sector but this game really does it better than all of them. You latch to cover, move the right analogue into the direction you want to go and just press the button. The game makes it very easy to link covers together and move around quickly; it's just a smooth experience to play.
The graphics are very bland, with nothing ground breaking here. What is surprising though, the cut scenes are terrible! An almost unforgivable crime for a movie game that's trying to recreate digital characters based on real actors. Its hard to be drawn into the rest of the story when the cuts cense look worse than the gameplay and appear to be even a lower resolution than the rest of the game. The in game engine should have been better.
Primarily this is a game for fans of the movie, the story and locations from the movie are expanded on and the plot follows the aftermath of the movie. But the events don't have much impact due to the poor graphics. It's nice that you get to play as both Wesley and his father, Cross, but the game changes very little while playing as either character. As Cross you get explosive bullets when you curve a bullet and that's about it. Wanted avoids the traditional movie game mistake of following the plot of the movie and being limited to just that material, but like the movie it doesn't make use of the comic book source material, other than nods to the design of Wesley's suit, so fans of the comic will be disappointed.
Like all movie games Wanted has its gimmicks, one that needs to be used for the entire game, the developers are lucky this works, bullet curving which you might remember from the movie is in the game in all its glory. It's actually a really good mechanic with one problem; it makes the game too easy. If an enemy is hidden in cover and you hit them with a curved bullet and it's not a kill, they then leave their cover. There are other gimmicks in the game such as bullet time, which works with an 'adrenaline meter', when you have enough adrenaline you can curve a bullet, enter bullet time or pull of a few other abilities. For every kill you earn adrenaline and if you successfully melee someone your adrenaline meter fills instantly. As you progress through the game more adrenaline slots are added to the meter.
But of all the problems the one that makes me hesitate to recommend this game is the length. Now they say size doesn't matter, but without watching the cut scenes a 3-4 hour play through is possible! This is a $100 game now days? I'd suggest against paying for this game, it's almost made for rental. You could do it in one night as a package deal with the movie. This would have been an awesome game to have co-op, especially considering its Gears of War gameplay, but this has been left out. Unlockables are collected playing through the game but honestly there is nothing that would make you want to play the game more than once.
The game isn't very hard either; the only sections that people might get stuck at are the very poorly done turrent sections. One tip for everyone that gets frustrated; lift the turret up, it acts as your cover so you can recover. This might sound simple but there is no indication you need to do so. Three difficulties are available but one is locked until you finish the game. This might have increased the length of the first play though but unfortunately they didn't include it.
Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a game that has disappointments in droves but there is still some fun to be had. The cover system is brilliant and the shooting is solid, but the game is too short and repetitive with practically no replay value. Even though this game brings some cool ideas to the genre, this is not a game I can suggest that anyone buy; it's worth a rental if you're after another 3 person shooter to play through and earn some easy Trophies/Achievements. Otherwise this is another example of a movie game you can miss out on without being too concerned.
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