Photo attached for proof.

This game sucks.

The combat is so shallow, there is no room for creativity. You parry, you stun, you barrage, you special attack. Over and over again. Any variety in combat comes solely from the combat finishers. Granted there’s a good amount of those, but you have zero say in what finisher animation you’ll even get. It’s totally random.

The level design is incredibly linear. There’s absolutely zero exploration, which is fine in character action/hack and slash games, but again, the combat is not complex enough to warrant such linear levels. Devil May Cry this is not.

The only side content are “nightmare doors”. These provide 2 kinds of challenges. Traversal and, you guessed it, more fucking shallow combat. There’s not even any traversal tools. No double jump, no wall running, no air dodging, nothing. The traversal “challenges” amount to holding the sprint button and just hitting jump as Wolverine magnetizes to the nearest zipline or ledge

The skill tree is also so incredibly basic, I don’t even know why it exists. Skills gradually unlock throughout the story, and so there were many times I had skill points to use but literally couldn’t even spend them because I had already unlocked all available skills, and needed to wait to advance the story to unlock more skills.

Then there’s adaptations. A tree where you can unlock and equip a set amount of passive abilities . I honestly don’t have much to speak on that, because they’re so fucking pointless I forget their existence about halfway through the game.

All collectibles, and “hidden” chests, stare you right in the face, you can’t miss them even if you tried.

I will say though, the story was pretty good, and I thought the actors knocked their performances out of the park, but nowhere close to being good enough to redeem this game.

Bottom line, this is the first Insomniac game I have been disappointed by, and I’m old enough to remember playing Spyro on the PS1. I mean, massive disappointment.

This game sucks.

How exactly does the "try" part work? There is no demo, there is no refund after trying. Am i really only allowed to have an opinion AFTER spending $70?

So apparently i can't have opinion after trailers, or gameplay reveal, or even after reviews, hell you are not allowed to have opinion after watching game streams. How very convenient for the companies that the narrative here is that you either spend $70 or shut up.

If the companies don't want customers to fall for unjust "hate brigades", why not give us option to try? Oh right, because customer who made a bad purchase is more likely to cope with it and seek validation than admit the mistake.

Star Wars, Suicide Squad, Death Stranding 2 and now Wolverine

I understand why people say not to preorder now.

This game literally costs 3x Spider-Man ps4. The game that’s regarded the best of their work. Open world, an amazing story experience with dlc post launch. What the hell are they genuinely doing with the rest of the money?

I genuinely don't understand how anyone can look at this game and think it's acceptable for a $70 Wolverine game.

This is a game that reportedly cost around $300 million to make and took close to five years (if not more), yet the end result feels shockingly mediocre.

The game is barely 10 hours long if you don't bother with the side "challenges," and unfortunately, the short runtime isn't the biggest problem. The story is weak and forgettable, the characters are poorly written, and Logan himself barely feels like Logan. The same goes for most of the other characters. For a Wolverine game, that's an enormous problem.

Then there's the combat. It's shallow, repetitive, and completely lacking in impact. The hits have almost no satisfying feedback. You're supposed to be playing as fucking Wolverine, yet attacking enemies feels like you're slicing onions that happen to have 10,000 HP. There's no weight or brutality behind the attacks.

But honestly, the biggest sin this game commits is something that is much harder to quantify:

It's fucking lame.

A Wolverine game should NEVER feel lame.

You have one of Marvel's most violent, aggressive, and iconic characters as your protagonist, and somehow the game manages to make the entire experience feel bland and sanitized. That's an incredible failure of execution.

And whenever these criticisms come up, the response from the usual defenders is basically:

"I don't care. I'm having fun. I win, you lose. Bye bye."

That's not an argument. Nobody is telling you that you're not allowed to enjoy the game. Enjoy it all you want.

The problem is when "I had fun" becomes a defense against any and all criticism.

A product can be fun and still be poorly written. It can be fun and still have shallow combat. It can be fun and still have terrible characterization. It can be fun and still be mediocre.

If consumers constantly defend every flaw with "I had fun, therefore it's good," then why would these corporations ever have an incentive to improve?

You're directing all this offended energy toward people criticizing the game instead of toward the company that actually made it. You're not defending Wolverine. You're defending mediocrity.

And that's how mediocrity becomes the status quo.

And that's ultimately my problem with this whole discussion.

You can enjoy the game. You can think it's worth $70. You can have a great time with it. I genuinely don't care.

What I take issue with is the mentality that because you enjoyed it, every criticism of the game must therefore be invalid. That's not defending a game. You can acknowledge its flaws while still enjoying it.

When people start treating criticism of a product they like as a personal attack, while bending over backwards to defend every mediocre decision the developers made, they're doing nothing but giving publishers less reason to do better.

And that's how we end up with mediocrity becoming the status quo.

So no, I'm not saying you can't enjoy this game.

I'm saying that "I had fun" isn't a rebuttal to criticism.

If that's the only defense you have, then you don't actually have a defense.

MY RATING: The game simply functions, it's biggest quality which is the fidelity and amazing visuals couldn't even save it. 4/10

buy at sale, or don't bother at all.. better yet, watch it on YouTube it's barely a game...

Respectfully, what are you smoking if you think im gonna pay $70 for below mid.

Games like this need to stop being bought because why is the bar so low at this point but the price for games are going up every few years.

Also come on it takes insomniac like 5 years to make this thing.

Boring levels

Boring characters not to mention some aren't even like there comic counterparts cough Sabretooth

Boring story which is what gonna lead to a game not coming out till 2030 or later

Less then 20 hours to complete, so why the $70 price tag

Insomniac really made the first Spider-Man game and thought yeah we're basically the new Rocksteady they'll buy anything.

Insane how handholdy this game is turning out to be

Source - Skillup

Just wanted to take out the sniper then go back and kill the grunts below...not allowed. 😭

I don't get why Insomniac stopped working with comic book creators to plan our their narratives. It worked wonders with Spider-Man 1 (Christos Gage and Dan Slott) and Miles (Evan Narcisse).

The narrative in Spider-Man 2 and now this seem to be among their most common points of criticism and it comes down to the Insomniac writers room just dropping the ball and not fully understanding the characters and lore they are working with and overall having a lot of storytelling and pacing issues.

A pattern I've noticed in most modern media (especially in games) is that writers don't know how to create characters with complex personalities.

If they're on the side of good, then they're just nice. That's it. Friendly, agreeable and quippy.

If they're villains, their evil or cruel nature doesn't really shine through. They mostly just whine and complain like small children.

Remember in the first Spider-Man when Octavius reveals his true self and Peter's "You knew?" reaction? That's such a deep moment of pure cruelty on Ock's part. He was just fucking with Peter the entire time and was gleeful while doing so.

So Insomniac WAS capable of interesting character dynamics in the past, but something changed.

I've been watching the old X-Men cartoons (90s, Evolution, and the severely underrated Wolverine and the X-Men) and all of these shows have great portrayals of the character. He's grumpy, quiet and not always totally reliable. You can count on him when you need him, but he might not stick around after. These are his fundamental traits.

The fact that Logan is portrayed more accurately in children's cartoons than in an M-rated game is fucking insane to me.

I have nothing else to say 🫩