UNG

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: GRIN

Multiplayer: Single Player Only

Website: http://thewanted.warnerbros.com

                Wanted: Weapons of Fate follows along with its movie counter-part in a variety of similar ways. They are both short experiences packed with a lot of action but not a lot of substance to keep one coming back for more. Just like the film there is a lot of beautiful set pieces and must see action sequences but once its all been seen there isn’t really a reason to go back to it and its not really worth the ticket price. Wanted: Weapons of Fate must know that it is a shallow video game with a short playtime because those few hours are simply a lot of fun. There are some shortcomings that keep Wanted: Weapons of Fate just a rental when it could have been so much more.

                Graphically the game shines with a lot of interesting locals in suburban French villages, the textile factory in the movie, and underground tombs that smell like old apartments past. Every location visited feels like its real and vivid with ample amount of destruction damage set in to the surroundings, wonderful lighting and smooth textures. Even the starting area of Wesley’s apartment feels like it has been lived in for years. However many of the areas later in the game are lacking just enough to break the immersion. While fighting in a French village, I was moving across restaurant patios, boat canals and in front of store shops without a single civilian or police officer in sight. Having a shoot out for over thirty minutes surely someone would have called the fuzz on me.

                The gameplay of Wanted: Weapons of Fate is solid and fun from beginning to end. It consists of no more than moving from cover to cover dispatching enemies with slow motion, quick time events and curved bullets. There are some stationary gun and sniper sequences to break up the action but they are over quickly after they begin. There isn’t much else here to keep one entertained and thankfully the campaign is short enough to prevent boredom. The whole experience spans nine levels and roughly four hours of playtime on the easiest difficulty so its over very quickly which is disappointing but that is not necessary a bad thing.

While the campaign is short, every moment of it is just plain fun. Curving bullets to dispatch enemies behind cover works wonderfully and feels exciting. Watching the bullet travel in slow motion all the way to the enemy is sickly and satisfying.  Melee combat is completed with a one button press but the player gets to watch really morbid finishing moves as Wesley breaks bones and slashes necks. Moving from cover to cover is very fluid as GRIN has designed the main character to follow automatic paths and make up ground with quick rolls and slides. However I found myself occasionally trying to move from one cover to another which I thought was close enough but the game wouldn’t let me until I moved across to another piece of cover and then traversed to the one I wanted. Breaking the cover system is somewhat annoying as it requires to fully immobilize the joystick and tap A. In a heated battle when I wanted to finish off the enemy I found myself trying to pull off the wall but instead automatically moving to another piece of cover ahead of the enemy which caused me to die from the bullets of his friends.

My favourite part aside from the fun gameplay was the audio. Every piece of audio in this game is extremely well designed and complimented the visuals. Headshots had a very sick sounding snap as the bullet broke through the craniums of my enemies. The weapons (albeit confined to a few pistols and one sub machine gun) felt strong as they did real. The environment audio could have been a little bit better as mostly every wall which was hit by a bullet sounded more like hail off a tin roof. The voice acting is superb in Wanted: Weapons of Fate with a very gritty feel. Every character sounded like a deadly Assassin with several actors from the movie lending their voices. Why Wesley’s film counter part did not lend his voice is beyond me but the actor chosen to fill his role is far more entertaining and much better delivering his lines of dialogue. However Wanted: Weapons of Fate continues the video game industry’s streak of horrible Russian accents with the actor who voiced the character simply known as “The Russian” (Didn’t see that coming did you?”). This is probably the worst accent I have ever heard in a video game.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate does a lot of things right in this short experience. There is no multiplayer but there are a variety of special campaign options such as Headshots only, Close Combat only and Time Trial mode to keep the player coming back. Even with the inclusion of a higher difficulty level and extra modes to play, the experience of Wanted: Weapons of Fate is very short lived. Regardless it is worth at least a rental because the game is a lot of fun to step into the shoes of an Assassin and curve some bullets.

THE GOOD: A fun single player campaign with powerful weapons and gruesome combat.

THE BAD: Very short and very shallow. Cover system takes some getting used to.

OVERALL: 3 out of 5.

Written by: Daniel Mannella

Personal Blog: Down the Line

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