LethalBrizzleGaming Marvel's Wolverine Review

6 out of 10? Look, I am not a professional reviewer. This is not my job at all. I am just a regular guy like so many of us out there, I work in a warehouse. Who am I to debate the IGNs of the world? That said, reviews are just opinions, and opinions differ. When you boil a game down to a single number, the actual nuance gets lost. If you care to humour me, here is my take. I cannot help but feel a bit of sympathy for Marvels Wolverine. In a lot of ways, it feels like a product of its situation. PlayStations third-person action formula is starting to feel a bit wearing for some players, though if you still enjoy Uncharted, recent action games, or Spider-Man, you will find plenty to like here too. Combine that with Sonys recent streak of questionable decisions, and it is just easy to criticize them right now. In another universe where this game released at a different time, I have to wonder if it would have been received much better. I get it, Insomniac set the bar sky-high. People were expecting an 85+ Metacritic score, so when a 78 pops up, it is easy to look through a narrow lens and feel hugely disappointed. But in the grand scheme of things, a 78 is still a good score. Overall, the game largely delivers on what I was hoping for: a tighter, linear, brutal, fast-paced ride compared to Insomniac open-world games. A lot of criticism has been leveled at the combat, mostly calling it button-mashy and simple. I mean, it is, but no more than plenty of other action games out there. You have got combos (admittedly not heaps of them), abilities, special attacks, tag-team moves with companion characters, finishers, plus a really satisfying parry and dodge. It is much closer to that loved and praised Spider-Man combat than critics are letting on. Sure, you are not flipping off walls, but Wolverine should not play like Spider-Man. He is a brawler, he should stand his ground and strike away relentlessly. As you unlock abilities and actually mix them into your combos, the fights start to come alive. Some of my favourite moments were just surviving wave after wave of enemies in the chaotic challenge trials. Are you mashing square a lot of the time while waiting for a finisher prompt? Yeah, but if we are being honest, you are doing that in half the action games on the market. The level of polish you expect from Insomniac is definitely present. The game runs great and looks gorgeous. I played in Performance Mode with ray tracing on a PS5 Pro and had zero complaints. There are also tons of accessibility settings to tailor the experience to your liking. That whole scent trail and HUD clutter issue seems to have been toned down in a day-one patch - it is there, but nowhere near as intrusive as early reviews made it sound. The yellow (or in this case, white) paint paths are annoyingly everywhere, which feels excessive for a linear game where you cannot really get lost. But to play devils advocate: does it really matter all that much when you are not exploring a huge open world anyway? The character models look fantastic and the voice acting is superb across the board, even if this slightly softer, nicer version of Logan is not quite as aggressive and short-tempered as I personally prefer. As for the story, I am not expecting it to clean up at awards shows. It definitely stumbles near the end when things get a bit messy and out of hand. But at its best, it is a genuinely fresh take on introducing mutants into this universe. It balances multiple interesting villain arcs with strong writing, great dialogue, and some surprisingly emotional character dynamics that kept me invested almost all the way through. So, the summary? It is not my Game of the Year, and I doubt it will be for many others either. If we are looking at this game in a vacuum, it is a step backward from Insomniac peak - there is no doubt about that, and a troubled development cycle likely did not help. But the bones of a great game are undeniably here, and there is plenty for a sequel to build on. I urge you to step outside the internet echo chamber and take it for what it is: a polished, punchy action game with a solid story and great characters. If you want big cinematic set-pieces, love Marvel or Wolverine, and just want to mindlessly tear through enemies after a long day, you are going to have a blast regardless of what a review score tells you to think.