Wanted: Weapons of Fate Review

Let’s all be honest: the majority of games based on films tend to be crap. Sure, every blue moon there’s a good one such as Spider-Man 2 or Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay but other than those two the majority of film based games are utter garbage. I guess we’re all masochists or have a small sliver of hope since we’re continuing to play these games.  So when you pop in Wanted: Weapons of Fate into your PS3 or 360 you shouldn’t be thinking “Wow, this is going to be a great game” instead you should be asking yourself “How bad will it get.”

Wanted Weapons of Fate takes place shortly after the events of the film. If you’ve never seen the film here’s a brief rundown of the plot:  Wesley Gibson is a young man who’s enslaved in a corporate job and one day finds out his father is the best assassin in the world. After being tricked into killing his dad he takes on the group that fooled him and pulls off all sorts of badassery since he now has the confidence he lacked before. The game picks up a few hours after the finale of the film with you hanging at your father’s apartment when a bunch of members from the French Fraternity, the assassin group, ransacking the place to find something. 

You quickly find out that the French Fraternity has had it in for you since you were born, literally. It turns out your mom was a member of the French Fraternity and members hooking up together is a big no no apparently. The story itself is pretty lackluster for the most part. Sure it expands on some of the core mythology from the film but the cutscenes themselves are quite short and the story is a bit muddled in between levels. The new characters also feel like nothing more than cannon fodder since they’re literally introduced for a minute and then are killed 5 minutes later after the boss battle. 

At times the writing can also feel a bit sloppy since certain characterizations and events, such as a villain using the explosive rats, feel tacked on for the sake of feeling similar to the film. Despite the secondary characters and story being lackluster the writing for Wesley is quite good and has that “angry snarky assassin” vibe similar to the film and his one-liners should certainly keep you entertained through the dull campaign. And be warned for an ending that will leave you saying “WTF” due to its shortness and overall lack of a resolution.

Obviously no one is really going to play Wanted for the story since no one saw the film for its gripping portrayal of a young assassin.  In the end it’s all about how cool it is to be an assassin and kill fools. Sadly the game doesn’t really do a good job at that either.  Weapons of Fate is the latest in what will be a long line of games to utilize a cover mechanic in its gameplay.  Playing as Wesley you’re constantly moving from cover to cover trying to avoid being shot by the French Fraternity or looking for the perfect angle to curve a bullet.  The general feeling while playing the game is that you’re probably going to feel a bit uninspired by everything.

Controlling Wesley is easy but it feels like he’s wearing lead boots at times since he can only jump over certain objects but not others. And in certain scenarios moving from cover feels clunky and can lead to cheap deaths. The game also doesn’t really do anything new or excel in a category. So aside from the bullet curve mechanic, which you don’t even have when you start the game, you’re just playing another generic shooter. Even the boss battles which you think would be insane since two skilled assassins are fighting one another, are quite standard fair. It’s usually a simple matter of shooting some goons to fill your special abilities up and then using a technique, either bullet-curving or slo-mo, to take a boss out. And by the time you’re at the extremely long final chapter you’ll just want everything to end since its non-stop wave after wave of the same five enemies you’ve been facing off against during the entire game.

In a situation like Weapons of Fate you may be running down the checklist of things it does poorly and may be wondering “Hey, maybe the game at least looks good visually and runs smoothly.”  You can add sub-par visuals to the list of things that underperform in the game. No one should be expecting something on the level of Gears of War or Killzone 2 visuals but even compared to middle of the road games on the market, such as The Wheelman, the visuals in Wanted leave a lot to be desired. The character models are rendered ok but it’s nothing to go “Wow” at. Most of the environments are lacking any real character and seem quite sterile and have that obvious game design feel since there’s countless of cover objects strewn throughout that don’t feel natural. Even the pre-rendered cutscenes that are used to tell part of the story don’t even look that good and both the in-game and pre-rendered cutscenes are often so compressed that it has a low-res pixilated look. There are also times when some of the textures will leave you wondering if this is a next-gen title at all since you may be having flashbacks to “Enter the Matrix.”

So far Weapons of Fate is 0-3 in game design but it does have a win and that’s for the voice acting and soundtrack. Sadly James McAvoy didn’t return to reprise the role of Wesley but you won’t notice at all since the voice actor that stepped in does an excellent job of imitating his voice and general vibe. Thomas Kretschann returns to reprise the role of Cross, Wesley’s father, and does a solid job in the brief time he’s in the game. While those characters have excellent voices the rest of the cast may leave you scratching your head a bit since several solid actors were cast in roles that are extremely brief. Hip-hop artist Common, actress Paz Vega (The Spirit) and actor Peter Stormare (Prison Break) play members of the French Fraternity but all are in the game for less than 10 minutes and have really short lines. It’s nice to have actors of that quality in the game but it’s somewhat a waste of their talent since they aren’t given much to work with due to the poor story and script. Danny Elfman’s score from the film takes up the majority of the music in the game and it’s remixed and used quite effectively. There are a few original tracks in there as well to keep things fresh as well.

Ultimately Wanted: Weapons of Fate is a shell of what it should be.  Instead of the unique presentation and over-the-top action found in the movie what we’re left with in the game is a generic shooter that merely has a few locations, characters and action gimmicks thrown in to warrant the game being called Wanted. The developers of Grin had a wide range of things they could’ve done in terms of gameplay and story but it’s clear that this was a quick project to do in between development of Bionic Commando and Terminator Salvation. Even the most hardcore fans of the movie will find it hard to play through Weapons of Fate and it’s definitely not worth a purchase due to the insanely short play time and some of the most lame bonus content to be included in a game.  Sure seeing concept art is cool but reading developer quotes and watching a 15 second video aren’t fun and won’t make people go through and collect all the hidden items in the game.  Wanted: Weapons of Fate is definitely a game whose name would come up through the Loom of Fate.

Cons: Controls can be a bit wonky at times, lacks variety and the originality of the movie.  The lack of additional modes or online leaderboards doesn’t encourage multiple playthroughs unless you’re an Achievement/Trophy Whore.

Overall: Wanted Weapons of Fate is a huge letdown for fans of the film and action game fans in general. It’s best for a weekend rent and that’s about it.