Game: Wanted: Weapons of Fate
Platform: Xbox 360; PS3
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: GRIN
ESRB: Mature
Genre: Shooter
Players: 1-4
What's Hot: Curving bullets is ridiculously fun. The airplane stage rocks
What's Not: The game peaks at bullet curving – all the rest is mediocre
Review by: Danielle Riendeau
I’m pretty sure the only reason that anyone actually saw Wanted was because of Angelina Jolie and her badass hot chick/action star turn in the film. So playing a Wanted game devoid entirely of her presence feels anticlimactic from the start. Still, despite its short length and ultra-repetitive gameplay, Weapons of Fate does have a certain bullet-curving appeal.
For fans of the franchise, the game acts as a true sequel – you play as Wesley (and his father, Cross) attempting to find out more about his mother and the mysterious/ominous inner workings of the fraternity. However, even if you could care less about the story and its irreverent anti-hero (we start the game with a lovely speech from Wesley: “I was like you once, staring at my TV, playing videogames, getting fat. I was a loser”), you’ll find a competent cover-based third person shooter at your fingertips. If only it weren’t so... generic.
Weapons of Fate largely looks and feels like a “me-too” action game. You’ll cover, shoot, curve a few bullets, rinse and repeat for the roughly five hours it takes to beat. In fact, the title becomes so repetitive you’ll be tempted to try playing with your eyes closed. The stale level designs and bland enemies don’t help matters, though the game does throw a few on-rails bullet time sequences and lame turret sections at you from time to time just to spice things up. Everything works well – particularly the smooth and speedy cover system, but it’s impossible to shake the feeling of “been there, done that”.
The true highlight – and the one real reason to play this game – is the excellent “bullet curving” mechanic. Once you have a kill, you fill your adrenaline meter, allowing you to perform feats of physics-defying death. You lock on to an enemy by holding the R1 button, fine-tune the aim with the thumb stick (the color changes from red to white once you have the angle right) and let fly. It’s as crazy and fun as it sounds – and the bullet-view cinemas that accompany your successful kill shots are very satisfying.
It’s really too bad that the rest of the game doesn’t live up to this mechanic. One gets the impression that the developers spent 90% of their time refining the curving (and getting the cover system to work nicely) and 10% was devoted to... everything else. I don’t want to give the impression that any other part of the game is substandard in any way. It’s just boring and redundant. It’s worth a rental, especially if you enjoyed the big-screen or comic book incarnations of the franchise, but even a guest appearance by Angie herself wouldn’t make this worth full price.
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