Gaming Review - Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Wanted: Weapons of Fate does little more to expand on a film-based game, and suffers greatly because of it.

The main problem with this game is that the story is pretty weak. In the beginning of the game Wesley finds out that his mom was an assassin too, and she was killed shortly after his birth. As the game progresses you play as both Wesley and Cross, Wesley’s father, and the story behind Wesley’s mother’s death slowly reveals itself. Though this is a promising premise, it’s not really fleshed out strongly enough, and personally, it weakened a lot of the key plot points in the film. And finally, this mystery can only last so long, making this game really, really short.

Though a lot of games can rise above their weaker story, Wanted was incapable of doing so, especially considering the repetitive, and superhuman nature of a lot of the villains. In the first couple of acts the police and thugs you shoot through are realistic because they take two or three bullets and are down, but as the game progressed they seem to be able to take a freakish amount of gunshots. I understand that towards the end some of the characters are similar to Wesley in the fact that they can react quickly to bullets, which comes off visually a lot like the Matrix, and though this is really obnoxious, it at least has some believable explanation behind it (in this world). What I don’t understand is why shotguns always seem to give the person wielding it a higher bullet intake before they finally fall to the ground. Apparently shotguns and guns mounted with flashlights are the same as shields. On a similar note, there are way too many baddies that feel the need to run at you with knives, screaming to warn of their coming attack. If this had happened only a few times I wouldn’t have thought too much of it, however, it has to happen at least 20, making it one of the most obnoxious parts of the game. And finally, the boss battles are hardly anything to worry about because, not only are they ridiculously easy, the patterns behind their movements are so apparent that there is little challenge at all.

Though my biggest complaints are of the villains themselves, there are a few other things that I could have done without. The first is of the couple of sections involving the mounted gun, which must have been placed in solely to mix up the action. I commend them for the attempt, but I did not like these parts at all. On a different note, my other complaint is that I didn’t feel as challenged as I should have because I always had more than enough bullets to move around the world without panic. Especially considering that not only do the baddies drop tons of ammo once they die, but it is lying around all over the place as well.

I know it may seem like I hate a lot of this game, but there are a few things that I do actually really like, most of which is in relation to the animation. For one thing, the characters are created really nicely and strongly resembled the actors they are supposed to be, both in game and in the cut scenes. And not only do they look nice, but the way the playable characters move in the world is really amazing, especially in concern to the cover system. Speaking of this, a lot of the bonus content you pick up throughout the game is actually pretty interesting, and I really liked getting to see the short clip of the motion capture session of the obstacle course like area used to create Wesley and Cross’s movement from cover to cover in the world. And finally, one thing that I did really like was the few slow motion moments in the game. Though they don’t really recreate the feeling of what it is like to be one of these assassins, they did look really cool.

Though Wanted: Weapons of Fate seemed to have a lot of potential as it was being made, in the end it was disappointing, leaning too heavily on the success of the movie instead of a creating a strong game that can stand on its own.

Final Grade: 6.0