Marvel's Wolverine Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

0:00Your candy stash just got an upgrade with fruity rainbow five hour energy shots. Grab the shot, dive into that sweet boost for your sweet tooth. Order now at fivehourenergy.com or Amazon. Experience hits technology with the new Pro X2 Super Strike. The fastest mouse, Logitech G, has ever built. Head over to Logitech G.com to grab yours and start clicking faster than the competition. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Hello gamers, welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Thursday, September 10th, 2026. I am Andy Cortez and I am joined by Tim Gettys. But to most Jordan Middler. What the most? Greg Miller. Among us. Okay. I get it.

1:01Interesting way to say it. You hate him for you. Forks on back to back to back to back to back kind of funny game showdown champion. It's crazy. You would make fun of my disability like that. Like just bad memory and stuff like that's a disability. No, no, no, the ADHD. That's a different thing. Bad memories. Bad memories being so able to say now. If you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting on youtube.com forward slash kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com forward slash kind of funny. So thank you, Omega Buster, Delaney, the Psalm twining and Michael Pesavento. Let's get into it gamers. It's been a long time coming for now. Let's begin with the topic of the show. Stop. Stop. Stop. Wolverine. Insomniac made it. Yeah. Oh, he's got some bars to drop on it.

2:02An upcoming action adventure game published by Sony based on the Marvel Comics character. Wolverine. The aforementioned Wolverine. Mm-hmm. To stand alone entry in the Marvel Spider-Man series. Telling an original self-contained story that shares continuity with insomniac's other Marvel games currently sitting at an open critic score of 81 and metacritic of we got to give it up for Greg Miller 77. We had a conversation yesterday. He was like, I was worried about it. Like, bear it's all worried because it's on a fantasy table and you were like, I think it'll be it'll end out 83 years. I was like, I think it's going to be 77. T-fucking crushed it. Crushed it. Wow. Wow. You nailed that shit. 69, 99 exclusive to the plate station five. Who wants to start? There's been a lot of just discussions and a lot of scuttle but on the off-chones in the office. Yeah. A lot of people are saying that a whole lot of discussions and, you know, to be honest

3:05with you, if I could just be real selfish right here in this moment. About that. Jordan Miller, I, after hearing just a lot of the scuttle but I go, that's one less game that I, you know, that maybe I don't have to commit to because it's really, really packed right now. We're playing lots of stuff for review season. Review season is everywhere. I would like to start with Tim Geddies. Thank you, Andy. Mr. Marvel. I do really, really appreciate that. Mr. Marvel, Mr. Insomniac, I love, love the output that they've had this generation. I have platinumed every Insomniac game. This generation before review. Like I've been so into and I love those experiences. I go back to the Spider-Man games and even Ration Clank rift apart often and any excuse to go back. I've loved that there's been, you know, PC ports, there's been PSSR upgrades to those games over the years. There's been costume upgrades coming back. So I always enjoy any excuse to go back and, you know, play just for a little bit because

4:08Insomniac games are so fun and I love them so dearly and they give me a amount of tasks that I want to do for an amount of time that feels very satisfying. Easily digestible. And just, yeah, it's like I enjoy 100% in these games. Wolverine is the first Insomniac game this generation that I did not platinum before review. I'm very close. I will platinum. You want to? Okay. I will. There's a couple things I need to check off. I need to replay a couple of missions. I don't want to. I just don't want to. As I was playing through this game, there were multiple times that I was like, man, I can't believe I have Wolverine and I'm not thinking about it every second. And I feel like I'm having to schedule and make time to get through the game to make sure that I see it all the way through to the end. And I can't believe I'm saying that about a Wolverine game, a Marvel AAA video game. And there's more than anything in Insomniac game. I'm giving Wolverine a 6.5 on the kind of funny scale. It's okay. It is okay. Not a bad video game.

5:10I've seen some people be way harsher than I am. And I do not agree with them. I do think that this is okay. And almost to good. I feel like there's a lot of there is a lot of good in this game. But I think that all of what I want to see from an Insomniac game, a PlayStation 5 game, a follow up after what we have seen before. This misses the mark in a lot of ways. And it's hard to not be disappointed in what the Wolverine experience is from a gameplay perspective and from a story perspective. Again, I don't think that any of that is bad. I just don't think that it is ever great, even definitely not amazing. I think there is a lot of good here. But I think more often than not, I'm finding myself being like, man, this is okay. I'm having an enjoyable time with it. But I am more disappointed than anything. And we'll get more into specifics throughout the review. But I overall, but takeaway from this is, I haven't been disappointed. In a video game since Devil May Cry 2. And that's always kind of been my big example of, oh, wow, there's no way that I'm not

6:14going to like this. Other people might not like it, but there's no way I'm not going to be super into it. And for me to not be thinking that Wolverine is at least an eight out of 10, yeah, big disappointment. And I want to clear, this game's not as bad as Devil May Cry 2. But my expectations were, I think very, very high for a reason for what Insomniac has built the last generation. They have quite the pedigree. They put out bangers and bangers and bangers. Let's go over to Jordan Middler from patreon.com forward slash video games chronicle and video games chronicle.com. It's BGC news. BGC.News. BGC.News. BGC.News. Yeah. BGC.News. Yeah, Wolverine is an interest in one because kind of picking up on 10s point there. When Spider-Man 2 came in for review, I finished that game in two days because I could not stop playing it like I loved every minute of the Spider-Man 2 kind of experience. Whereas with Wolverine, I felt like I was doing the platinum, the platinum admin throughout the entire game.

7:14There was no point where this felt like a fresh new experience to me. Even at the start, I was like, okay, the, the combat is a little basic, but surely we're going to pick up some steam here. And the combat is essentially the same from ever one as it is at our 12. It's kind of baffling how repetitive this game is. And only is it repetitive. The things that are repetitive are so dated that I make the point in my review. For a long time, everyone was referencing the Ravens software, Wolverine game, the X-Men Origins Wolverine. And this game's like identical to it in so many ways. Apart from the fact that it's absolutely beautiful from a gameplay perspective, it is so similar to games of that generation that I can't help but feel massively disappointed. It's also so patronizing to the player in so many different ways that we'll get into. It just feels like a game that came together very quickly. I mean, there was very famous leadership change over there in the past couple of years. And I think you can see that all across this game. There's elements of it that feel like this was once a much more open game that they decided

8:17to put invisible walls up and kind of cut off. For me, I'm, I'm setting it like a 6.5. I think that there's stuff in this game I do like. I like the characterization of Logan specifically. As I said, I think it looks great. But as someone who completes games at an absolute rapid pace for work, I find myself really struggling towards the last couple of hours of this game thinking I cannot believe I'm doing another fight against a big kind of tall enemy. So I'll just use all my powers against them to kill them instantly. There was no fun. There was no challenge. It's, um, is really, really like last night. I do have the Platinum Salva segment, but it wasn't enjoyable. It was not an enjoyable platinum. Um, Greg Miller. Hi, Andy. Man, the king of the scuttle bud. I've just been getting all the scuttle bud from you about. What do you know what I mean? Thank you for giving me a lot of hints as to whether I should like boot this sucker up or not. Yeah, no problem. Um, Greg Miller. Yeah.

9:18Give me a little top level thoughts on Wolverine along with your review score, please. And also how long do you take Tim to beat? Uh, I think it was like, maybe around 20 Jordans, like, play with the 15 something like that. And I'm talking like doing all like all my going back and getting to the top. Okay. Got you almost platinum. Man, my PlayStation clocks is 15. So you know, imagine that's like 1213. So there are the thing always is a little wonky for what it's doing. Um, man, I've talked a lot about this in my head and done this opening a few different times, right? I think for me at a top level view is that at my core, I'm always going to be like Jordan or writer in terms of how I come at a video game review. And as you guys know, I live and die by whatever review scale rubric. I'm on whether B.I.G. And whether B here, whether it's five stars, whether it's 20 point scale. And so Kevin, if you go wide and show it with the review score underneath me, please, like, I've gone around and around with this one because everything you said, Tim is true. Wolverine is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, right?

10:19Like it is not broken. It is not cheap. It is not poorly made. It's not any of those things, but it's definitely not good. Like it is not a good game. And so then you really get into who I am and how I come in a video game review. I don't care about numbers. That's not what it's about for me. It is about the adjective I'm attaching to this, right? As I talk about what this game is. And if you're talking to me, and obviously when you talk to someone about a video game, it's far different. The words you use, blah, blah, blah. But to have okay and mediocre in front of me, I have to go mediocre. And so I have to give this game a 5.5. And that sucks because I feel like I know what a 5.5 reads to the audience. Now granted, you're an audience. You're a different kind of audience. We're not a medic, right? That should worry about it. But it is the idea that it is not a bad game, but the definition of mediocre, of moderate or low quality value ability or performance. Like that's where we're at. Like I can't sit here and talk about any of the verticals of Wolverine, whether we're talking about stories, whether we're talking about performance, whether we're talking about

11:20characters and performance being actor performance by the way. We'll get into all that when we get going. And I don't mean specifically Logan, but again, we'll get into all that. Game play, gameplay loop. None of that is like, well, there's the shining thing. There's the thing that I truly enjoyed that rises, it brings the whole tide up and raises all boats. I just don't have that with this game. It's a disappointment across the board in terms of man, I was never excited to sit down and play it. You know what I mean? I was never like, oh, fucking nails on a chalkboard where there are other review codes in this September, just like there's other games for you to go spend $70 on. But I think do things like that this game tries you way better. Yeah, of course, but I was never like, oh, God, nor was I ever playing it me like, this is cheap. This is bullshit. This is whatever. It was like, cool. I'm fighting through this room full of bad guys again with the same moves and the same moveset again to get to the next cut scene in a story I already find disappointing and don't think it's going anywhere interesting and shockingly, I don't think it did and we

12:20do that over and over and over again through the entire thing. Tough. It sounds like whenever we do an interview movie to him and it's like a movie we don't give a shit about really. You know, I'm playing through this game. I thought about Captain America Brave New World multiple like many, many times. I look at him like even a 40 X feeling of it. Yeah. Like I, I, I'm different than a lot of people where I don't like look at a lot of the MCU movies ago. I fucking hated this is fucking trash, whatever. I'm like, I'm more disappointed that it's not amazing, but I'm like, that was fine. I enjoyed the good parts of it and we can move on. That's kind of how I feel about this. I'm just that to me at this point means a lot more for a big PS5 exclusive game from Insomniac than what I expect from the MCU at this point in the phases. But yeah, I do think that we're at a point that is. It's just okay. And like, I don't, that's not great. Like that's like, it's really, especially when there are so many things coming out around it. But like that, I, that's one thing that just gets in the way.

13:22I think that, you know, there's definitely merit to talking about the place and time that Wolverine is coming out right now. But I think remove that from the conversation. Like this game came out, it was the only thing in September. I still think we would be feeling this way. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it is really the like, to Jordan's point of like, how archaic this feels. Like, this is, these are old stakes. So the archaic side of it is not inherently a bad thing. I bring up Captain America Brave New World and, you know, obviously there, you get what I'm saying. A bad patience there. Yeah. I do think that is a bad thing. The thing about this is I also was thinking a lot playing this of Marvel cosmic invasion, a game that I love. Very simple game, very archaic game in terms of its design where you are just going left to right and punching things a lot. It's very repetitive and every once in a while you get a kind of cool set piece. But even that, I didn't review that highly because I feel like I was a little disappointed by the lack of the bigger set pieces and big, wow, moments. But you're having fun just kind of going in slash and jumping and shooting whatever it

14:24is you're doing there. The thing here is it's the exact same type of gameplay. Like this game is so ridiculously linear of every, it's like, it feels like pre-uncharted one in some ways. You are in this like hallway to this hallway to this hallway. There's not collectibles anywhere. And if there are collectibles, you know, because they are glowing and screaming at you. There are multiple things pointing to that. I sure love Wolverine being comic accurate to breaking open these blue tanks for X-E. You got X-P. And then fucking years. But again, that feels like those old school arcade games, but instead of being in 2D, it's in 3D. So I, on that, in that respect, I can enjoy it and find that there's fun with that. But the rest of the game presents this as if it's a big PlayStation Studios third person. We are here in the narrative and story and performance and set pieces. And I think that those things are the budget that you see oozing out of this. It doesn't add up. And it reminds me of an archaic style experience that there's fun in.

15:26But when it's wrapped in such a pretty wrapping, I think it brings up more questions than satisfaction. I would love real quick, Jordan. I want everybody to, in the YouTube chat, who is here. Leave a like, waiting. Leave a like, subscribe. Give a like, subscribe. Give a like, subscribe, your question. And also, I apologize for everybody who was like, of course they're going to love it, of course. I would like to see an official apology from everybody. Before you wait a long time for that. Go ahead, Jordan. Just to Tim's point about how linear it is. There's a there's a segment when you're in mad rapport where you have to fight at a fish market. And just before this, you can walk around the fish market into kind of the different areas. The second that encounter fishes and a little clip plays your, your, your only move like five feet outside the fish market. But if you turn back and go back into that market, just to look around just to see if you've missed anything. The game screams at you that you cannot go that way and turns you back around. Like the entire thing feels like it was built for players who have never played a video game before.

16:30Like it is so unbelievably hand told to the amount of times where you know where you have to go. But it forces Wolverine into like this. You cannot run mode. So you're just walking slowly. And even if you get to somewhere that requires a running jump, it will just make you stand there until the voice acting stopped. Which is in such contrast to Spider-Man where they literally recorded voice lines for swinging as fast as you can, because they know that people want this story stuff kind of in the background while you're doing all the superhero shit. It's just there is a if we were listing all the weird things this game does that is so. Kind of surprising in its mediocrity. This would be like a four hour review because there's so many little things you could just go, yeah, why do they do that? Why do you get way more XP than you actually need to hit the level cap? Why is the level cap 36 of all of all numbers? Like there's this. There's a lot of shit. I'm dying. Yeah. That seems like an oversight. That's just a high point.

17:31No one's paying attention. I got it. It's got to be a type of I love that. Real quick, I want to say because they're a great broad performance. And I do think that there's a lot to talk about here because that's a big part of this game. I'll talk about what's up. Lots to talk about in general. Absolutely. But I will say a major absolute highlight of this game to me was Troy Baker's performance. I did see that on the internet. I loved it. I thought it was one of the more nuanced performances I have experienced from Troy and granted like I don't play a lot of the open world RPGs and stuff that he has done in the past. There's a lot of characters of his. I do not know. I was like holy crap. He's working for this. And he's really good at his job. I really, really, really was like, oh, this is one of the reasons why Troy is one of the best of all time. I saw Timor Hussein say he hard carries so much. I mean, I really, really think so. And I also really liked Liam's performance. I think the performance of Logan was very, very high quality. I don't like the writing much. On this game kind of across the board. And so I said piggyback off.

18:32I think Troy is killing and performing, but I wish they gave him more to better stuff to work with. That's when my thing. And it comes back to Liam as well as Wolverine, right? I think he looks the part. I think he fucking is acting and doing his whole like stick with me because it's going to sound counter-attuitive, I guess, but he is great at what he's doing. I don't think he's the Wolverine we need. And I don't mean him personally. I mean, the character they give him when Wolverine previews dropped. And I was like, I was well, I don't know. I saw so much in there's I know there's a lot of people just looking to hate and hate and hate. But there wasn't an undercurrent of real fans who aren't just haters being like, there's something about him. He doesn't look like what he doesn't. It doesn't it isn't my Wolverine. I was like, that's interesting. I don't get that vibe. And then playing throughout the game, one of the games, I think Achilles heels in the narrative is show don't tell. They tell us so many times about him being tortured or that this relationship will they won't they with him and Jean tell, tell, tell. But I don't feel the characters ever show it until very specific examples that maybe our spoilers we won't get into.

19:37But by then it's too late. And so my point that I'm driving in here with this version, Liam's version of Wolverine is that I think he's too kind. His eyes are too kind. He's too compassionate. He's too nice. And I don't mean necessarily in the actions, although that is there. But I this is me just being somebody who consumes movies probably and moves on. It gave me such a different and new respect for Hugh Jackman. From the moment we meet him in X-Men 1, right? He is a tortured soul, the shotgun to the back of the hair, him in the card. Does it hurt every time? Like there's a brooding I hate myself, Wolverine, that I think is key to the, I don't know who I am and I've got a past and I hate it. And here they could have given us a Wolverine that isn't that guy, but it is that guy. I have a past and I'm bad and I have berserk rage and all that happens to me sometime. But then he's back to being like, I'd love to hang out with you Logan. You're awesome. But then he's like, oh, but I'm tortured.

20:38I'm like, you keep telling me you're tortured, but you really don't seem tortured. And that's not the actor I don't think that's the material and the direction and everything else. Had you ever mentioned the the eyes comment before? I haven't. I've seen other people in there. Oh, no, maybe I've seen the internet talk about before it isn't my Wolverine or something. Okay, because I did see DG mayor in the Twitch chat say he has soft eyes. And then I heard you tell Barrett several days ago, like he just he's he he exudes to loveable. I'm too like nice and kind and I'm not this asshole that you want to avoid at all costs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the saber truth there. Oh my God, fucking saber. That's what he is. That's all he is. I did hear. Yeah, I fucking dude like in again, for background for people, of course, I'm a DC comics fan. I never was into Marvel comics outside of Spider-Man that much. I know the X-Men through the X-Men movies through then a bajillion video games I've played here there. But I've always thought saber to sucks.

21:39I've never seen a good rendition. I think of saber to this right? This game is like top of the mountain monument of why I think saber to fucking. Yeah, just screaming everything all the time. You're a complete fucking asshole to everyone. You're on team X. We have a whole thing where like there's a Walter on the team, right? Just a dude in like, I do not believe how many times you hear the. They want to trust you. I'm like, why are you here? What do you do? What do you bring to the team that we have to put up with you being such an asshole? I mean, just with that line, he's supposed to be Jordan. Would you assume he's maybe comedic relief or? It's weird because just on Greg's point there, it feels like the, and I did like kind of the narrative overall, but it feels like they're trying to do so many different eras of Wolverine at the same time in different parts of his career altogether. Cause to Greg's point, they set it up as like, okay, he's in team X. The X men don't exist. He's a bit like wet behind the ears. The turn hasn't happened yet, but they're also pulling stuff from like old man Logan and

22:42he's this experienced fighter. So I think that's kind of the thing that falls away like he could have just been a dickhead the entire time, but then you wouldn't be able to do the gene thing as much, but they obviously wanted gene to be a big character that honestly seems like she was probably playable at one point. But yeah, the, the saber to the stuff is so like, I'm glad you don't see him for a long time in the middle of the game. I think the, the, the mistake in Tiger as I think that stuff is underexplored and could have been given a lot more time. I also think that the young mutants that they set up at the very start of the game, the, the stop dealing with them way too quickly. That was like an I thought, okay, we're going to come back to this bar all the time. We're going to be checking in. We're going to be maybe doing a mission with exploring what these guys powers are. If you don't know who these characters are, they're essentially just like random people and you're like, hmm, that's a very famous voice actress that's playing one of these. Why are they just a random NPC in the middle of this game?

23:43We've seen, we've seen her in trailers and everything else. Right. Okay, well, it is. Yeah, so believe so. We all know. I'm fine. I don't know. I was in my previews in our preview. So we were able to talk about the preview room. I didn't do the preview. I keep forgetting you got sick or something. You ate a bad pizza. Yeah. I had too many monsters. Let me just do a Google ate a bad pizza. I like the kind Wolverine. I feel like that. It was, it was an interesting take on the character. I think it was inconsistent though. Like I don't think the Greg's criticisms are off base overall. I feel like when we look at the insomniac world for Marvel with what they built with Spider-Man now over three games, I really think that one of the high points of that game is what it does differently from our expectations of Spider-Man and the world and characters around him and Peter Parker and all those dynamics. And I don't always love the changes they make, but I always respect them. I always am like, okay, cool. I like that you're going out of your way to make this your own Spider-Man and make this

24:46your own part of this world and giving him a history that I'm interested in going back and trying to piece the puzzle pieces back together to get from the origin point of the radioactive Spider-Bite to where we are playing as Spider-Man. It's like, okay, cool. He's been doing it this long. The backpacks are telling me this story. I can kind of understand what's happening. I think with Wolverine, a big problem is because he is ageless and has lived forever and doesn't remember things. We're filling in gaps over way too long of a period that it doesn't feel like I'm filling things in as much as I'm just kind of like getting a bunch of random things and just like everything and nothing could have happened and it doesn't really matter because the Wolverine we're dealing with right now is this kind of kind guy that's like surrounded by a bunch of like mean assholes or like corrupt people and all this and it just kind of doesn't give you enough to understand why he's where he's at but I feel like they constantly are pushing themselves to be like, but there's a darkness in there. And whenever the darkness starts showing, I'm just like, but that's not the character that we're seeing for so much of it.

25:47It's definitely not what the gameplay is to back that up. But I think that what I'm talking about loving so much about in the Spider-Man being its own world, it's the characters you know, but they're kind of different in a satisfying way. I do respect how different this is. I respect the takes they have the timeline and the where what we know of X-Men, what we know of the different groups and worlds and stuff here, I like that this is different. I don't like the direction that they went pretty much anyway. Like I don't like Gene's character. It's a very different gene. I don't like it. I don't like the history that they added. I don't like it. I don't like where the enemies are. I don't like where mutants are. It's like, there's just a lot of things that I'm like, oh man, like you'll definitely have your own take here. It's to take that I don't like. But I respect it. Is it a take that you feel that way because you have so much learned knowledge and or would somebody coming into this who has no background for X-Men, maybe find enjoyment in what these arcs are? I mean, I say that as somebody that has way more knowledge of Spider-Man and I love

26:51what they did, right? So it's like here, it's like I have a lot of knowledge. I think the knowledge definitely enhances this experience. I think there's a lot of things that are very cool, Easter eggs, just like we got in the game. But sometimes I'm on even Easter eggs. Some of them are like understanding who a character is and their history from the comics and shows and stuff goes such a long way in enhancing this story and giving you kind of, I think that there is a triangle in this game of the different factions and groups that are presented in their ideologies about the exact same thing when it comes to the core mutant issue or condition. I feel like that stuff is greatly enhanced by knowledge of those people from the past and how they have acted previously because I think that the story that they're telling here, they don't go deep enough into things. I think Trasca is a really good example of that. Trasca is the guy that made the Sentinels. You can play this game for 10 minutes and you'll know that, right? And if you watch the movies, you know that. But what up, Dinklitch? Why does Trascaute Mutants?

27:53Why is he this upset about it? There's like throw away lines in the background of just like, well, what if one of them blows up a school or something? I'm like, there's so much interesting things there to talk about. They don't talk about it. They never get into that. The assumptions they make and the bad guys bad doing bad things happens way too often here. Where I'm like, we're talking about some really deep subject matter that they clearly know is deep subject matter. And they treat very importantly at certain points, but I do think they just shy away from it when it cuts to the point that I needed them to step it up for it to be really special. Because so much of this, it's fun to get through and you kind of want to know what happens next, but I feel like more often than not, then what happens next goes made me go like, huh, really? Damn. That's kind of key to my point there where I'm talking about the other mutants that you're with at the start of the game. I really thought that those would be the kind of vessels through which you learn more about kind of the mutant plight in this state of the world. Maybe one of them goes into the rest of madreport because that area is far more open

28:54than the actual eight you play and you have to do like a quick side mission with them or something like that. But they skirt past that so quickly to just like go straight down this kind of gene Logan line that by the time you get back to the conclusion of the game where you would really want all that kind of mutant subtext, it feels kind of rushed like the, I don't know if they started making this game and then they were like, okay, we actually just want to get us to a point where we can do X men. Let's change up how we're going to make this Wolverine game because it feels like it's serving like three different masters all times. And I think that for me, the things that I liked about the narrative were the individual kind of conversations and performances, but the overall story of the game when I got to the like, when you get like an hour into it, you're like, I know exactly how this is going to end and I know exactly how this is going to play into the rest of the presumed universe and the things that were kind of on the way up to that, like the specific set

29:56pieces, there's a set piece mission with the gene that I'm going to say slows the pace down, but the pace is always a fucking crawl in this game. Like there is an extremely slow mission that I was like, okay, this is cool. It's referential. I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying these two together. But yeah, it's just missing. It's missing the kind of oomph that the Spider-Man games have for me. And also like, they fit in the same universe because they have the insomniac look, but I don't feel like these characters are in the Spider-Man universe. I don't know how to quantify that specifically, but I feel like if you put this Wolverine next to Spider-Man to the point about him being too nice, it was just like, yeah, these are just too nice. Superheroes. There's no real sense that, oh, this is, this is when the previous happened and they're like always starts on team X is with Saber Tooth and Mystique. I was like, okay, we're doing like a, we're doing a redemption arc. He's going to be a tweener here, but he's not. He's like, he's just like, he's just like a nice guy the entire time. Then when eventually terrible things happen, you're like, well, that's just about, that's

31:00a little bit off. And I've had, I've invested in you as this baby facing, you've suddenly just smashed the jail for this person. He's just a solid, a random guy, yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit weird. I think, you know, Andy, to piggyback off something you were saying, right, where you knew nothing and you walked into this, right, would it work better? You'd be fine with characterizations and things like that. I just don't think that person really exists on who's going to go get this game because I think honestly, if I'm guessing, and I know we had a conversation weeks ago where I was kind of like, they're just doing knockoff X-Men here. And I assume because we don't want it to be, well, we played, I've seen the movies, right? I know a little bit about Professor X. So rather than have Professor X getting a team together and doing the X-Men, we'll have Essex doing this and the X-Team or whatever. And Tim's like, well, that's accurate to Essex's point, you know, who he is in the comics and you get Edyatta. And I'm like, I get that. But I still feel like when you do this and you do it so closely to what the X-Men are, even like, you know, what the motivations of people here, there's the anti-mutants and

32:03there's the pro mutants and then there's the evil kind of promuines, right? It's like, cool. So that guy's just magneto then. Like, why are we doing the same roles even though that is, but not doing it? Like just fucking commit or do something completely different rather than give what feels like knockoff X-Men, knock-off X-Men. We didn't have the right to it. Right? Yeah, exactly. And then we'll give you Jean. And as you've seen throughout the promo campaign you're seeing here, like, they're going to hang the whole fucking story or at least their hearts on, will they, won't they, what's going on between them? And personally, I think he is, they have no chemistry together. And it's not the actors fault. They're good performances. They're doing with what they can. But like, back to Show Don't Tell, I would say there's one scene that's from the slow mission Jordan was talking about, where it's way late in the game where I was like, okay, that is the first time I've seen you guys together doing something. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of hot. I believe you're like doing a thing outside of it. I don't, I never felt that. I never believed that. So to try to make me care about what's going on. Why? I was like, I just don't.

33:04I'll tell you what's happening. I'm so glad. The amount of like, there's also a weird amount of like, small, velitis where they're like, we'll put Wolverine in the costume and we'll put some of the characters in the costume. But see this gene gray fella that we're with the entire time. We'll give it a green dress and a mask once, but we won't just go the entire way. Like it is weirdly CW in that way. And it worked in it. It's obvious. Like I throughout this game, you have all these Wolverine suits. I was like, cool, I'm going to put them in street clothes because he looks like a fucking clown running around in a world where eventually I got this. I totally forced black when I put them on that. I never put the mask on. I was like, no mask. I was saying he hates the calendar and I was just like, I don't know. And then like the more they're like, what are you talking about? I especially, I think that like having him run around in the face, that looks goofy. Like there's a lot of the different outfits where the amount of hair he has. I'm just saying it's a distraction. The world. It's, I mean, like again, it's narrative. It's a bit visual. It's just I don't think it fits having him in the colon in these goofy suits when like, this is the missions he's doing. He doesn't, he doesn't feel like he's Wolverine.

34:06Like I, I, I hate that shit from every superhero fucking show that ends at season 10. We're finally going to put him in the suit. But it feels like exactly. It feels like that's what we're building to when you, you play this game, which is like, and not to mention the suit doesn't make any fucking sense. I mean, I will, I will. There's like, here it is. It's an animal fiber. So he'll, and then I'm still cut up all the time. Like what the fuck is he doing? He'll better deal. I do agree with you that like him in the suit doesn't fit the story and team that they're telling here. I just, I like how it looks and I like gameplay wise. I'm just like, see him, it just stands out to me like not being able to see his eyes when I can see everybody else's eyes is something weird. And I know what about Spider-Man? Like, it is an apples apples and we can't do it that way because again, there's something about Spider-Man's world feeling real. Something about Peter Parker's protecting his identity and he is going off and doing this. And when I'm done doing the boss fight or the fight of a million guys on a rooftop, I then swing off and catch the kids balloon, which doesn't happen again. But you know what I mean? Going you exist in the city without it. Whereas like you're in these missions and sometimes yeah, you're like kicked out of the fucking plane and then it's like, all right, cool.

35:07And now you're on the ground. Do you want to put your suit on? I'm like, wow, what the fuck are we doing? Do you think this would have been better served if it was completely disconnected from Spider-Man's universe? No, I don't think that matters. Yeah, that doesn't matter at all. I think honestly, I think one of my, my complaints and it's, you know, I will talk about it is I feel like it would have been better served if they chose in this stick with me in art style other than realism. Like the fact that it's meant to look like a movie slash Spider-Man's universe, like, but like real people, I think works against it where it's like, yeah, Gene looks dumb the entire time in this trench coat. Like that's just, and like sometimes when people are standing there, you, it's back to the, with the old criticism people had against Marvel's Avengers, the game where it looks like people aren't Halloween costumes. And it's just like, yeah, this isn't, this isn't what you're doing. I don't understand. Whereas like something obviously, cosmic invasion, you're playing a side-scroller, but you don't think about why they're in their suits or what they're doing. Like Mystique never looks normal. And then when she goes to the bar and puts on her outfit, I'm like, I guess that's even weirder, but okay, cool. Whatever. I had it. There's like a venturing into nitpicky, personally things, but like the game doesn't work for all

36:10of us for reasons. And here's fucking Walter. Let's hear from Walter, everybody. And there's a, there's a part where you're like in Japan at night and you're walking down the street, like the kind of Camerocho style street and a leather trench coat and a leather jacket. And I was like, maybe this should have just been the whole game. Like maybe it should have just been like Logan, Ony's adventures in Tokyo is just dressed like this. And then maybe at the end, you pull on the like, what do you want, yellow spandex? Like to start off with that kind of stuff, it just seems silly, especially when literally in that scene you were showing there where Jean Grey is wearing the green dress. She's into skies. I like, oh, this is a ridiculous thing for her to be wearing. But the rest of the time she's wearing like an el, like a brown singer, Eira, like a blue version of her costume. Like it's all just very odd, especially as Greg points out, Mystique is just waiting the mystique costume at the bar where that's previously she was in the team X thing. It's like, it's like, guys, like if you didn't either need to call it, you could have

37:10just done good when Texman. Everyone would have been fine with us. Like it's, yeah, it's shirt out probably bigger. It seems like that's one of that kind of point, Andy. I get to wear the ultimate X-Men Wolverine costume, okay? Oh, it was fucking awesome. Hell yeah. Yeah. Finally got that. I was not happy with the suits. Then I got there and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm going to take that one. I, yeah, they, they I'm looking at healthy paste, just like Spider-Man. I do think I know where we're, let's jump to adds. Yeah, that's what I want to talk about combat. Yeah. I was, I had a segue earlier for hot. I was going to go, you know what is hot though? Like hearing from our sponsor, but then I was going to also mention stuff that I was playing and just because I wanted to get in like, you know, it, don't worry about it. It was just a really good, yeah, it would have been an awesome segue, but yeah, it's your word for my sponsors, everybody. This episode is brought to you by 5 hour energy indulge your sweet tooth with a fruity rainbow extra strength. 5 hour energy shot. It's basically a candy sword, a bottle. We're talking juicy, berry burst, tangy citrus, squeezes and a pop of tropical vibes,

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40:12Open secure and on your terms. Unlike most VPNs, proton is backed by strong European privacy laws and years of expertise, creating a safer, faster and more open internet for everyone. It's easy to get started. Right now proton VPN is offering you 70% off a two-year plan when you go to protonvpn.com slash kind of funny. That's P-R-O-T-O-N VPN.com slash kind of funny for 70% off your two-year plan. That's protonvpn.com slash kind of funny. This episode's brought to you by Factor. This gaming review season has been the busiest yet and sometimes hunger strikes and you're just way too exhausted to set up and prepare the whole meal you thought you'd have time for. That's why so many of us here at kind of funny love Factor. Factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without the shopping or cooking. On many occasions, Factor has completely saved Greg and Jen when they needed it most. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients.

41:15We're talking lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods and healthy fats. Every week you'll find over 100 nutrient dense menu items to choose from and new options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens and more. Let's eat real. Head to Factor Meals.com slash kind of funny 50 off and use code kind of funny 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until October 31st, 2026. Let's code kind of funny 50 off at Factor Meals.com. Kind of funny 50 off at Factor Meals.com. See the website for more details. Before we get to some super chats, tense, you had something you wanted to say. Yeah, leading into the little ad segue that we were talking about comparisons to Spider-Man. And I feel like we have to talk about that because this game does not exist in a vacuum and even if it did out of the world of Spider-Man, the fact remains that like this is a game that I doubt many people are going to play that didn't play at least one of the previous Spider-Man games.

42:15So there is kind of a one to one comparison there. I do think that there it is apples to apples in this situation because the gameplay is so very similar if not just direct copy and paste from the general gameplay of Spider-Man. Jordan Greg, would you agree? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So that's the baseline there. I think the biggest problem is core baseline Spider-Man gameplay is fun. Like there is a lot of fun to be had. I like the we're in a combat scenario and I'm just mashing square and triangle and jumping from person to person to person. It's a mix of the gadget here. It's fun. The gadget stuff. You like the ability is coming. Jumping up like the stealth takedowns just that the base base base of that I do think that is a lot of fun. And it's a very cool no matter how many times I do it, I'm still enjoying this. Spider-Man though ratchets all that stuff up and there's so much more meat on the stick when it comes to the set pieces because of the momentum of running around jumping, swinging, having the the webs being able to be used both as a defense thing,

43:16offense thing and traversal thing. And with all of that, you're just getting a lot of dynamic battles and you're able to web people's feet up go underneath their legs, get them from the back. Like where's with Wolverine? It's just stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And it's never more than that. It's always just stabbing. And in Spider-Man, you can kind of web zip to somebody and like pull them towards you or you pull towards them. Wolverine just kind of jumps at them. Almost every example as you just keep going. It's like, all right, Spider-Man can climb walls, but it also then he can swing. Wolverine can climb walls kind of. It's like every start and pace. I'm not talking about running, Indiana. I'm not supposed to do this here. I think that like the more comparisons there are to playing Spider-Man versus playing Wolverine, it's like, wow, both are starting at the same good spot. But Spider-Man just takes it so much further constantly. And I think another example of that is presentation and set pieces. When we are playing the opening Rhino fight of Spider-Man and you're going through the mall, I think it was Miles Morales.

44:17It's like so crazy. And like there's so many things. I mean, the opening of Spider-Man one, we're going after Kingpin, right? So here we go, we're on to the thing. All of that, like the big set pieces, and you know them well. And even dating all the way back to the debut of Spider-Man at E3 when we see him running through, like he's down the street, then he jumps into a window and like there's like papers flying as he's like running through an office or whatever. How crazy that all looked. And that's been PlayStation games. That's kind of what we expect from them these days. Wolverine doesn't have a single set piece that I'm blown away by. Thinking about the opening of Spider-Man 2 with Sandman. Blown away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of these because he is Wolverine compared to Spider-Man. You're holding R2 and you're holding forward. And that's it. And you're just kind of going straight. And I can't believe that because in Spider-Man, the moment you pick up that controller and you swing and the music starts to swell as you get higher and fall faster. And it's so dynamic and moving. Wolverine's always at the exact same speed, the entire time.

45:19And I was blown away. Then you get into a lot of these challenges that Spider-Man had as well. Use all your different gadgets. Use this combat scenario, we're gonna send wave after wave of enemies. And you're eventually doing all the same things. But there's a lot of ways to do those. In Wolverine, there's one way to do them. There's just one way to do them. There's a lot of get from point A to point B, obstacle courses. There's one way to do them. And that is hold R2, hold forward and jump, jump, jump, jump. I can't imagine not getting the platinum trophy on those challenges first time every time. There's nothing to them. And there's a couple different paths that I'm arguing with you. I'm throwing it out there. I don't know that those even matter. I'm never worried about it yet. I don't know. Hold forward and just go. And there were multiple times where I was playing and QTE came up that I wasn't prepared for. So I didn't touch anything. Yeah. Yes, what happened? Oh, by the way, on the, on the, what have they, none of the QTEs, yeah, you should have to press that and then it just plays the game on the math. It just plays L2, R2 pop up.

46:21You cannot touch the controller. And it just goes through. You can hit square and it goes. You hit any button and it'll do the props. So you hit no button and you just go. It's, it's tricking you. It's a placebo. I want to jump in here because I combat it's something I wanted to touch on a lot. And I think this parlay is into it, right? And also it pulls from Jordan's earlier comment of like, this game treats you like you've never played a video game before. I think when we, especially us, the critics and people are talking about this, the enthusiasts, right? That's one of the reasons it's going to get dinged so badly is that I think this was a game that in Somniac was like, man, Spider-Man sells so much, right? Let's make, we're going to sell this as much probably. Let's make it welcoming for every Wolverine fan to walk into. And I think that is such a miss in its why it's getting the review scores it's getting and it's a part of the core problem with the game. And I think that's so eloquently shown in the combat families. You of course come into reference Spider-Man, which we need to. I want to throw out two different games that I'm going to

47:23reference multiple times here, right? Fresh off the review, the blood of Don Walker, and then also just the oblo for. I'm throwing this out for a couple of different reasons, right? But every time in blood of Don Walker, I would go to get into a combat scenario inside. There'd be this hit of yes. I love doing this and it's doing the same fucking thing over and over again by definition. Gameplay loops are repetitive. Every game gives you a toolbox to play with and that's what you're going to do, right? But in Don Walker, a room full of bad guys pops up, whether they be witches or fucking zombies. And it is they come at me. There's a little shield. It shows I got a block up if they're coming in and block left, right down, whatever, hit at the right time, parry, unleash some stuff. I kill everybody there. Great. I've had a lot of fun with that, right? In Wolverine, you walk into this fucking room and it's just fodder. There's just a bunch of guys with robot legs for you to run in stab. Maybe some ninjas if you're there, eventually some sentinels, right? Just go in there and mash on square, kill them.

48:23You're getting XP like you get in Don Walker to then go invest into your character, right? But the problem is you don't need to. Me playing Don Walker, hour one, like Middler already talked about, right versus hour 37. My Cohen feels like a completely different character. Playing Wolverine, hour one versus hour 12. I feel like the same fucking guy, except that now when I am dodging at the right time, which I've always been doing, I fire back a blast at somebody from it. I send back a little projectile to hurt them. And it's like, that's not fun and that's not rewarding, which is where Diablo comes in where Diablo, of course, the most repetitive gameplay, right? Just fucking tap or hold a button, do my basic attacks, eventually set off some kind of cool chain reaction. But when I do that, I then level up and I then go in and I go, oh, now I'm making the character my own. I'm building a kit where I'm doing lightning damage. I'm doing poison attacks. I'm doing like I'm really feeling I'm getting gear that's augmenting that and doing all this stuff. Wolverine, when I came out well from the preview, I was like, it's,

49:25it's Wolverine. One of the things I was, you were like, what are you hopeful for? I was like, well, I'm interested to see how your combat kit pays off. Because I was like, it did change my demo when I got the, okay, when I strong kick you and days you, I can triangle you to heal. And it's like awesome. And they showed us a stealth section. Can I do the whole game very, you can do stealth in this very specific spot if you want to? Once I blew it, once I did it the first two times and realized eventually somebody's going to see me, what's the fucking point? I just jumped in, immediately said hi to everybody and started stabbing and doing the same things over and over again. And again, getting that XP and going back to those moves and filling in those things and like, oh, now you're getting to level three of your spin corkscrew. Who gives a shit? It doesn't feel great. It's not tearing them apart. Like the combat is mindless. I think trying to make sure that anyone can get into the combat. But it's doing that thing where it's trying to serve everyone. So it's serving no one. Mm, mm. I think the, the really damning point is that you're allowed for abilities.

50:25I would rather have none. Like, at no point was I like, oh, I need to take this one instead of this one. Like, oh, that's a shame because they're all so fun to use. Like, it's all so dull. Like one of your moves is a, is a dash where you like stab them in the throat and that gives you some health back. And I'm like, okay, you can use that to kind of close the gap between you and the enemy. But there's like two other moves that do the exact same thing. They just don't give you the health buff. And it's like, this is so, it's so, so undercooked, especially when we've recently been playing games. Like at one end of the scale, you have something like on a mature where the, the game play in the combat is just like pristine, wonderful stuff. And then as Greg mentioned, like Don Walker, something that evolves, something that can be played multiple different ways. Every single playthrough of Wolverine will look identical because there is so little from a combat perspective. There's so little challenge that mentioned the nightmare doors. They're a joke, man. They're such a waste of time. Like, yeah, that's not the nightmare doors. Adding a lot of large like you have some, you have some obstacle courses.

51:26And then you have survived this, this wave of enemies, which is the worst because it's not difficult. It's just so, so tedious. And you get a 3000 score. And I finally, after two minutes, I'm like, I'm at 2000. I have to keep going this one to get the fucking adamant. And it's like the lightest, lightest, lightest, roguelite situation where every, I don't know how many waves like they'll give you two options to take. Of like, you get this perk, but it gives you this. I'm not even doing it. Not even three. It's two. And you don't have to take either, then which I do think that's the third option. I'm like, actually, I do kind of enjoy that. I guarantee they will eventually update with their, hey, we have a roguelike mode now where you can go do this all the time. Keep going. I will not be partaking. No, I like, I stopped doing them at the end. Not to mention they completely interrupt the flow of combat. So the idea is you've seen from the preview and I talked about it or you've seen it here. You're running around doing whatever the mission is and then this purple, brown root appears. And if you follow that off the beaten path, because there's just nowhere to go, a door opens up that's like your mind cabin that you walk in, do the challenge.

52:27Then you, when you do it inevitably very easily, there's a little, a little wood carving you do that then plays a VO from Logan telling you a memory. He's remembered, right? That are always horrible and terrible. But it's like, you'll be, all right, we got to go hunt this guy. We're doing that thing. All right, Jean, yeah, but we're going to, all right. And you run in the dialogue abruptly stops. And then you come out and they pick up three lines before. So you hear the same thing again. And you come out and it's just like, I would, what I started doing is running into them, do activated running out of like, I don't want to fight 30 guys. I don't want to do another traversal chance. When you do it, it unlocks DNA adaptations. So this is the only way to go into this and like, there's a whole different run run. Again, you get to select just a few of them depending on how many you have. And it buffs you, whatever way it buffs you, I forget what they are because they don't matter. Is, do you all feel like when insomniac and Sony are ideating and kind of going around, what should the next thing be? Wolverine, I think, is obviously a very popular character.

53:27And Hugh Jaxman made it this worldwide, like, you know, household name. Do you think that they do that? And then once they're in the game, they're realizing, man, there's not a whole lot for us to do with this guy. Unless we are just going to completely change what his character does, right? Because a lot of it is slash, slash, slash. But there is so much to do with this guy. There's so much to do with the character of Logan, the character of Wolverine. I mean, combat-wise. But even from gameplay, it's like, I think this, when the moment I picked up the controller in this game, I was kind of surprised at going back to what I was saying earlier. How arcade, old school arcade, this is, a button mashy, just boom, boom, boom. We always talk about X-Men origins. It's like, yeah, it's that type of game where I might, I inherently, you start the game off L2R2. Snick, jump out of the helicopter, all this. How is that not the control scheme? I think that slowing this down, not having it be hack and slashing, hack and slashy, but having it be more, you're feeling every strike of Wolverine,

54:30like you are controlling the claws, slowing it, I don't know if slowing down is even the right, right? No, no, it is. But I think it's more like, give this game, and I don't believe. It might sound trite to some extent, but I stand by it. A Wolverine game like this, the way it's being presented after we saw that first trailer, I think it needed to lean way more last of us than early uncharted. Like I think it needed to be camera closer, even like the slower God of war, like God of war slow, the combat can get so intense, but it's deliberate. There's nothing deliberate. The liver combat is what it needs. I think, you know, so many people were torn up and talking about like, there's no dismemberment. And then no look at the video, there is dismemberment. Like there isn't very specific situations, right? I would have much preferred them do this, yeah, Tim, where it's not I walk into a room and it's going to be waves of fucking robot men coming to, and women coming for me to kill. And it is instead, it's three guys and I have to think and I have to actually be very, okay, I'm going to parry it this March and stab you and then go over it. And now I've done this. You don't get that we're seeing Omega Red here who we've known for a while.

55:30I was in this game. I always thought that looked like Joey Baker. I did too. I was honestly when I was watching this, like, are we about to get some weird thing of the clones? But like Omega Red, every boss, lame. No, I didn't like any of the boss fights. And there's one like in the last fourth, maybe like one of the last few boss fights where they're like, it was hilarious where they're like, oh man, like you really have to stun him to hurt him or whatever, build up his yellow bar. So dude attacks that stun I figured they actually call stagger. And then it was like in the middle of the, I kept fighting in the middle of the fight. They popped up in the tutorial of like, here are the moves that actually build stagger because you've never had to think about combat this way. So we've never talked to you about combat this way. It's like guys. There were two bosses I enjoyed in this, but I don't think that even those are like major standouts that I would. They're not making any smiley's list at the end of the show. Sure. Yeah. We have a super chat here from Nick, Nick Cash who says, would the views on this game be different if this is an insomniac's first Marvel game or if this game wasn't by insomniac?

56:35I don't know. It is. I would like to think no, I mean, no game exists in a vacuum. It's 2026. We have like this feels like a like you know, somebody had asked earlier in the chat about my, yeah, I reviewed it. IGN X-Men, Organs Wolverine, right? And I had a great time with that. This feels like I woke up in a coma. I went into a coma after that review and wake up and play this like, yeah, this is makes perfect sense. This is what a modern, it's gorgeous. Oh my god. It's exact. I think it was minmax, right? And I forget if it was Jacob or I think it was Jacob Geller who said demand more of your popcorn, meaning demand more of your popcorn movies, right? Like we can all enjoy a dumb action movie, a dumb action game or whatever. But like right here, they're doing the woods you rather thing. We all talked about it on the preview. Everybody was like, that was a really cool thing. You don't get stuff like that again. The next thing you get like this is the mission Jordan referenced, which when I was in it and it is slower, but I was like, damn, a video game where I do different things would have been fun. You know what I mean, put me in these different scenarios. Put me in where it is. I'm going to just, I have to stealth or I'm doing what, whatever.

57:38I don't know. Do you all, like when we're talking, whatever the game loop is, are you ever going back to a menu and going like, select a mission or whatever, you're just going, you're just going, you're just going in the cabin. You can go to your bed and they give you the X-Men 97 Wolverine lays on the bed and looks at a picture, a picture frame. You can replay missions there. Got you. Obviously for trophy chasing, but I mean, it is, it is as linear as you can possibly get. Like the entire start of the game to end of the game. It is this to the day for this was a gass of lay one here, which I don't, I don't think that inherently that is a problem, but I do think that even within the linear designs, like, I don't know, it's at a certain point, I'm, I have to ask myself like what I would prefer them to do or what I want it to look like, but so many of the areas, I'd say all of the areas that it's just a hallway and then you get to the end of it and it splinters to two other hallways this way and this way, they'll be a collectible and one and then nothing on the other. And then you get down another hallway and then there's two more hallways and then there's

58:40just nothing on either side. And I'm like, okay, it just feels so basic that I'm like, what I rather just be one straight hallway and not even have to deal with is there something over here or not? No, that's stupid. But then I'm like, why am I thinking about all this while I'm playing this game? Like, it's just because in addition, addition to Andy, to it being a just hallway, I also have a blue line telling me to go down the hallway. Oh, yeah, because he could sniff. So he always has GPS. Like, it's always smelling the enemy's part. Where are they? And don't worry, there's a blue line, but also if there's a, if there's a, if there's a blue line to your objective, there's also a blue line to the whiskey bottle. And then if you walk past the material, create this fucking Times Square billboard goes off. And to show you exactly where this well hidden create is. And it's just like, right, was this stuff put in like the last five minutes of development? Like it's so just randomly plopped around, which is weird because there is, there's a few nice references that you pick up on a desk or something like that. And I was like, why aren't they the collectibles?

59:41Like you, you pick up a book and it has like an author on it that if you're, if you're a, you're like, oh, that's cool. Why isn't that the collectible thing instead of like, here's the material is to build your shit suits and they don't even have a brain singer suit, which criminal and mad pink crazy, but like that's surely the one that in two weeks ago, we've listened to you. Sorry, but those reviews, here's the Brian singer suit. But that's the one thing they fix. They didn't have the movie spot. He's either they brought them in later. So I'm not surprised. That's exactly what I think they will do. Like that is a heart. If that if today happened, then this was like a 91 and a week they do the hearts and minds. Here is your classic 2000s movie suit instead of now being like, Oh, I got an email during this of the day one patch and I was genuinely checking it being like, I have they made the game fun. No, just that. I think the vat did photo mode. It's your point and then to combine it with Tim's again, that was the, I think such a crazy miss here of like, okay, in Spider-Man, the backpacks, the collectibles, they're all

1:00:42telling me part of Peter's story in a world and give me ground in answering questions yet he got at least in this one. Yeah, to be a material crate or yeah, the whiskey bottle. Okay. And if I do the nightmare things, I get to what Tim's point from earlier, I get a story from Logan's however old he is past that are just not about anything like it's not like we're I meant this guy Xavier is like, no, I was going to be a cannibal when I decided not to be. And then there's a few that'll start referencing this one thing and I was like, okay, that could be interesting. But at the time it pays off. I was like, that's a weird way to do this. There's a lot of I think about doing it this way. This is this is weird. Fascinating. Yeah. And again, I do I respected. I just think that it's tough. Like to be in a place right now like to answer the question going back to it, where I've just like if it wasn't in Somniac, I think that's hard to because it's like take the in Somniac out of it and then take even the superhero side out of it. It's like this game presents itself as the quote unquote prestige story type game.

1:01:43And I think that it that's where it really doesn't live up. And I think that that means that this game would not survive because so much of the gameplay it is it's fun. It's not I don't think recommendable fun. It is I was saying this about only Moussa that I'm going to recommend that game to all of my friends. I'm going to tell my friends you don't need to this is this one you can miss and that's shocking to me that that's my takeaway from Wolverine. It's just it's I don't think you're going to have a bad time with this game. If you enjoy Wolverine as a character and if you enjoy just like an okay superhero movie cool. But I wouldn't recommend you go out and play it. Yeah, it's seen it sounds like you won't have a bad time. But if you've played the Spider-Man games, you will be very those will be a lot of comparison. Yeah, there'll be a lot of things that let you down. We have a super chat here. Oh, the others got something. The others got. I was cooking. I was going to say is to be clear, they insomniac team that made this is the ratchet team rather than the Spider-Man team for the majority of it. And that makes even less sense to me because the ratchet games are linear, but their entire

1:02:45thing is like every 40 minutes we're giving you a new gun, a new fun way to engage with the game. Like it's a game that can appeal to all audiences like it's so it's fairly basic, but there's no massive amounts of downtime. You can't say that the start of a ratchet game you're doing the exact same things mechanically if you're doing it at the end. And throughout, we're in like, when I was going back and taking footage from a video review, which is on the VGC YouTube channel, by the way, and I was like, is this past the part that I'm allowed to talk about? Because it looks exactly the same. It's hardly different at all. The locations are the change, but you go kind of back and forth to the same places over and over again. And man, I can't wait until we can talk about what happens at the end of this game. Jesus Lord Almighty. Yeah, it's kind of a man. I think like, you know, the mood on this game has certainly like been kind of not great for the last. Right. But even at the start of it, when you all only had the game for about maybe a day or two, I mean, it's him's first hour. He was like, well, yeah, oh, that too.

1:03:46But then I remember, you know, the thoughts of as we're doing out the schedule, you know, we could maybe do a spoiler cast, but I don't, I don't know, man. And I was like, really? Like, where'd that, you've only been playing for, you know, maybe a couple of hours, but it already feels that way, which was really, really shocking. Super jade from Tucker, two dollars, super jade. Thank you for your support. It says Don Locker gives me class. Might skip Wolverine now. I think I'll. Don Locker is really fucking good. A real quick guy comparing it to other games, which again, it's like, it sucks because on its own, we can talk about it. But I do think that right now there are other games compared to. And for as whatever this combat system was, it's very peri focused. Like, this is definitely a, you were smashing square and you're hitting now one to peri a lot. And if you don't, the game punishes you not much, but it, it, it tries to as much as the combat will. Playing this directly back to back with only moussa that has one of my favorite paris I've ever experienced made it so much more evident how the combat feels in this one. My Jordan was that I know you also loved the, the pairing and only moussa like, did that

1:04:50take away from this experience for you? May the every shot that has been a terrible runner games to play alongside each other from the comparison point and you, you can, you can only compare them. It's just natural to do especially from like a critical perspective. And yeah, it's the, you may remember when I was there doing the Don Walker review, I was like, most of the stuff around the sides and the edges of this combat, I'm not that an old, but this combat is a reason to play this game, even if I wasn't super hot on it. But the, the combat here is, if you were doing like a top 50 games that have this style of combat, it might not break the top 50. Like there's just nothing about it. Like it doesn't even, games have been stealing the Arkham combat pretty well for like 15 years. Like I've no idea why they didn't just do that or like, if you're going to do an L1 parry game, like the Jedi games there, they are L1 parry games that aren't of any moussa quality, but they're perfectly fun to play. They're not just so, they're, it's stateless, it's absolutely stateless.

1:05:51You, if you get hit, who cares, you're, you're just going to add died like once in the entire time I played the game. The enemies do so little damage, even when they start throwing in enemies that are invisible and it's like, oh, you have to trace their step. Doesn't matter. Just keep, just keep smashing square over and over again. You will clear this entire room like you've blacked out and just woken up to pile of dead bodies. Like it is, it's thoughtless and it's gameplay so often. I'll take what game has real good combat. Moonlighter too. Man, that's a good game. Moonlighter too. So fun. Good. All right, go Tim, sorry. There's a middle section of this game that I enjoyed quite a bit and it's pretty meaty, I would say for what this game is in terms of locations and enemy variety and just story beats. And I mean, I could say it's Japan. The Japan stuff, it really works for me. Not the best thing ever. Like I said, I feel like put in this game. I, you know, the game I do think it is the highlight and the boss fights, I thought we're very interesting there. The enemies, how they interacted were very cool. I mean, we're talking about the hand so it's like a lot of just disappearing and teleporting

1:06:52in and shit. I'm like, oh, this is great. But I think it's where the insomniac of this game did shine. Like I've been very impressed with their, the way that they use their tech and you kind of wanted the signs of an insomniac game on the PS5. Is that like portal tech that they use where it's like ripped apart where, you know, you're like pulling in and all of a sudden you're in a completely different world and how seamless using that PlayStation SSD. Got it right. There's a bunch of that in this game and I think that that area has the most of it where it's like you're walking through this building and some of the doors are like portals into just completely different places and the way that they play with perspective and all that. It reminded me a lot of Spider-Man 2 with black cat and you're literally using like the Doctor Strange portals like jumping through things. It's like that stuff is so cool and we just don't see it in other games and insomniac really leans into that stuff and when they do it in this one, which is peppered throughout the game, but a concentrate in the middle. I'm always impressed by it. I was like, this is so so cool and there is a lot of technical chops going into this. Super chat here from Volk Dacia.

1:07:53Volk, thank you for your generosity. Volk Dacia says, I think unfortunately the industry has caught up with the PlayStation type games. You have I.O. making a much better linear world world traveling game and insomniac mission structure, even from Spidey 2 has been called out as dated, refresh needed. I disagree. I I feel like there's still rooms that you just got to do them good. It's just like the superhero fatigue. There's not just got to do with the writing and characters are enjoyable enough than like those problems are a lot less noticeable, I would say. You're going to say something Jordan. No, I was just going to say that I generally agree that there are better examples of like a double sevens a great one to call out in terms of like an action adventure game that is fairly repetitive and a non kind of pejorative sense throughout, but it hangs itself on so many other things that Wolverine kind of just doesn't. Again, I keep coming back to the fact that this game changed directors solely in the day,

1:08:56there is a totally different version of this game that has to be out there and I think you look no further than how large the levels actually are. Some of the time you're like in Tokyo, they're like, okay, climb up these riffs and you can jump onto other riffs and there's much further away riffs that are just as detailed and look like they're supposed to be in the game and then you'll chase this enemy down to this like a garbage dump and it's like that's a whole other level. It's like there's weird semi open worlds like multiple of them in this game that they just decide to make a linear action game out of and I don't know if that was like a scope problem or what, but yeah, there's a the post-mortem of this game will be absolutely fascinating and then how they approach what they clearly want to do, which is set up in X-Men universe is going to be the story of the next kind of five, ten years. And Mr. Straight Fire with a $10 Super Chat says instead of making a button-mash-upreditive combat, they should have made a more complex, harder combat system, although it's less mass-friendly,

1:09:57something like seafood at least it would have made it interesting. Clearly, I think that's what they were going for. They wanted as many people to be able to get in this impossible, but again, make some of it for everybody, make some for nobody. Volk Dascher with another Super Chat says, in Sammiak, we'll get heat for this and weirdly, may not even survive, but I'd like to think we give them second chance considering how bad the leak ruined them. Also, Super Chat to say thanks for the review. Thank you. I mean, hey, I'm I love in Sammiak. I still do, even after this. It's not like, this doesn't give me any less faith in their next project. Like this, this one was a miss, I think, but I still have. Can't hit them all. You can't. And it is a bummer. I'm very disappointed in that, but I still have the utmost faith in that team and then I don't think the sky is falling to the degree of the Super Chat. I'm with him. I'm like, yeah, like this is, all right, cool. This one I didn't like is not the end of the world. I'm still excited for Spider-Man 3. I'm still excited for whatever they're going to do with future X-Men's Wolverine, whatever the fuck, whatever the next Insomniac game is, I will be there day one slash the preview event excited when they announced

1:11:02it. I'll be excited. I don't think PlayStation is to the point that it is one strike in your out. Like I don't think this, I mean, clearly you didn't get all this one. Well, let's see what happens with the next Spider-Man. Like, you know, I mean, there's so much more where it's not sky is falling. I could be wrong. You know, PlayStation makes the rising decisions. Grease Gage and every fucking Wednesday. So who knows? Duro with a $2 Super Chat says Greg say it's Starfield is better than Wolverine. Yeah. Yeah, Starfield has better than Wolverine. Thank you. Even from Middler, that's crazy. It's a VGC's five star game Starfield. Oh, wow. Nice dude. No wonder you all like each other. Yeah. Russ fine says with a $5 Super Chat says any chances could be salvage like Crimson Desert via updates or is it just a scenario where it is what it is? It is what it is. Yeah. And it's I was thinking too of like if this was even a smaller game than it is, like if this was

1:12:03a Miles Morales type thing, I feel like if they had cut because it's not even that long, you know, like just playing through the stories, not that long. But I feel like they're they could have got the points across even quicker. And I feel like maybe it would be I'd be less disappointed in it and it would be more just like, Oh, okay, cool. The the button mash the gameplay did work for this limited amount of time. I don't know, but that's not the world we live in. So that's not the game we got. That's a real good living. I'll tell you what's another really good game Star Wars Euro company. Oh, that's a good fucking game and played a lot more last night. Really, really fun. We have a bunch of different little random Super Chas Levi Little says, should I cancel my pre-order? I mean, the the choices in your yeah, you just heard everything we said. Yeah, are you such a Wolverine fan? They like, I don't care. An X-Men fan of Super Hero game, a game fan? Maybe it's yeah, maybe it's a little hit for you. Who knows? Yeah, it's it's so tough because it's just like do you watch every MCU movie if they're good or bad? Like if if you if the answer is yes, you keep your pre-order. I think you will be able to play this game and enjoy it for what it is,

1:13:03but also be kind of critical of it. But it's like, yeah, there was something there, but uh, $70 is a lot of money. I mean, it comes back to the score thing, right? Whereas just like thing of for me going to five five mediocre, like it's not a game I would recommend that you can take that with what you want. They why I wait for sale or I'm such a big fan or totally, I'm not going to I'm not I'm just here to give you my opinion in my opinion. We're not pocket wise. Toe calls me tomorrow. I was like, should I get to speak now? Tarin with a Super Chat kind of brings up a point that middle of us talking about a little bit earlier asking, you know, have you seen how the original alpha build Brian Horton built was part of that was leaked before he left to the creative differences? His vision seemed way more innovative than what we got now. I if I were to just throw out a little prediction out there reckless speculation right here. I love some reckless. Um, it would really just be that yeah, this game was supposed to be scope to be larger, especially with Jordan Miller talking about where a lot of these zones seem like they were meant to be larger and things had to get extremely paired down because it's like

1:14:04it's going to cost so much more to hit those highs. Yeah. And we don't want another Spider-Man two budget situation. Yeah. Um, and things are just getting more and more expensive. Um, but let's get three more or maybe four more games of service, live service games. I did. You saying that reminded me of this. There is a very important thing that we need to do here. And that's a game's cast game tip. Oh, Kevin, can we have the song we didn't prep before it? We didn't think about it. But I can keep saying that we get a game's cast. Hey, everybody, welcome to a game's cast game step. It's an important one. It's I heard Tim and Barrett lamenting in the office that this game doesn't have a lock on. Why can't you lock on to people in this fucking game to stab them and do this instead of just

1:15:04brawling around? And I said, actually, guys, it does. And they both said, no, it doesn't. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I saw it in the accessibility settings. And I jumped in and there is in fact, you can go it's off by default. You can go and turn on lock on. You can also make it. I'm a little hazy on this one. I haven't referred to me. You can also make it. You can decide who it targets. It'll be like, after you kill somebody, do I go to the closest person on screen or the closest person behind you? I control them. What can I? It's just weird. Just by default, it doesn't function the way that you just would expect it to. A little R3 click. It's bizarre. I don't know. I have everything. Yeah. So it's a, but you can change it and you can fix it. And then it'll work exactly how you expect to do. The behavior of L3 lock on on screen. Press L3 to lock on to the nearest on screen enemy once defeated lock on to the most to the next nearest on screen enemy within range. All is the other option. So it's on screen or all. Press L3 to lock onto the nearest enemy either on or off screen once defeated lock on to the next nearest enemy in range. On screen enemies have higher priority. Yeah. Yeah.

1:16:06Game chill. We're going to help you up with the game. Chaos killer with a super chat says thanks for all the reviews. Gersman stated that this is a five hour. This is a five hour idea game stretch into 10 hours. Do you think it'd be rated higher if you were shorter? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By a lot. Just for like, thanks for ending that quicker. Is it just what I don't know because there's, there's stuff here. And I just think that like, I think there's a lot of fat that could have been cut. Yeah. It's a the the conversation we had a long time ago where I checked on the actress and then I never got back to you. Deborah Wilson is in the game as a whole. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's always sensitive. No, yeah. Not a chance. I thought you were talking about that character. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. But it's like a weird thing of like to middler's point of you have these mutants. Are they going to be a big deals? Clistow going to be a big deal. It's like, Oh, Deborah Wilson. Yeah. Not a big deal, right? And then at the end of the, there's more. And it's just like, what the fuck was the point? And then not only that, the bad guy's layer where it's like 15 minutes still is self-destructed. They're using her voice.

1:17:11I'm like, what the fuck? Why is Deborah? What are we have gotten the fucking goddamn receptionist in Somniac to come said 15 minutes? So why why is Deborah Wilson double duty inside? You look in the credits and it's like a crystal and a roll, but I'm pretty good at catching that. It's just a lot of whatever. Um, chat. Let us know what sort of questions and comments you all have about Wolverine. Are you planning on picking it up? And before I do that, any of the last words from the panel. I'm bomb, man. Yeah. I died. Yeah. Really even as we were seeing the gameplay and it was like, okay, this looks like it could kind of just be good. Not great. I, I'm still a little disappointed. I think it didn't even hit where I thought it was going to for me. And I think that should say a lot to people because y'all know how much I enjoyed this type of thing and these type of stories. I respect some of the story choices that they made, but I didn't like them. And when it comes to the future of in Somniac's X-Men characters in universe, I have a lot more

1:18:11trepidation than I ever thought I would coming out of this. Do you think we get more of this? Yes. Uh, whether it be another Wolverine game or an X-Men universe game. Um, yes, because I don't think we get X-Men. I don't think we get more Wolverine. Oh, come. Greg. I go everything we've said here, right? Mainly, I would say this, it's not a bad game. It's a disappointing game. It's a mediocre game. It doesn't stop me from being an in Somniac fan and being excited for their next game, whatever that may be. Jordan. Um, yeah, I love in Somniac stuff. I don't think I've given anywhere near this kind of review thing. I've ever reviewed from them. I'm such a big Spider-Man fan more than most people are. And I was so excited for this. I just think that the way they've chosen to represent Wolverine in a game doesn't work at the scale of game they've made. There is probably like a four star game in here if you did a lot of like tweaking and changing and it just doesn't land for me in so many

1:19:12ways. Your mileage will vary on the narrative stuff. Like I see a lot of people myself included that liked it a little bit more than we did on the panel today. But the thing that comes back in every single review that you can read today is it's so repetitive. The gameplay stuff really lights it down and in a game where the power fantasy is this character who should be tailor-made for video games. If you don't, if you make it boring to control Wolverine, you've like failed at the first hard goal and that's my biggest issue with it. Damn, kind of dodgeable at their own fancy critic right, mate. Oh, God, here he comes. You really? You really wanted it. Listen, it's not too late. I put the trade back up. Just in case you want it. The third time, third time to the charm. A lot of people say, maybe think about it. This will, it will work on to Sony ponies, right? This will be our game of the year. So don't you want kind of funny

1:20:12game of the year? Maybe we get on metacritic in the time being and then you play it and you give it like a 10 and that yeah, exactly, exactly. It's got an 11 already. You got 11 points right there. That's sitting pretty. It drops. Honestly, honestly, better than I was expecting. It dropped to 77 on open creating. Oh, right now on our page, kind of funny.com slash league. It still says he has 11 points on it. Yeah, it did drop on for a very young bad news for you. Baron up, sorry. Yeah, I mean, like last day, I'll say is like dang, how crazy is it that Wolverine will not be on kind of funny top 10 this year? You don't know yet. I do. I fucking around. I think definitive. I think there's a chance I put it on my top 10. Wow. There's a chance it might be low. I enjoyed it. I didn't really, really love it. But it's like there's still a lot there that I'm like, yeah, I do like punching things. You're gonna have a 6.5 out of 10 on your top 10. You got to play more. Maybe it was. I told you same. We were changing. Center to boarding school. No, this game's not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. The resounding praise. Let us know what you all think in the comments.

1:21:19Downblower, are you planning on picking this up? If not, zero company is awesome, guys. And Moonlight 2 is great. Play the hell out of Moonlight 2. That's a good fucking time. Appreciate y'all watching and hanging out with us. Jordan Middler, where can we find you? You can find me on Japan, motherfucker. Wow. And until then, you know, I'm going on holiday and I'm going to TGS for like one day just to say I've been to TGS to zero working and leave. Patreon.com slash video games chronicle is where you can support the boys. We have a lot of best friends in the discord already. So if you'd like to come and join us and we do all this podcast nonsense and you can go over there for ad free browsing and ad free version of the podcast and so much more. And I swear this is the last time I'm on kind of funny for a while at least. So you get rid of me for now. For us. We'll see about that now. Thank you, Jordan. Everybody, appreciate y'all hanging out with us. Stay tuned for a stream. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other and we'll see y'all next time.