That’s what Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy, said to us at the end of this summer’s action hit WANTED, taunting those of us who don’t live life on razor’s edge. The game, titled Wanted: Weapons of Fate, gives a chance for fans to do as Wesley did: escape a drone existence, pick up a couple of guns, and become the best assassin in the world. It’s a chance to escape writing reports, doing presentations, answering phones, getting lip from an overbearing boss, a crappy girlfriend, shitty apartment, low paying job, the economy, Rick Astley... It’s a game for those of you who always wanted to do something more. Or maybe you just want a fun third-person shooter. That works too.
But that’s the attitude of Wanted. "The very opening of the game confronts you head on about that statement,” the game’s executive producer Pete Wanat told me. Following the motif of the movie and the original comic book by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, the game adopts an attitude that taunts the player more than it congratulates. “That’s an attitude that you haven’t seen a lot in games, so it’s new and fresh.”
Starting up the demo, I immediately chuckled when the difficulty map asked me to choose between PUSSY, ASSASSIN, or THE KILLER. Naturally, nobody wants to play the Pussy mode. You’re not gonna catch me taking crap from a video game.
“We were asked by people, ‘Why would you talk down to your player?’ We’re not doing it to be assholes!" Wanat added. "We’re doing it because that’s the lineage that the game has. The comic book was a dialogue about you wasting your life, and so was the movie, so the game has to have that same sort of attitude.”
Billed as Wanted 1.5, the story kicks in immediately where the movie left off (spoilers for the movie ahead). After sniping Sloan (Morgan Freeman) at the end of the film, Wesley falls asleep in his father’s safe house and wakes up to a SWAT team ransacking the place and stealing a precious object. A chase scene ensues, which reunites Wesley with Pekwarsky (Terrence Stamp), and the whole thing goes from there. Throughout the game’s twist-filled plot, you’ll help Wesley learn more about his mother, and what her relationship was to his assassin of a dad. Although based completely on the movie and set in its universe, the game also incorporates some elements from the original Top Cow comic. The hardest difficulty setting, “The Killer,” is named after Wesley’s supervillain name from the comics. In one of the levels I played, Wesley also wears his black leather costume lifted directly from artist J.G. Jones’ design.
The gameplay is a cross between Stranglehold and Gears of War. You control either Wesley or his father, Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), as you go against members of the French and Chicago chapters of The Fraternity. Most of your adventure is spent running from one cover spot to the next; but Wanted: WoF also dresses it up a bit. Instead of just simply chaining covers, your character will jump, roll and slide over barriers with the cool moves McAvoy and Jolie did in the movie. Hitting the A button (X in PS3) locks you into cover; from there you pick a nearby cover and hit the button again to run towards it. While ducking, you can either fire blindly by pressing the Right Trigger (R2 in PS3) or go into aiming mode with the Left Trigger (or L2). The same applies during motion.
The most innovative thing about the game is the ability to curve bullets, which is easily done by holding down the Right Bumper (R1 in PS3). That brings up a curved arrow that locks onto a nearby enemy and can be adjusted with the right analog. Do this until a red target turns white, indicating that you've found the perfect bullet trajectory to kill the son of a bitch. Releasing your hold fires the gun, letting you watch as it goes into the bullet’s POV. You can only do this after performing a couple of standard kills to fill your adrenaline meter, but given the amount of enemies scattered throughout the game, you’ll find yourself curving bullets constantly. This lets you kill enemies that are hiding behind cover without having to wait for them to pop up. As you can probably guess, this makes the gameplay extremely easy, at least in the three levels I played. So unless you’re playing on The Killer mode, you probably won’t face too much of a challenge clearing a stage. One enemy that did prove to be a nuisance was one with a Riot shield, which he moves to deflect your curved bullets. Solution? Fire blindly for cover as you approach him, then hit B (O in PS3) for some cool close quarters knife kill. You can also stab people from behind a cover if they’re close enough.
Another type of gameplay is a cinematic combat similar to Stranglehold’s standoff moments. One level has Wesley storming a warehouse full of baddies in his badass costume. He grabs a guy from behind and the game goes into slow motion, allowing you to shoot either baddies to your right or a target that would cause an explosion. Then it goes back to a cut scene. Wesley shoves his human shield to another baddie and kills both. He launches off their backs and into the air. Again it goes into slow motion in mid-air, allowing you to shoot some baddies below. Wesley lands and it's slow motion again as you slide on the floor, capping off more baddies on the way. Wesley gets up and immediately launches sideways off a shelf as he kicks it, setting off another explosion. This goes on for a few times before resuming normal gameplay. It looks really awesome and really cinematic, giving the feeling of participating in one of the movie’s wild action scenes, as dumb and over-the-top as they are (perfect for a video game).
The game doesn't look like a big departure from the usual “cool” third-person shooters, and it does get repetitive just a little bit, but it's a lot of fun to blast through. If you liked the movie, you also get the bonus of enjoying a sequel for it before a second movie is made.
Wanted: Weapons of Fate hits stores March 31st, 2009 for the XBOX 360, PS3 and PC.
Check out our gallery of screenshots in the next page.
