Wanted: Weapons of Fate Pc Game Review

The more I think about it, the more I realize: Wanted: Weapons of Fate is just like the 2008 Wanted movie: It's a big, dumb action title full of visual spectacle and stylistic flair, and not much more.

For the most part, it's a competent romp through a series of action setpieces taking place before and after the movie. You guide your dual protagonists (either Wesley in the present, or his father Cross during flashback sequences) through firefights filled with curving bullets and lots of foul language. The plot revolves around rival branches of The Fraternity and Wesley's mysterious mother, but seriously, I don't watch or play Wanted to keep track of its internal canon -- I do so for the crazy stunts and curving bullets.

The game pulls off its movie-inspired moments pretty well. The moment-to-moment gameplay is somewhat like Gears of War, but with more interesting options due to the fact that you're a lone super-assassin, not a burly, space marine squad leader. How do you flank someone by yourself? Use blindfire to suppress the enemy, and quickly move behind cover to a more opportune angle. How do you flush out an opponent behind cover without a grenade? Curve a bullet around said cover.

Wanted's distinctive bullet curve just requires a charged Adrenaline meter (which is filled by killing foes) and a press of the trigger/bumper (depending on your gaming platform). Then, you get a handy guide that shows your bullet's trajectory and whether your shot will connect or not. Line it up correctly, and you'll either hit the guy and force him to stumble out of cover in pain, or you take him out in one shot (the latter usually results in one of the "follow the bullet's perspective in slow-mo" sequences that crop up during the movie frequently). Or you can use your Adrenaline for bullet time, slowing down the action to let you move from one cover point to another. With practice, you can use these abilities to take out enemies effectively while replenishing your Adrenaline meter to pull off yet more cool kills.

But as much as Wanted does solidly, there's a fair bit that falls flat. For example, you press forward and switch between cover points just fine, but if you have to move backwards (or deal with a bad dude from behind), your movements suddenly become stiff and awkward. A bigger issue: The gameplay verges on being rote: Duck, shoot, curve, move, duck, shoot, curve, and move some more. It doesn't help that, besides the game's unique take on quicktime events (rather than focus on button presses, it's about locating and shooting targets within a limited timeframe), the turret and sniper sequences feel derivative of other mediocre action games. It's a bit disappointing that the game fails to capitalize on the movie's signature sniper flair.

However, Wanted does borrow from the movie's outstanding action sequence aboard a train, featuring a great level aboard an airplane (complete with a segment during the plane's freefall). Unfortunately, while the movie has a few more compelling action sequences in addition to the train scene, the game peaks at the airplane level. After that, it oscillates between competence and boredom -- mixing occasional coolness (such as the Fraternity

The interesting tactical options outlined earlier, such as flanking and bullet time, are undercut by the lack of weapon and enemy variety. By the end of the game, you graduate from one type of gun to two: a pistol that shoots fast and can curve five bullets at a time, or a pistol that shoots slower and curves one bullet at a time (but uses less Adrenaline). I realize the license is very pistol-centric, but the end result of using two guns for the whole game is just plain boring.

The enemies apparently all shop at the same clothing store (which had a discount on hoodies and trenchcoats). And It gets worse when, during the later levels, you encounter knife-wielding fools that, upon contact, trigger a quicktime event; every time you kill one, you perform the exact same animation (the camera perspective changes, but the actual move never varies). It's cool to see your character disarm and cut a guy's throat the first few times, but after the thirtieth repetition, it's just plain annoying. Even the boss fights are boring -- 80 percent of them are simple "use a curving bullet to expose them, and then shoot them normally until you have to curve a bullet again" encounters.

For its six-hour playthrough (you can extend that by unlocking alternate characters, but they're so unmemorable and non-gameplay changing, that they provide no incentive to play through again), Wanted: Weapons of Fate is at best a competent, fire-and-forget movie game -- not much more nor less.