Wanted: Weapons of Fate

It's hard to get too excited about a licensed game when you have no real love for the license. I can't really say that Mark Millar's comic or Timur Bekmambetov's movie adaptation got my juices flowing back when I first encountered them. So what is there for me to get excited about when Grin creates the video game sequel of the movie. Not much, but there is more to Wanted: Weapons of Fate, than the typical movie license game.

Despite my reservations the fiction is ideally suited for a video game. The protagonist Wesley Gibson used to be a nerd (hey, it could be me!) who got push around in life by his boss and his cheating girlfriend, but lurking inside was the special skills of a master assassin.

The ability to slow down time and bend bullet trajectories are great special skills in a shooter and Grin have pulled these abilities off rather nicely. Wesley's oneliners and the weird fraternity that takes their orders from the "Loom of Fate" are also perfect additions to a video game. The game is technically sound without really standing out in a crowded and fiercely competitive genre.

And while Grin manages to pull off a few ambitious moves such as the chainable cover, and the varied gameplay afforded by curved bullets, exploding bullets, and a bullet time (sorry, "assassin's time") that you can activate while moving between covers, the game is not ambitious enough in other areas to truly stand out. Despite the fairly varied tools that you have at your disposal, the level design and the enemies you face feel unspired and partially trapped in the limitations of the last console generation. That may sound harsh, but being forced to ride out timed gun turret sessions is something I didn't think I would have to experience. The sections where Wesley uses his sniper rifle are equally dull. The knife wielding screaming enemies with red jackets that trigger a quick time event are also slightly annoying.

When Weapons of Fate is at it's best you will be moving from cover to cover, melee killing, slowing down time, bending bullet trajectories and watching instant replays of moments of skull crushing precision. There are some nice boss battles although they are a repetitive and limited in scope, but the level inside the plane is certainly memorable. You are given new tools throughout the game, but it is all over way too soon. There are unlockables, and some motivation to replay at harder difficulties, but when you find your stride between the covers, the quick and dirty melee kills and your special assassination skills you will be able to run through the campaign in about four hours. And it feels like you have just mastered and unlocked all of your skills when you watch the credits roll.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate isn't your run of the mill licensed piece of crap. Far from it, and it can even be said to be more ambitious in certain areas than many of the triple A efforts of the genre, but ultimately it falls short of greatness because of a few fundamental flaws. It's a game that you will soon forget...