I do not recommend: Marvel's Wolverine (Review) - Skill up
YouTube
I do not recommend: Marvel's Wolverine (Review)
Thanks to MANSCAPED® for sponsoring today’s video! Get 15% OFF + Free Shipping on The Lawn Mower® Ultra Gen 6 with code “SKILLUP" at https://www.manscaped.co...
I ran into a lot of “AAA disease” when playing through 007 First Light recently, where the game has a lot of walk-and-talk and doesn’t respect your intelligence, but it’s a criticism that doesn’t permeate the entire runtime of the game. I didn’t realize how much worse it could be, but Ralph makes his case quite clearly in this video.
Action game fans and critics have been complaining about this for like a decade and a half.
See TGBS talking about this 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmxQG6Cfyr4
Yeah, it’s not new, but it’s gotten more egregious, and everyone keeps pulling from the same bag of tricks regardless of how much sense it makes. Uncharted has a lot of climbing bits because it’s riffing on Indiana Jones, but why is James Bond doing the same climbing bits as Nathan Drake? And why are they so simple that my inputs hardly matter because the only path through the level is so telegraphed that it’s visible from space? Games need downtime between action sequences for pacing reasons, and while I could tolerate it in Gears of War because of their brevity, our answer to this problem needs to be more sophisticated than just holding up on the analog stick.
This game might as well not exist since it isn’t coming to PC
Good to know, didn’t have to waste time watching the video.
Sony stopped Steam releases because Xbox started using the Steam storefront, meaning you could play Sony titles on Xbox
The best thing about this game is that it made e hold onto my PS5 until prices were at an all time high. Now that I don’t want this game, I can sell my PS5 for what I bought it for years ago.
This looks like a parody of the modern AAA single player game.
everyone seems so shocked that it keeps insulting the players intelligence with nav and gps and constant reminders, but do people not realize this is the direction AAA has been going since forever?
I’ve always fucking hated this shit… But people seem to fucking love not having to think or explore in games, and they want to basically watch a movie but feel like they’re in it. We went from Morrowind to Skyrim and Skyrim made more money by reaching a bigger audience.
You take it to the obvious next step and reveal how little faith you have in people’s smooth brains, and while it was basically a step in the same direction, I guess people finally felt insulted.
Games used to be really fucking hard, and “iron man” was just the fucking default lol. You die, you die. Maybe that was shitty but they used to make games where beating it was way crazier. Nowadays it’s mostly “I held up and jumped a few times at the right time”
I think there’s a fine line that you can teeter on as a AAA dev nowadays. I absolutely got more enjoyment out of morrowind than I did Skyrim as a young player because Morrowind gave you less directive and kinda let you get in over your shoulders into places that a low level had no right being in. As an older gamer now though, I do appreciate games that let you do that as well as highlighting zones to let you know it’ll be max difficulty when you enter them, rather than cordoning them off until you achieve a certain level.
I have way less time to play games than I did when I was in my late teens/early 20s playing Morrowind, so games like Dying Light 2 that give you the option and caution of entering certain areas/quests helps me not my waste time with impossible areas.
I get it though, the whole setting a marker for the next quest is pretty mind numbing and the fetch quests are boring as hell.
Wolverine having QTEs that don’t matter if you get them correct is just pure laziness from whoever the director of the game is. Insomniac made some very good spider man games, but seems like they dialed this one in.
Sadly, I think AAA games are mostly dead… studios are gonna use AI for voice acting, coding, etc more and more if it means they don’t have to pay a salary to an actual person.
I do think the entire dev industry, not just game dev but software development, leaning more and more on AI is having some serious consequences that not many see yet. I say that as someone who is in a company under a CEO that is drinking the AI Kool aid too, someone I interact with a decent amount. I see how leadership reacts to this stuff and how dev behavior has changed since 20 years ago to AI getting started a few years ago to today, and there’s some very visible issues.
Software developers, even the good ones, are being heavily pushed to use it and move fast and not look at code too heavily, either their own or their coworkers’. We used to rely heavily on peers reviewing each other’s work. They now claim that workflow is “dead”.
And they only hire half as many juniors, because seniors are filling the gaps so doesn’t and juniors aren’t as “useful” as they used to be. If you want to ask someone to build something out for the next month and heavily review their work to make sure it’s correct because you don’t trust them … You can do it with AI, except it’s done in a day, and people decide not to review it because it’s so quick and emits so much slop.
Now they focus on testing, making sure another ai reviewed the AI work, making sure unit tests exist, making sure it followed a well thought out system design (probably one of the smarter parts of mostly dumb ideas), and then they merge it themselves because no one else wants to look at slop.
I’ve noticed that a lot of stuff gets built out, entire fucking products with tons of working menus, and no one even knows who built them or how it works. Then you read the author and see cursor everywhere, and you find who triggered it, and they don’t even know how it works.
Worse, they don’t even know how to check for bugs or watch if things break. They wouldn’t know what would break. And worse, they don’t give a fuck if it breaks because they feel way less like they worked on it, and don’t care about it.
I’ve literally seen an app like that and told the dev hey that’s broken right now, and he said “ask the AI to make a new one”. For fucks sake, what? You want to reprogram something from scratch when you see bugs?
There’s zero ownership, people leave jobs earlier because they stop caring earlier, less people hired back because they only want seniors and people who are willing to do the work of 3 people, and CEOs are slowly letting people go because in their pipedream, AI does everything and they just sit and own it.
Even then, they’re fucking stupid because if I was the guy selling the AI service, I’d just replace every company I essentially already replaced. Why the fuck do I need an external CEO and a company name if they depend 100% on me? I build their product already for them. Why not sell it for them?
The entire software dev industry is slowly getting infested with this “let AI do it” mentality that is making all software worse. I’ve seen apps break these days that never would break before because they have millions of customers using them constantly. But now, who gives a fuck if it breaks for millions, because no one even knows how to check
The QTE finishing itself is just insulting.
Inside Games speculated this may be a result of Sony burning billions on failed live service starting to cut budgets on other projects. The Kojima news sort of correlates.
But basically all these annoying systems make sense in an open-world Spiderman game, where getting lost is even more annoying, but not here and so that possibly speaks to a scope change in the middle of development.
I was surprised that it wasn’t open world after they basically perfected it with the Spider-Man games.
I don’t think it needed to be open world, but just surprised Insomniac pivoted to liner and couldn’t pull it off.
I do wonder if there was a scope change mid-development and were just seeing that in the end result.
Oof that does look very hand-holdy.
Definitely not a game for me.
Honestly, that feels like a shame...Those Insomniac bubs dropped the ball BIG time with this game. It's going to be the best example of what not to do in game design for years to come. How cute, cursed, and fun. If they were going to make a watered down and dismal game, they should've just let Ubisoft handle it and take more hits to their already harmed reputation.
They thought they could just copy and paste whatever they did in Spiderman, an open world game, into a linear action game… and it’ll “just work”
I think this arrogance is born out of the misconceived belief that linear games are inherently inferior and easier to design than open world games. I’m glad it backfired; they earned it.
That feels like a very clear read to me as well, they were woefully unprepared to design a compelling linear game. I wouldn't call making linear games easy, because they can get just as repetitive as an open world title faster. So many careful decisions are required to make a linear game come alive, fun, well timed diversions...Thematic cohesion that breathes live into the world and makes it feel lived in. Also, it shouldn't have been too difficult to not insult the gamer's intelligence with all the markers and guidance, the weird and unjustified breakable placement. The "hidden" chests is so crazy, like it wasn't even that difficult to find some of them. Even the Logan that they crafted, felt incredibly wrong as he was more of an asshole with a heart of gold. The under utilization of cool characters like Mystique just screams mistake to me. The initial impression I got from watching this review is: Insomniac thought they could make an uninspired, borderline slop game and have their praises sung.
Insomniac better pay for this incredible misstep, they better get fuck all in terms of sales, and low ass ratings. Critically torn the fuck apart for the right reasons (not stupid culture war bullshit from stupid hate mongering tourists in gaming spaces).
As a long time X-men fan that lived through the Fox movies era, I am convinced that the franchise is cursed.
Now they are bringing X-men into the MCU when it’s on life support. I would say people are generally apathetic on the MCU with some outright hostile to it. Unlikely that X-men will change that.
Fun fact about the point at the end of the video: The QTEs of all three Insomniac Spiderman games are also un-failable (except for a couple random exceptions)
Unfailable as in, you’ll succeed it no matter what? (faking your input or showing different animations but the same eventual outcome?), or failing gives you a black screen and prompts it again or something?
Spiderman+QTE makes me think of the meme worthy “I’m gonna die” one 😅
Edit: just saw that part of the video. Insulting 🙄. (looks like the same thing happens even if you press nothing)
Iirc they’ll fail, but you are given multiple chances and not just miss one you lose.
I hate the idea of qte so just turn on auto complete so I can watch what’s actually happening as a cutscene vs missing most of it looking for the specific button to press
It’s a little strange Insomniac would have this much trouble with a linear game when they made Ratchet and Clank.
Maybe that’s the problem? I’m thinking about it and R&C can be kind of hand holdy, those golden bolts shine like nobody’s business, and they had a lot of travel challenges. That worked for that game because cartoony and as built against different gadgets and geared toward younger audience but shoehorning that into wolverine doesn’t quite fit.
Just a thought.
Agreed. Ratchet & Clank were great games, loved them.
Wow, I did not expect that verdict (still need to watch the video). I respect Skill Up and think he is well articulating himself and his reasoning are often valid.
Surprising review, since expected it to be good after how much I enjoyed the Spiderman games.
I think a lot of people expected it to be good (pre-late marketing) since Insomniac generally makes pretty good games.
I think I am biased as I don’t have a ps5, and Sony is definitely on a crusade at the moment. But I really like Spiderman and Miles Morales, and enjoy Spiderman 2 albeit not as much.
However, Wolverine just never stood out from what I had seen briefly, then I saw the sentinel fight. That looked beyond shit, like gameplay had regressed 20 years or more.
I think that was the point I expected it to be bad, even if it is not completely terrible on the combat side.
I’ve been savoring playing the last Spider-Man game for a while now. The first two are so good.
2 definitely not as good
😩
It’s sad but I think you’re right. I platnimued all three of them and the third was the best looking/but least memorable. Which is insane because it had playable Venom.
Excellent video.
My friend was preaching for weeks now that he absolutely has to buy this game, but already knew it was going to be booty and hated that he was going to waste money on this. Guess he was right.
I didn’t think games generally were quite this handholdy but then realised I haven’t really played any AAA from the past 10 years. I wasn’t ever likely to buy a PS5 anyway but Wolverine is another exclusive on the “meh” pile for me.
I‘m curious how this game will do commercially. If it does make Sony money after all this, maybe the studio‘s right in their target group assumptions…
Oddly I can’t quite figure out why this feels too gory, but this game just goes a step to far me. I’ll be passing on that alone. And this form a person who loves blowing up bodies in Fallout.
A marvel game just like a marvel movie: crap
[deleted]
Called it. Insomniac aren’t qualified to make this. In fact, very few western developers are.
Most just suck at making linear action games.
Insomniac’s combat is fine in an open world game, but strip everything else and put all focus on it, and it becomes obvious it’s mid at best.
Flying Wild Hog could’ve killed it going the Evil West route.
We all do realize Insomniac made Ratchet and Clank for years before Spiderman, yeah?
Please go ahead and walk me through how making Ratchet and Clank qualifies Insomaniac to make a good linear action game… you know, like Ninja Gaiden II or Bayonetta. Blow my mind, please.
In case anyone is unfamiliar with Evil West, here’s Skill Up’s review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cMczlbmBFw
Is this a real review or one of the mentals who decided months ago that this game is “woke” because they don’t like Insomniac’s face designs, who have been feverishly seeking confirmation bias ever since?
Skill Up is not a culture war grifter
Why don’t you read it and find out?
thisweekinvideogames.com/…/marvels-wolverine/
(In case anyone was wondering why someone woulf say that in response to a comment on a post that is a link to a YouTube video)
Read…it?
I asked people here and got replies :)
They are mad you are using the app for how it’s supposed to be uses lol. Becoming more insufferable than reddit itself.
ACG, gameranx, and even IGN all reported it’s mid.