by: Dameon White

March 30, 2009

If you’ve somehow managed to miss Universal Studios’ Wanted starring the luscious lipped Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Common (is it just me, or has he been in every cool action flick the past few years?) and James McAvoy as the film’s lead character, Wesley, you should do yourself a favor now and run, drive or fly to your nearest retail outlet and pick up a copy. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Much in the same way that The Matrix ushered in a new era of sci-fi action filmography, Wanted managed to also revitalize the industry - rewarding its audience through sheer acts of action brilliance, elegance and grace. It even managed to end making you feel like you could be doing more with your own life. Obviously, not in the curving-bullets-defying-gravity-kiss-with-Angelina Jolie-crazy-car-action-extreme-violence kind of way. Still, what other action movies have you watched in the past decade that got you pumped up to the point that you never wanted the visual ride to end?

It was only inevitable that we’d see a videogame translation of Timur’s masterpiece and we the fans of the film (and comic series) everywhere were hoping for a game worthy of its big screen counterpart. Well, we sort of got half of what we wanted (no pun intended) with Weapons of Fate. A great effort that’s filled with insane amounts of action, bullet curving, and a very tight cover-to-cover system that managed to shoot a few too many strays along the way.

Weapons of Fate picks up exactly where the film leaves off (*SPOILER ALERT*) with Wesley in search of the truth about his mother. You’ll fight, kill, and curve bullets around walls on your journey and will even play as Cross, Wesley’s dad, on a plethora of flashback levels. For the unknowing about the story behind Cross, I’ll leave that for you to find out and will yet again throw in a plug to watch the movie.

The most notable change in Weapons of Fate in comparison to the film is Wesley’s garb, which is taken directly from the comic series. Wesley sports a full leather suit with combat pouches all around for all of his weapons (of fate?) and a full face mask equipped with breathing enhancers to increase his muscle efficiency. For the most part the game manages to recreate both the look and sound of the movie very well. Attention to detail is pretty high and fans of the film will appreciate the minor details, specifically surrounding Wesley, movements and especially the curved bullets system.

As a cover-to-cover third person action shooter, Weapons of Fate is nothing but quickly jumping in and out of cover while performing a few nicely executed curved bullets directed straight at your unsuspecting enemies. You would think they’d have learned by now that you can shoot around walls and that hiding is almost useless.

This game is nothing like your other shooter games with a cover system. Weapons of Fate has you very quickly moving from point-to-point while shooting in an effort to get a better angle on your enemies so that you can take them out as quickly and efficiently as possible. The goal here isn’t to take cover and just go through a clip of ammo. Here, your goal is to take out your foes while wasting as little ammunition as possible. In fact, you can take out multiple baddies with a single well placed bullet. Run, jump, dive and slide from cover spot to cover spot and clear a room on a single clip. The cover button is incredibly responsive and is easily the game’s shining point.