By Jim Rossignol on March 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am.
BLAM-STAB-BLAM! Wanted, which was first a comic book and then a Angelina Jolie vehicle, is now a videogame. It’s the cultural media equivalent of the ascent of man illustration, or something. Anyway, there’s fancy shootin’ aplenty in an 843mb demo, which came out yesterday. Trailer and thoughts below.
It would be awesome of this demo told you what you were supposed to be doing. Shooting dudes from a third person perspective, obviously, but how? And why do I run out of ammo so quickly? And aren’t I supposed to be able to throw bullets around corners and suchlike? Hmm. (There’s a tutorial? I was oblivious to it.) The game seems a little unclear about all that, so I bodged the first bit by running up to people and stabbing them by pressing E. Perhaps that’s the point of the game, to work out how to stab people in the guts? That is pretty awesome. KICK! STAB! Later I realised that you can aim with the right mouse button. That’s fun too.
The fact that hitting space makes you “attach” to cover in that Gears Of War way makes me suspect that this is supposed to be a game of leaping from one bit of cover to the next, shooting the bads as I go. Maybe it is, but it rapidly becomes clear that charge up to people and kneeing them to death is both more efficient, and more entertaining. DEAD!
It’s all over a fairly quickly, which is a shame, because I was enjoying myself. In conclusion: a clueless, hyperviolent demo of the middle kind. It’s the kind of thing I expect Grin (Ballistics, GRAW) had plenty of fun creating. The game is certainly thrill-packed, even if this short demo is moderately confusing. I might just grab the full thing to find out more.
25/03/2009 at 11:45 Ian says:
TPK – Third-Person Knee-er.
25/03/2009 at 11:46 ChaosSmurf says:
So you get to knee guys in the balls until they die? Is that what you’re telling me Jim?
25/03/2009 at 11:51 Jim Rossignol says:
Mostly you knee them in the skull, or kick them in the knee then stab them. It’s full of variety like that.
25/03/2009 at 11:52 aldo_14 says:
And in the game?
25/03/2009 at 11:56 ChaosSmurf says:
In the skull eh… intriguing…
25/03/2009 at 11:58 Fetthesten says:
Um, the demo I played on this strange box called “Computer Games – But On A TelevisionStation 3″ I found in my living room had three lengthy and elaborate tutorials educating me not only on how to stab people with bullets until they died, but also how to curve the bullets in the air while using them for stabbing, and also that videogames make me fat. There was even talk of how I could go about stabbing bullets into people even as I leapt from behind a column towards behind a different column. I take it the section labeled “Tutorial” doesn’t exist in the “Computer Games – On A Computer” version?
25/03/2009 at 12:02 Big D says:
Watched the film recently so think I will give this a miss based on that…
25/03/2009 at 12:04 phil says:
If the game is true to the movie it should be a first game to feature a loom as a vital, and mind numbingly stupid, plot point since, well, Loom.
It should also feature an unlockable achievement for vitriolic misogyny.
25/03/2009 at 12:10 JimBoB says:
It really needs to make the tutorial more obvious (there is one in the demo, 3 infact), i did that first before i started anything and everything made sense :)
25/03/2009 at 12:12 teo says:
What I’ve heard about this is that it’s actually quite good but really short, which isn’t unlikely since movie license games never get enough time in the oven
25/03/2009 at 12:16 Ian says:
@ Fetthesten: I’ve got no idea what it is you’re describing but it sounds like the Devil’s work.
Burn it.
25/03/2009 at 12:16 Jim Rossignol says:
If there’s a tutorial I completely missed it on that first pass. There’s some on screen hints, but that was about it. Exploring it without a clue was kind of fun anyway, though.
Guesswork OF DEATH.
25/03/2009 at 12:19 Tom Armitage says:
Phil – I take it you aren’t familiar with the oeuvre of Mark Millar? The movie adaptation of Wanted is, perhaps, a little tame compared to much of his printed work…
25/03/2009 at 12:29 DarthInsinuate says:
I played the console demo (don’t ban me), it seemed like the only worthwhile bit is in the demo, where the narrator insults you.
I shouted “fuck you” back at the screen. Then shed a tear and continued.
The rest of the game was a bit pointless. I found you could either run at people and stab them in the neck, or just run past.
25/03/2009 at 12:38 Down Rodeo says:
The trailer looked fun but then, that is what trailers are for. I watched the movie recently. I kind of enjoyed it as a “BANG! WHOOSH! (Noise of a car going by quickly that I don’t know how to express onomatopoeically) DAKKADAKKADAKKA” but not very much more than that. These guys must have a fairly twisted physics engine to make the bullets twist :D
Does anyone find it odd that “asshole” was censored in a trailer featuring guns’n'violence? Or is that the norm now? Also, final thought, watching the movie was the first time I’d seen Angelina in a while. Her arms are freakishly thin. She’s not attractive. I mean, they’re supposed to be lifting heavy weapons! How could you with scrawny things like that?
25/03/2009 at 12:58 Ian says:
I believe car noise is something along the lines of:
niiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIYAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooowwwwww
25/03/2009 at 13:02 SirKicksalot says:
I actually finished the full game about an hour ago.
It’s short, it took me 4 hours. You unlock new characters and tons of artwork and other goodies. I only found about half of them, and I want them all.
The game kicks ass, it’s miles above Stranglehold. I never got tired of bending bullets and using the other abilities. I restarted it right away, using an unlocked character and some of the “official” cheats. I love the one that makes the camera follow every bent bullet, I dream of this since I saw the movie. It’s totally badass.
And it’s pretty funny.
As the main character says, he’s an asshole with a gun and a cool suit, and he certainly has asshole-ish one-liners.
The game could actually be called Asshole instead of Wanted.
What level is featured in the demo?
25/03/2009 at 13:04 Danforthe says:
@Down Rodeo – It’s all about leverage. They shoot around it in films but her shoulder blades actually extend behind her in a large, bat-winglike configuration.
True story.
25/03/2009 at 13:28 Jockie says:
I thought the accepted literate form for bullet noises was ‘pew pew!!’
also, if cars go “niiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIYAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooowwwwww”
And helicopters go DAKKDADAKKADAKKA, what do motorcycles do?
25/03/2009 at 13:30 Surgeon says:
Played the demo a bit, but I just can’t get away with the Gears of Wars style jump up, shoot, hide, peak out, jump up, shoot. Etc, etc.
It always reminds me of the scene in Police Squad where Frank and a robber are hiding behind the same bin, trying to shoot each other.
25/03/2009 at 13:47 Flappybat says:
Another game that’s on steam but not available to buy with no release date or price, just like Saints Row 2 was.
Thanks Steam for your shoddy treatment of Euro releases again.
25/03/2009 at 13:53 Helm says:
The comic was so-so (Millar has done worse). The movie was easily in my bottom 5 ever, so I’m gonna skip the game just because of the bad taste.
25/03/2009 at 13:55 GC says:
The comic had a shit golem made of the shit from all the most evil persons on the planet… but I think the game is based on the movie, in which the guy did not become the big boss of international organized crime! Oh now I think “Dr Horrible’s sing along blog” is far closer to the original comic than this game/film.
25/03/2009 at 14:12 mandrill says:
The game is based neither on the comic or the movie but is meant to be a sequel to the movie. I liked the movie for the simple fac that it had NIN on the soundtrack in the first 5 minutes, I’m shallow like that.
25/03/2009 at 14:22 l1ddl3monkey says:
It’s the suit from the comic and the plot from the movie. The comic had some original ideas but was average, the movie was a massive pile of excrement. It does look like a fun game though; depending on how much Steam charge for it, I may give it a go.
25/03/2009 at 14:42 jonfitt says:
Don’t helicopters go: DokkaDokkaDokka?
Motorcycles go: Meeeeeyyyaaaaaah
25/03/2009 at 14:44 phil says:
@Tom Armitage –
Not to completely geek out BUT: I’m not sure what Mark Millar you’ve been reading but Ultimates had an utterly wonderful reinvention of the Wasp, dealing with her abusive husband is suitably empowered style, his Authority had a large, well realised cast of female characters overcoming, amongst other things, misogyny (I’m thinking of the Engineer in particular) and Big Dave was a parody of the sort of simplistic, stereotype-dipped tabloid mentality that produces stuff like Wanted.
Wanted the movie, but contrast, had three female characters (that I can recall), a harridan of a boss (who overeats as she has no man in her life), a disloyal, superficial shrew of a girlfriend who sleep with the main character’s best friend and Ms. Jolie, that the film seems to regard as an honorary man as she can like kill dudes and stuff.
What Mark Millar stuff are you referring to?
25/03/2009 at 15:23 MonkeyMonster says:
Comic/Gfc novel is hilarious. Movie is so very different but amusing if anything purely for the keyboard in the face with feck off in letters. Game looks interesting – not my cup of tea at all but i’d watch someone who liked such things finishing it – no doubt shout the odd “use curve go on go on go on go on” in a Ms Doyle type way :)
25/03/2009 at 15:23 SovietDancebot says:
I think all that needs be said re:Millar is that he licks goats.
25/03/2009 at 15:26 Ian says:
@ jonfitt: I think that’s more for small, nippy bikes. Big motorcycles go HRRRRrrrmmmmmmmggghhhhhh.
25/03/2009 at 15:42 LewieP says:
From the 360 demo, I would say that the single biggest hook the game has, namely the curved shooting, doesn’t quite work as well as it should. I lost interested pretty quickly.
25/03/2009 at 15:54 Theory says:
Fun fact: Steam thinks Wanted is rated R18. Presumably we can’t buy it yet because Valve are still waiting for their sex shop license to clear…
25/03/2009 at 16:19 Dominic White says:
From what I’ve heard in assorted previews, the demo is actually one of the weaker levels. It’s much tighter and more limiting than most of the levels in the game, meaning you can’t really get the most out of your crazy physics-bending precognitive bullet curving powers.
Looks like a good rental at the very least. The studio behind it, Grin, recently did the excellent Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and are currently putting the finishing touches on the upcoming full-3D Bionic Commando sequel. They seem to know what they’re doing.
25/03/2009 at 16:28 Fumarole says:
“Thanks Steam for your shoddy treatment of Euro releases again.”
Haven’t learned to blame the publisher yet? Ok then, carry on being upset at a piece of software.
25/03/2009 at 17:09 Matzerath says:
Oh God, Fumarole is right! Steam isn’t DRM as much as it’s a handy scapegoat for publishers! A digital apologist! A non-sentient PR face!
“This game sucks ass! Goddamn you Steam, why can’t you put out a decent game?!”
“Sorry! Hey, look what’s on sale!”
25/03/2009 at 17:31 Down Rodeo says:
Thanks Ian et al for the noises. I’ll employ them in future conversations.
Danforthe: I never knew! The magic of the silver screen eh?
25/03/2009 at 17:33 Ian says:
Do you have a lot of conversations where onomatopoeia is required?
25/03/2009 at 17:51 phuzz says:
I thought motor bikes go BRAP BRAP BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
But what noise does sword fighting make? Enquiring minds demand to know.
25/03/2009 at 18:42 Funky Badger says:
Is the easy difficlty level in the PC demo stil called “Pussy”?
Class, that.
25/03/2009 at 18:48 MrMud says:
Cant change the resolution, cant invert mouse, fuck this game.
25/03/2009 at 18:55 Ian says:
I didn’t realise so many people used inverted mouse until I saw stuff in the past day or two with people talking about it. Is it because I came very late to PC gaming that I use non-inverted? Or is it just personal choice?
25/03/2009 at 19:08 Jockie says:
I physically cannot use inverted mouse except for in flight sims. The very idea hurts my brain, i guess for most people once you’ve learned to do it one way or another, it’s a pretty impossible habit to break. I think early fps’ which supported mouse like doom et al used inverted as standard.
25/03/2009 at 19:31 theleif says:
Original soundtrack:
http://tubedubber.com/#awbBDIzWsKo:AYku4gsup-g:0:100:0:120:true
25/03/2009 at 19:39 SirKicksalot says:
You can change the resolution, but you have to choose the aspect ratio first.
25/03/2009 at 19:42 DigitalSignalX says:
If it’s truly an asshole with a gun and a nice suit, it would be Halo 4. *rimshot*
-silence-
Anyway, much better, older joke says motorbikes either go
“harleyharleyharleyharleyharley” or kAWWWWWWAAAAASAAAAAKIIIII”
25/03/2009 at 19:46 J. Edgar Hoover says:
So, I understand that when you produce a comic book for the big screen, some things get lost in translation, while others just have to get altered. How do you go from having a cabal of super villains that completely obliterated all of the super heroes back in the 80′s to a league of assassins with no real powers, except “curving the bullet”, that take their instruction from a loom that forges their next target into a piece of cloth?
25/03/2009 at 19:49 Heliocentric says:
My adapt time on mouse inversion is about 30 seconds of staring at the floor and/or sky then i’m fine. Funny you mention halo it handled inversion very well, the first thing you do is calibrate in game under a role play guise.
25/03/2009 at 19:59 Down Rodeo says:
Many of my conversations require sudden departures to soundscapes unknown, yes. I am banned from many, many libraries. I’m also appreciative of the other motorbike sounds – my options in conversation have, like, doubled.
25/03/2009 at 20:23 Pundabaya says:
Duh, helicopters go “whupwhupwhupwhup”
25/03/2009 at 20:38 Tom says:
What’s this then?: http://theliability.googlepages.com/DSC00004.jpg
Looks like if you play using a 360 pad you’ll get the 360′s menu – shoddy port… bit cak…
25/03/2009 at 20:39 Kalain says:
AARRGGHH!! Where is my lovely reverse Y axis for mouse!!! aside from that, it’s very consoley.. very consoley
25/03/2009 at 21:15 Tom says:
Fun game though.
Bending bullets doesn’t get old…
25/03/2009 at 21:18 JonH says:
You RPS guys really aren’t very good at finding tutorials. Little hint: it’s found at the main menu. :P
25/03/2009 at 21:26 Rei Onryou says:
DEAD!
Best. Onomatopoeia. Ever.
25/03/2009 at 21:51 Thants says:
Is it just me, or is there about a second lag on the mouse-movement? Also, no graphical options other than the resolution. Not impressed so far.
25/03/2009 at 21:51 Gunrun says:
@Tom When you load up the game it says “it looks like you’re using a gamepad, press a key on it to use that to play the game, otherwise press space” or similar. Not a shoddy port. Runs rather well, except lack of graphical tweakyness.
Also I decided I liked this game when I shot a guy, missed, hit an outside door and watched as it sprung open and the air preasure sucked him out.
25/03/2009 at 22:34 mejobloggs says:
Ahahah loving all the vehicle noises in the comments :D
25/03/2009 at 23:24 malkav11 says:
The supervillain to assassin league transition was, I think, accomplished based on two things: one, a heaping helping of stupid, and two, the utter unfilmability of the comic as it stood. Everyone in Wanted is an asshat, the protagonist among the biggest, and they do a lot of really offensive, terrible things. You can get away with those things in a comic, because nobody who isn’t a comics geek will have heard of Wanted. In a big budget Hollywood movie? Absolutely not.
That said, I think it would have been entirely practical to tone things down and still use the supervillain concept. Which is where the stupid comes in.
26/03/2009 at 00:35 malkav11 says:
Before people get too grumpy about the Steam unavailability of the game and assume it’s down to region screwage once again, you may wish to know that it’s also not purchaseable in the US.
26/03/2009 at 00:36 malkav11 says:
Or, wait, that’s Wheelman. nevermind.
26/03/2009 at 00:44 Z says:
If I remember the story correctly, you write the entire screenplay before the second issue hits the stand.
Also, insert rage about the movie not having any of the awesome of the comic (even if the comic itself fell on its face in the last issue).
26/03/2009 at 02:08 Daniel Purvis says:
I really didn’t like the comic. The movie was rubbish. Not convinced I’ll bother even downloading the demo. Also, I don’t like demos. Humbug and such.
26/03/2009 at 02:30 J. Edgar Hoover says:
I honestly don’t believe there were too many terrible and offensive things in the comic that couldn’t have been carried over to the “Big Budget” version of the movie. There have been plenty of big Hollywood movies that have depicted intense and graphic scenes of rape, torture and murder. “Eastern Promises” was very brutal. “Hostel” was excessively gory. And even “Watchmen” was ultra violent. And each of these gems were rated R. Stupid movie studios :*(
26/03/2009 at 02:38 Y3k-Bug says:
Its not a matter of it being too offensive, its about the content of the comic being insanely unintuitive if you aren’t into comics.
I mean, a character made of shit? What?
26/03/2009 at 03:56 Sid Clayman says:
The movie was one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen
The scene in which the “good” main characters cause the plummet and crash of a train full of hundreds of passengers, killing them all, and then never mentioning or making reference to such slaughter again is chief among the reasons.
26/03/2009 at 04:37 malkav11 says:
As relatively moral as the main characters are in the movie, please don’t make the mistake of assuming they’re ever meant to be good guys.
26/03/2009 at 04:38 malkav11 says:
And by relatively moral I mean compared to the comic characters.
26/03/2009 at 05:27 Nimdok says:
Comic was basically the writer (And, yes, I know that Millar exists to ‘shock’) flipping off his fanbase while revelling in their attention; movie was a re-think of the comic that tried too hard to be a comic-book movie while retaining the “fuck you fans!” mentality.
The game? I LIKED the demo; the cover mechanic felt perfect, the animation of The Killer was gorgeous, and the little details (shooting overhead compartments and showering a guy with luggage? Fun.) scattered (Enemies next to a door? Shoot open the door.) around (explosive fire extinguishers? Unrealistic but a great boom) made for a dynamic-feeling firefight. I didn’t use the bullet-time OR bullet-curve mechanic much, prefering to play the waiting game and aiming for exposed heads and arms, and the melee/hostage mechanic were neat but unecessary with the prevalance of cover in the demo; maybe in the full game there are more open areas, better chances to use the psudo-stealth component and/or the knife…
If I can ignore the storyline, it’s a fun game.
26/03/2009 at 07:38 tentacleraep says:
The release in Sweden seems to be April third, so I guess it comes down to the publisher having to fill in forms regarding the export of ones and zeroes, which seems to be taking some time these days.
26/03/2009 at 10:25 Nick says:
“Comic was basically the writer (And, yes, I know that Millar exists to ’shock’) flipping off his fanbase while revelling in their attention”
I’m geniunely interested as to how/why this worked, I haven’t read it but I’m curious as to what he did with it to have that effect.
26/03/2009 at 15:39 Helm says:
Don’t expect much, just the protagonist breaking the fourth wall to tell you “I’m awesome like this and this and that, what have YOU done that’s awesome?”.
26/03/2009 at 20:36 Nimdok says:
Nick: Millar’s basically insults his reader throughout the comic by having his protag say and do things along the lines of “I fucked my second-grade teacher in the ass and shot her, then I raped my first girlfriend and shot her, and I beat a guy to death with a keyboard because he was annoying. I’m fucking awesome, and you’re a lame piece of shit reading comic books instead of being awesome. Like me.”
The end of the comic is an extreme close-up of the protag with the words “This is my face while I fuck you in the ass.” kind’ve sums up Millar’s opinion of his readership. And a lot of them adore him for it.
26/03/2009 at 20:47 Nick says:
I see.
26/03/2009 at 22:13 malkav11 says:
I think a lot of people are assuming that the narrator represents Millar’s own viewpoint, or at least one he wants you to find sympathetic, and I’ve never been sure why. It’s a story about an out and out, black-hearted, vicious bastard of a supervillain and how he got that way. And unlike some similar stories, it’s not about making that character sympathetic. It’s not about exposing the deep dark traumas that drive them. It’s about how a shallow, racist prick gets upended out of his dead end life and handed superpowers and a controlling role among the people that run things, and how he, quite predictably, winds up abusing them.
26/03/2009 at 22:41 bananaphone says:
Er, yeah, what Malkav said. It’s a dark, fucked up comic that focuses on super-villains, rather than heroes. You seriously thought that was how Millar felt about his audience? Why do people assume that an author believes everything they write.
Looks like I’m the only one who enjoyed the movie :) I was sad they didn’t have the balls to make it like the comic, but I’m a sucker for mindless action.
Anyway. The game. It’s lots of fun, surprisingly funny and has tons of cool gameplay gimmicks, but is very short. Completed it in a few hours. Worth buying, but not at full price.
27/03/2009 at 00:29 Helm says:
I don’t assume Millar (or any other writer) de facto believes what his lead characters believe. But his ‘racist, black-hearted supervillain’ is handled very lightly and as if he’s cool, so there is a positive commentary there by the creator certainly. If there’s no metacommentary of a theme them why write the thing. Dostoyefsky certainly doesn’t endorse everything Raskolnikov does in Crime and Punishment but that doesn’t mean his writing is not a commentary on his actions. In ‘Wanted’ the comic book (I won’t even touch the ridiculously bad film) the handling of very awful things is the standard light cynical fare… this doesn’t mean the thought police should arrest mister Millar… it just means his book leaves a bad aftertaste whereas the artist probably was going for an awesome aftertaste.
03/04/2009 at 19:07 Urthman says:
Nothing says “careless console port by people with no clue about PC gaming” quite like omiting the option to invert the mouse.
(Except maybe “no option to customise the keyboard input.” I still can’t believe I played through Rayman 2 that way…)
How stupid do you have to be to spend however much money they wasted on putting this demo out and then hang this big “Don’t bother. We sure didn’t.” sign on it?
12/11/2010 at 06:36 the north face denali says:
Definitely some great ideas here. Thanks for sharing!
12/11/2010 at 06:37 north face outlet says:
Wow! Some amazing effects. Definitely some great ideas here.