Wanted Impressions

While other parts of the company continue to work on the two upcoming Bionic Commando games, GRIN’s Barcelona studio is keeping busy with their video game adaptation of Universal Studios’ Wanted. The developer get points from us immediately for breaking two golden rules of the bad movie-game adaptation: (1) development isn’t being rushed to coincide with the film’s theatrical release and (2) it doesn’t attempt to re-tell the film’s story. It also lets you stab dudes around corners. Intrigued yet?

Click through for the goods.

Whether or not you’ve seen the film, Wanted is being designed to stand on its own as a game. The story picks up immediately after the events of the movie, exploring protagonist Wesley Gibson’s relationship with his mother (his father’s identity factors into the film). That’s about all we have to go on right now with regards to the story.

The demo level we saw during E3 had Wesley working his way through a terrorist-held passenger airliner. Men with large guns patrolled the aisles as dead passengers… well, they didn’t do much of anything except absorb bullets. In fact, the first thing we noticed was how many small details stood out within the enclosed space.

Exposed breath masks swayed from side to side, left unused by the corpses sitting beneath them. Random trash strewn everywhere suggested there had been a recent struggle. And when a random shot blasted one of the plane’s hatches open, papers, bodies and other detritus began streaming out into the unfriendly skies. The sudden depressurization even caused the whole plane to shake for awhile, reflected onscreen by a bouncing camera.

Wanted is all about strategic running and gunning, popping from cover to cover as you use Wesley’s superhuman sharpshooting abilities to take out whomever gets in his way. Some cover can even be made to move in different directions, such as an abandoned drink cart left in one of the plane’s aisles. Wanted’s cover system is similar in many ways to the mechanic seen in Gears of War, though Wesley is far quicker and more agile than anyone in the other game.

There’s also an element of style to taking cover. Wesley is able to jump between adjacent cover points, effectively building combo chains which fill up an on-screen meter. The meter indicates how long players are able to spend in “Assassin Time,” an ability which temporarily slows down the surrounding action while Wesley lines up his targets.

Alternatively, players can spend small amounts of their meter on Wesley’s other unique ability, bullet curving. Target an enemy with this skill to bring up a line which maps out the expected arc of travel for the curved bullet. The arc must be adjusted until it is colored white, a sign that Wesley has a clear shot. Curved shots are even able to lock onto non-visible enemies, such as those hiding around corners. And by dual-wielding firearms, Wesley is able to create grenade-like effects by curving shots from both weapons into one another.

Of course, even the most skillful gunplay won’t prevent every enemy from getting too close. That’s okay though, as Wesley can handle himself well in close quarters. For one, any enemy can be grabbed and used as a human shield. Also, in addition to projectile-based blind fire, Wesley can reach around corners to perform a blind melee. It’s not as useful as blind fire is for diverting enemy fire, but if you know for sure that a dead terrorist walking is waiting just around that corner or on the other side of that seat, a blind melee attack is highly effective (and gruesome).

There were clearly some unfinished bits to what we saw, but Wanted still looks like a solid third-person action game which sets itself apart with some unique, license-specific mechanics. There’s still more to learn about the story and the game’s multiplayer (it has one; that’s all we know), but the fundamentals are certainly in place. Wanted is expected to hit stores sometime this winter, with versions for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs.