You'd be forgiven if you mistook GRIN's adaptation of comic book/Hollywood hit "Wanted" for Dark Sector. It's a good-looking game that's filled with a fair share of hard-hitting, flinch-worthy violence. It's got specialized one-hit, one-kill projectiles that have a stylized "killcam" to accompany the attacks. It's got attitude in spades. And that's coming from someone who hasn't seen the film. In conjunction with the movie's home video release, we got a chance to try out three brief levels from Wanted: Weapons of Fate at an event yesterday. We doubt it'll be a perfect game, but the snippets we played seem to form a fairly mindless, if not spectacular, shooter. Not too different, we imagine, from its Hollywood source material.
The three levels showcased different environments and effects. Each was rather short and seemed designed to show different elements of the game. Wanted's difficulty levels seem designed to cajole the player into playing tougher levels, as the easiest bar of entry is called "Pussy," and medium is "Assassin." I'd like to admit that I picked "Assassin" mainly because I default to medium difficulty when I play, but I'm sure no one would believe me. In any case, "Assassin" didn't seem to mean that I was the assassin. "Assassinated" would have been a more apt description, as Wanted is hard. Almost too hard, in fact.
It looks like you'll take on the roles of both Wesley Gibson, played by James McAvoy in the film, and his father Cross, played by Thomas Kretschmann. Both are aiming to take down a French chapter of the Fraternity as Wesley picks up where the film left off with a quest to become one of the world's greatest assassins. In the first level, Cross must move around a small French village and take down anyone in his way. The action is heavily cover-based, and it doesn't take many hits to bring you down. The enemies are tough, and won't hesitate to hit hard.
It's here that we got to try out one of the game's big selling points: curving bullets. It's a pretty easy idea to grasp. Basically, when your character is in cover, you'll want to pop out of cover long enough to try and get a bead on an enemy's location. While doing so, you'll see a curving line that seems to arc in the direction of your likely target. During this brief window of opportunity, you can move the arc until it changes color from red to white. Once you let go of the aiming button, either character fires off a bullet that defies physics just long enough to embed itself into your foe's body. Sometimes it's accompanied by a "bullet cam" a la Dark Sector, but other times it's a quick and easy kill. The curving shots can be a big help, but the cover system doesn't feel completely finished at this point. In some instances, it was tough to distinguish exactly where a safe cover spot was before getting gunned down.
