The Ringer-Verse - ‘Marvel’s Wolverine’ Deep Dive | Midnight Mash

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

What is this, a crossover episode? Ben brings on (most of) the Midnight Boys for a second, deeper discussion about Insomniac and Sony's new Wolverine video game for PlayStation 5. Ben, Van, Jomi, and Steve share their spoiler-free reviews and react to the lukewarm critical reception, then discuss how the game integrates Logan lore and steers clear of the X-Men, whether the complaints about the game reflect the limitations of Wolverine's character, the contrast with Insomniac's Spider-Man games, the divide between hardcore and casual gamers, and more. (0:00) Intro(1:45) ‘Marvel's Wolverine’ reviews and reactions(1:13:04) Outro Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Van Lathan, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve AhlmanProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Chris Thomas and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can get the good stuff for less, the stuff that lasts, because there's no point in tightening your belt if it's just going to break when you do. Get the good stuff in store at Marshalls today. Hi, up, Bub, and welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at The Ringer and your host here at Button Mesh for today. I guess I should say, midnight mash. Every midnight boy has been on button mash individually.

But today, for the first time, we have most of the midnight boys, a midnight quorum on the show with one notable absence together for an official Team X-style team-up, which I guess would make me Mr. Sinister. And I do pretty much have his skin tone with me. It's Van. Atavantium-Laython. Whata, what-ah. Jomey, Maverick, Adeneron. I like that, actually. It's pretty good. And Steve, Stryker, Allman.

Snick, Snick, how's it going, Ben? Yeah. Well, Wolverine isn't actually out until Tuesday. Marvel's Wolverine, that is, but we've all played it, and at least some of us have finished it. I have finished it. The review embargo was up Thursday. The critics had had their claws out,

including to some extent me and my guests on the previous episode of Button Mash, but I haven't heard what you guys think, and I am dying to know. So Sabretooth says to Logan, admit it, you're having fun. Will you guys admit it? You having fun with Marvel's Wolverine developed by Insomniac Games,

published by Sony 4PS5. Van, give us your take on Marvel's Wolverine so far. I have fun. So look, here's a deal. It's kind of a high bar for me because, you know, this game was supposed to be or being positioned that marketed as

Spider-Man game for Wolverine. It was open world, the missions, combat, system, all that stuff. Now, there's no such thing as a Spider-Man video game. All of this knows it. All you guys know this. There's no, there's no Spider-Man video game. There's no Spider-Man. You are Spider-Man. No. There's a virtual experience where you become Spider-Man.

Right. Yeah, right. Right, right. It's the Van Leithens simulator. Of course, of course. Right. So the game doesn't get to that point, but I felt like I was having a Wolverine experience. The combat system is both simple enough and has enough going forward to where

I felt engaged in the game, sniffing around and stuff like that. I could tell that it wasn't going to be a game that got a whole bunch of raves from people. But I have fun. I've been having fun and I will continue to have fun, God damn it. Jomey, having fun? I am having fun. I am having a ton of fun playing this game.

I think, I mean, like you said, Ben, a lot of people got their claws out about this game. And while I don't think it's that necessary, there is a level of, man, I wish they would have tightened this. I wish this could have been a little bit better. But ultimately, it's a fun game. I'm having fun playing it. I'm sure in 20 weeks when it's on discount, people will buy it,

and they'll be like, wow, this was actually really fun. I had a good time. Why were people saying this about the game? So, no, it's a good time. It's a good play. For $70? I don't know. Yeah.

But ultimately, it's still a fun experience. I think the main disappointment, I like the game too, quite a bit. But I think the main disappointment and ire that the game has kind of been getting, at least from early reviews, is the fact that there's a problem with tempering expectations because of the fact that this is the follow-up to, like, one of the best-selling games on the system and one of the most well-reviewed and, like, best-selling that the studios ever come out with. So in that case, yes, it is a disappointment.

But meeting the game on its own terms, I think it's very, very fun and it's very fine. I think that, yes, there is a bit more handholdiness that a lot of gamers are kind of graded by. And like, the handholdiness that Ensonniac is used to giving players does help when, say, you're Spider-Man and you have the entirety of Manhattan to explore. But if you're just Wolverine going in more or less a straight line throughout all his objectives, it might seem a bit grating. But overall, I think it's great. I think the cinematics are incredible.

I think the performances are very noteworthy. And it's a fine, fun time playing video games if you meet the game on its own terms. If you're wondering what Charles thinks, he hasn't played it yet. He did not opt out of this pod because he hated Wolverine. He's on vacation. I wish he were here. He told me that it's going to be his weekend activity. So we'll see whether he loves Wolverine or whether he joins the chorus of complaints.

But I think the expectations had a lot to do with the day. disappointment, obviously. And to be clear, I did not put you guys up to this. I didn't say, hey, you guys have to play Wolverine and come on Button Mash to talk about it. You volunteered because you were so hyped, because you wanted to play this, which I guess... That's kind of bullshit.

Don't play out. That's not what happened. So... Okay, what happened here? So, so... There's not one person on earth that loves Big Cull Lindbergh more than me.

We will always have. We're going to be in New York and we're going to hang out with you then, but we will always have our nighttime walk in Central Park, me and Ben. Everybody remembers this. Bonding. Great memories. Yeah. What was, what was, what was, what were they building in Central Park? Whatever. Who cares? It was building something in Central Park. For somebody I don't know why. We were building our relationship. What's not like, what happened was we wanted the codes to the game. We were going to be honest with the audience, right? Oh, I see what's happening here. We wanted to code to the game. We wanted to code to the Wolverine game. We want to play. I then, by the way, ended up buying on accident anyway. Oh, no. So I got to try to get a return. I ended up buying the game on accident anyway. That's hilarious.

So we went to the coast of the game. And Big Cull Lindberg said what, Jomey? He was like, listen, y'all can get the coast of the game. I get to the coast of the game. You got to work. You got to come on, buddy, man. Is that true? Is that right?

That's absolutely true. You got to work for this, though. No free lunch. No free skis around here. This was all through Arjuna. as an intermediary, I hear the Midnight Boys want codes for Wolverine. And

you know, we had already gotten a few codes for Wolverine because we were going to cover it on button mesh. And I can't be going back to the well and asking for more free codes if we're not going to get some more coverage out of this, presumably. Hey, Papasone isn't even making discs anymore. All you can ask for is free codes now.

Hey, they still are for now. For a few more years. It's true. Okay. All right. Fair enough. So you wanted to play it, you didn't necessarily want a podcast about it. And then you were pressed into service. I always want a podcast with Dick Kulenberg always. And I just like the fact that in this particular fact, it was like, you're going to shake ass for them codes.

You got to hurt it. If you want them codes, we're going to have to slip a dollar in the G string. So once I finally upped out, because I'm like, how do you do the code and stuff like that? Once I finally unked out. Every time I give you a code for a game, I get a text. How do you put this in? Because I always go to the store. And then how do you, how do you work?

That's where you go. I send you the instructions. Reding code is right there. You type it in. You got Madden out of me. You got college football out of me. Madden college football all night. I didn't demand podcasts in return for those, by the way.

You did not. No, that was a freebie. You did not. I think we did do the first college football. We did do one. We did do one. So just like a deal with the first, it's free. Exactly.

Exactly. Get you looped on these coats. This they're dealing out codes, bro. But look, I will say that like, do you know how I know that this game was fun for at least me? Because I've told you guys this before. I used to be a game taper. You guys remember that? Oh, wow.

Really. So my first job in L.A. working at Cybernet, this television show, was as a game tape. So I would tape games, the gameplay of the game, and then the cutscenes of the game to go into the reviews that we would do on Cybernet. With a game that's this rich, you could probably only play this game for about 10 minutes and get everything you needed for your review because you're going to get all your cinematics. You're going to get enough definitions of the gameplay and you're out. So when I have to play games for like a reviewer for a purpose, it's kind of almost like reflexive for me to just play what I need to play. and then get out.

I have not done that with this. I've played this. I'm into it. Hanging out with Gene Gray, having fun. I have played this game just to complete this adventure. So this is sort of the summer of Gene Gray,

I guess. This is her second major Marvel media appearance. And you haven't fully finished this thing yet. And obviously the game's not out yet for the general public. You know, people who haven't hit me up

for codes potentially to appear on a podcast. podcast. And so we won't give away full story spoilers or anything along those lines. But I do want to get your guys' thoughts on this depiction of Logan and Gene and just the characterization that we're going for here because Logan has been so many things. He has been so many kinds of characters in so many genres over the decades. Do you feel like this is a distinctive take on Logan? This is insomniacs Wolverine or do you feel like it's just kind of a collection of various depictions of Wolverine that we've seen before? Does this stand out for you or is it just sort of let's put a bunch

of elements of Wolverine in a big blender and this is what we get? I don't know. It feels to me as if there's like this is insomniacs, Wolverine like in look and feel. It feels like the Wolverine we've always known. It feels like Wolverine that we've seen in media, not particularly like you Jackman, huge Jack knows Wolverine per se, but if you grew up like me watching like X-Men in the 90s and Wolverine in the X-Men and X-Men evolution, it kind of feels like that type of Wolverine, right? But in regards to like, he is so nice in this game. Yeah.

If you're not a Reaver. Yeah. He's so kind and so thoughtful in a way that I've never known my Wolverine to be. You know what I mean? like to Sabretooth, to Mystique, loves Walter. That's the big homie for him. That's the big dog, you know what I'm saying? And so for me, I'm like, man, normally, especially like with Sabretooth, I'm like,

yo, man, where's the beef? Where's the? Hey, and it feels like, at least where I'm at in the game, they bros. They, like, you know, they have their, like, scuffles. But at the end of the day, man, it's all about saving mutants. I'm like, man, I have never ever. seen who for me act like this before. I like that though.

I think that there's an undercurrent of tragedy that exists within Logan as a character that I've really, really enjoyed because he's a person that's lived on this earth for so long and has endured so much and has been like witness to so many terrible things that he's kind of become this like in certain cases, in examples of the character,

like a feral representation of humanity. And for all of the, great work that Hugh Jackman did in his portrayal of the character. I think that this is a bit more of a as Jomey said, like a sweeter and a bit more of an affectionate Wolverine where

we get to see a lot of the things that is far beyond the feral beast that we know him as and the comics have like genuinely tapped into this a bit more but I love the portrayal of this. I think the actor that plays him, the name escapes

me at the moment, but I think he's doing a bang up job Liam McIntyre. He's really, really good. He's got the grunts down. Really, really great. And I think that the strength of this is in that performance. And I think that Insomniac knew that because when it comes time to actually displaying elements of the story, I think they have a very good handle on that.

Those characters are very well-trodden at this point in popular culture. And to see something like this in a bit more of a new and interesting skin is very refreshing. I think for me, can I say something? I'll say something right now, being if that's okay on the podcast, if that's all right. So the trick that these games always have to contend with

is what they just said, which even in the Spider-Man game, there's all kinds of stuff. It's like, that's not, that's not how that goes. But they have to do something that's very familiar, but then also plays with the lore a little bit.

I will say to the boys' point and to my point as well, there is a wonkiness that kind of exists in this where you just see Mystique Wolverine and Sabretooth

and Mr. Sinister all in the same team together and you go, what? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like, and it's not and it's just because it's like, you know, it's one thing to do.

But you go, what they do what they're doing? What's the thing? I've never seen. You know what I'm saying? With that kind of deal, you know, and it's not, it's not, it doesn't take you out of it, but it does take an extra tick for you to get into it. Like, it's just kind of, it's odd.

It's like, it looks a little, and what it really does is at the very beginning of it, it kind of makes the game feel like a little off-brain. Because of all of this. Yeah, yeah. There's an inherent contradiction to that because, like, we've seen millions of different team-up. and millions of different things that all of these characters have done. Like Alpha Flight alone is like

the rag tag. That's an off brand off brand. That's their own team though. Exactly. They got their own lore. But it doesn't even make that much sense at the end of the day. Like all of this is made up. But like to know that like these characters in this combination in this specific combination that we would bristle against, like I felt like a dick being like,

well, this isn't how it would happen. Well, no. I think to Vance point though, is that the game literally opens with Logan being Pharaoh and Nathaniel XS, XS, Jesus, Jesus Christ, is the one who finds him. And you're like, if you know comics, if you read, if you know these things, you're like, that's Mrs. Sinic. We know who that is, yeah.

We know who that is. Yeah, right. And so you kind of like, you spend the whole game just like, all right, cool, when is he going to turn to Mrs. Sinister? Like, we know this. Yeah. Right? So at a vast point, you just like, you're already,

you're already there. You're like, why is Mr. Sinister doing this? Like, it's just like, it's just something that, because we know this Lord so well, we know this story so well, it just kind of feels like a little, it's a little weird. And if this was the second game,

that would be one thing. But it's the first game. So if this was the second, if this was Wolverine 2 and the search for Sinister, then that would be, but this is the first game. So you see them and Gene Gray, and she got a leather jacket.

It's like, It's like, it is a little bit like, oh, okay, well, they got their own thing going. So, and I, you know, I'm fucking with it. Yeah. No, I know what you mean because, I mean, obviously there's so many retcons in every medium. There's so many versions of Wolverine that you're just kind of taking him up the shelf and I'm doing this with him this time. And then I'll put him back in someone else. Yeah, that was actually, I think, a Jason Concepcion idea.

It's all just like action figures. And each storyteller takes them off the shelf, does something different with them. Oh, off the show. Put some back with someone else. I think he said. Yeah, what do you think he said? I thought he said, taking it up the shelf. Oh, what the hell?

Tough. Okay, my back. No, Jason didn't say that. That's a little bit different. But I think, you know, there are comics fans of Wolverine who don't like what the movies did with Wolverine and with the love triangle and everything or the way Scott was represented or in this game. There just is no Scott, right?

There's a will they or won't they with Logan and Gene, but there's no love, love triangle here whatsoever. Not only a will they won't they. every time we think that they will, something explodes. It's more of a like, immediately. Just as they're about to lock lips, that's when you know that that's when the sentinels

about to drop right behind them or something. Yeah, it's frustrating for them. They keep getting cock blocked by Mr. Sinister and whoever else. But I was thinking about this because Star Wars games, at least these days, they're canon. They're canon the way that the TV shows, or the movies, if they make movies are canon. They have the Lucasfilm lore experts and all the rest of it.

And so it feels like it's of a piece. It's a unified universe for better or worse. And sometimes that can be frustrating because it's just like, I just want to play with these characters and go on some fun adventure and not have to be bound by the events of the Star Wars story. Whereas the Marvel video games, they're just going off in all different directions. And it's a completely different continuity.

And you do get some of that often. brand just like when you play the Guardians the Galaxy game or Marvel's Midnight Suns even if those are good games. Yeah it's like Oh man. All right.

It's like you know, these are not the MCU characters. These are easy on the Guardians I know. Yeah. That game was good. Yeah, no.

The Guardians of Galaxy game is great. It takes some time to get used to. It's like these are different versions and maybe they're not exactly lesser versions, but they seem like that because they're a lot less prominent. So you are kind of of dealing with that here. It's just yet another version of Wolverine. And this is a very different

Gene Gray from the brand new day, Gene Gray, obviously. So you're constantly having to reset yourself, but it's like back to zero, back to square one. Okay, who is this Wolverine? He's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And I was wondering, I wanted to ask you guys whether you think that Wolverine is interesting as a solo act, as a leading man, not as part of an ensemble, because here, okay, he's technically, he's a former member of Team X, and then he's kind of quasi rejoining a little bit, but mostly he's out on his own with the occasional NPC allies backing him up. So Wolverine, as a leading man, as a solo act, and not in a genre story, you know, not like the Logan Neo-Western or not like Samurai Logan or like Noir Logan or Spy Logan,

and all the different versions of him we've seen, but just sort of straight ahead action Wolverine. Can that kind of story be interesting? Or does it just evolve into, I'm going to rip some guys apart with my claws for a long time? I mean, I think it's a bit of a catch-22 because all of those iterations of Logan that you mentioned before are the stories that make him interesting.

And all of that is, again, well-trodden and well-established in the lore of these comics fans that are like us, like we know all of. of that stuff. And as much as this game is trying to, at its best, like, just touch on them, just to, like, to give a little bit of fan service or homage to the things that we know and love, it kind of, like, and this is, this is another thing that, like, is disappointed about the game. It really doesn't make that much of a stretch, because you have all of these great suits that are available to you to, like, craft and find that are, like, homages to great appearances that

he's had in comic books. But it doesn't exactly, like, make any sort of, you know, of like in story reason for him to be wearing those things. They're just things that he wears. And that's fine. But ultimately, I think the overarching point of this story is that this is a world before mutants really were worldwide and known. This is a thing that is like kind of an origin of an origin, not only just of X-Men, but of kind of Wolverine agency in the fight against mutant oppression.

And I think that's kind of soft. in this story, but I think overall it's still fun. You're still a guy that's got knives on his fists that are killing dudes left and right. So I think that it's fine. I think that I'm not offended by it, but it's still soft in my opinion. I keep it to be with you, boss. I love Wolverine. I think Wolverine is a great character.

I think Wolverine is fun, exciting. I need everybody. I need the team. It really, like, you can. Yeah. You can tell me, I'm sorry. You're sort of a supportive character. You can't.

You can. It's not like nobody doesn't know what the X-Men are now. And if this game literally started in the X-Mansion with every mutant we've ever seen and it's just Wolverine walking through that school going on missions we'd have been happy. No, you can't, you can't. It doesn't, no, hell no, no.

So how about this? The answer is no. That would you say what works, Steve. Sure, what you said would like? But this right here, no. Nigger don't, no. No, fuck not. So like, what, actually, Jomey, go ahead. I like,

you can meet Jomey about to agree. I don't want to, yeah. No, no, no, but like, I'm thinking about,

like, you mentioned the movies, Ben, and I like the second Wolverine joint where you go to Japan and he's doing the whole thing. I like that one.

People don't really rock out like that one. I like the Wolverine. The movie, the Wolverine is cool. But it's him and Famkeh Genesis show up as an apparition. Yeah.

Every like 30 minutes, and that's it. Right. And then you get Silver Samurai if you're like, oh, that's a silver samurai. Oh, my God. But if you're not, if you just walk, you'd be like, man, it's a Wolvermovie.

And you're like, I don't know none of these people. Like, that dude, I see him from somewhere. I know him from another movie. But these are not the X-Men I'm messing with. People don't really, like, get attached to that. That's why, like, as much I like that movie, people don't really, like, you know, rate that movie because it's not, doesn't have those characters. To, yeah, I just think that if you're going to make a Wolverine movie, you got to throw, you got to throw us a bomb, man. You got to put the homies in there.

They put Gene Gray in there. That's cool. We know we love Gene Gray. a lot of mystique, obviously. But there's no world where you make a Wolverine movie or a movie video game and it's just Wolverine the whole time.

I'm sorry. I'm not that woke. I'm sorry. Let me say this. So I agree with everybody, but I also disagree slightly. Okay, so look, this is the point. I agree with Joni.

Okay, I agree. The thing is, you have to, we hit on it. You have to give Wolverine a world. The thing that makes the Spider-Man game so awesome is that you're in Spider-Man's world. Like, a lot of those villains in that game are off-brain. Like, oh, it's symbiate people.

Oh, it's guys that are lighting everything on fire. The fire people. It's like, you know, but you're in Manhattan. You're in the world that Spider-Man's in. So that world is interesting. Like, you can swing around and jump off the Empire State Building. And, like, you always have the problems that Spider-Man has. Like, oh, my God, you put the bus out,

then you got to take the person out the bus and take him the safety. All that you feel like Spider-Man. Wolverine doesn't really have a world because he's a nomad, right? So he doesn't have a world. So in universe, there's no world for Wolverine. He's a nomad.

That's why if this same game was Wolverine and it was set in Samaraj, Japan, it would be more interesting. That's why if you took the game and set it in the X-Men world, a world that we know finite, hey, all the X-Men are on the battle, Wolverine gets separated from them.

We're fighting against, I don't know, Cyclops gets taken. taken over and Wolverine got a, it would be more interesting. Wolverine, the character himself, is a nomad. The character is written that way. So now you have to establish a world that you don't know, which means that narratively that world has to be really, really, really, really interesting.

It would have to be because you're doing it because you're charting new ground. And this one is fine, but him by himself, like charting a new Wolverine chapter? nah, nah, man. Not going to be able to do it. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, New Year. Like, you know what I'm saying?

It's just, and so, like, in that regard, all the other characters that we're talking about, like any of this stuff, all those other characters, they have finite, like, sandboxes that they play in, and part of the charm of those characters is those sandboxes. Wolverine is not even a man out of a sandbox. He's a man out of time. Yeah.

So that's like a difficult thing to kind of play with. And I think the game took the path of most resistance. And it wasn't a home run. It doesn't suck. Yes. But it wasn't home. Yeah. Hear that?

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You're richer than you think. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's a globe-trotting game. You're going around the world. You're in Japan. You're in Madrapore. You're in British Columbia. My ancestral home of Vancouver.

But you're not doing much different depending on where you are in the world. It's just the level design is pretty similar. You're fighting some of the same enemies regardless. It's just, you know, go in a room, tear some people apart. and then go to the next room where you tear some more people apart, and then occasionally you use a motorcycle for a few minutes to get. Oh, that was fun. That was fun.

That was fun, though. It didn't last very long. That was fun, though. Cutting people's tires up and all of that. That's when I felt like the Wolverine. Yeah. See, I'd like a little more variety like that, right? And that's kind of what we're getting at.

It's like when you get these glimpses of the different Wolverines, but then it's just the base sort of generic Wolverine for the most part, except for the sensitivity, which you were mentioning. So it is an attempt to sort of, you know, okay, he's angry and there's a rage meter and you're clawing people. But also he feels bad about that.

And he's, you know, he's obviously, he's Wolverine. He's dealing with some psychological trauma and he's forgotten his past and all the rest of it. Those are just staples of the character. But for one thing, it's kind of a trope with these first-party Sony games where you have the tortured protagonist who's very violent but feels conflicted about it.

So I think people are just sick of that. Yeah, well, then I'm sorry you shouldn't have made a Wolverine game because that's literally who he is. Well, that's what I keep wondering, just are the problems with Marvel's Wolverine with the game or with Wolverine himself? Because you can't really make a Wolverine game that is anything other than that exactly.

But the way that they do it just feel so familiar that we've seen with so many games, whether it's God of War or Soros or Last of Us or Ghost of Yote or whatever it is. It's just kind of that same sad, dark character who feels bad about being bad. And the reason why I think it's tough to tell a cohesive story in video games that's structured like that

is because the game is telling you to kill people. That's the game here is kill people. And then the cutscenes, it's like, oh, what have I done? I let myself go. You know, there are these moments where Wolverine like, he blacks out, right? He's just like in his animalistic rage. And then he comes back and he looks around and there's just bodies strewn everywhere.

And he's like, oh, I relapsed basically. But that's what you're doing the entire game. And that's what the game encourages you to do. And, you know, are you supposed to feel guilty about that or complicit or something? Not really. It's, you know, you're just killing generic cyborgs and robots or whatever. And so. The Revers, yeah.

Yeah, it's tough to tell that story where it's just like he's sensitive. he's conflicted. He wants to reform and be a new Wolverine, but then the game just by its nature forces you to keep clawing people apart. That's just what it is. So yeah. To that criticism, I would say,

the people that have also tried it against that, like the worst phrase in game criticism that I can remember, which is ludonarrative dissonance, where you have a character who mows down hundreds of people and feels like nothing. Like if you've ever played an uncharted game where Nathan Drake is just killing untold scores of mercenaries

and then he's like, well, we're on a fun little adventure and he's like, well, you're a mass murderer. Yeah. To have a game that even lightly interrogates that can be refreshing and like can be a part of the like tragedy of the character of Logan. I think that he needs to actually have some sort of resolution

in that when it comes to like the end of this story. And we don't get that, obviously. But I think that, like, there can be a balance between those two. Because I think the idea in games where you're obviously, like, you have the power fantasy of getting to kill dozens of people and have all of these power and stuff like that, while also reckoning with it can be done. But you can really appreciate how much of a miracle it is when it's done well versus, say, in this game where it's not done that well. There hasn't really been a great Wolverine game, which is part of why I'm thinking of this. Before this one, there hadn't been one for more than 15 years.

And there'd been really only a handful of, I mean, standalone Wolverine games. People will tell you, Ensemble games. X-Men Origins, Wolverine games. Right. So that was the last one, right? In 2009, pretty good. Pretty good. And I think this game is also pretty good.

But I don't know that either of them is great. Now, that was a movie tie-in game. A lot of the old Wolverine games were movie. tie-in games going back to NES or whatever. And often movie tie-in games weren't good. And that was one of the better ones. But had a similar reception to this one was sort of similarly structured in a lot of, you know, it had its rage meter, right?

Like it was the same sort of, you know, there was Team X in that game too. And so maybe that's the ceiling for a Wolverine game is just, okay, this is pretty good action. And it's not overly long. And this is who he is. And so maybe Wolverine is just miscast as sort of a prestige award-bait game of the year character. I don't know that he's built for that. So in video games, video games are, at least in my opinion,

not necessarily about cool, right? Like Wolverine is cool. The thing that makes you want Wolverine around in your comic book is that he destabilizes things. Like he says cool shit, he does cool shit. he does cool shit. Like some, they go, hey, you know, we're going to take this person alive and Wolverine goes, nope, they're dead. And you go, oh, my God.

And also, like, his vulnerability to the fact that he's not as powerful as some of the other characters in the Marvel universe, another thing that makes Wolverine cool. He's just incredibly durable. You just, he's un-killable. But he's, like, not the A number one front line of any huge, huge, huge defense mechanism type thing because it's not like a cosmic powers. And he bleeds. It's like poor little leech says, are you a superhero?

And he says, nah, kid, I'm Wolverine. You can bring him to the point of death repeatedly. Yeah. But it doesn't matter that he's not that. Wolverine is going to see Onslaught, and he's going to unsheat his claws, and he's going to give it his best shot.

Those are all the things that make a character really cool in the comic books. But like, that don't really, you know, in a video game, that's not really a video game character. But no, but what I'm saying is, It's like cool video game characters, but they have to have to do cool stuff. So I do think that this game

kind of got preoccupied with some of the least cool video game aspects of Wolverine's character. There are things in the game to me that he could be doing more stuff. There's more stuff that he could do. There's more actual feats and other things that Wolverine could do,

more ways they could use him. Like, for example, The motorcycle stuff is so cool because that's high octane Wolverine-type action. But it's really a game for people who just want to, like, see Wolverine cut people up and, like, be bloody. Like, Wolverine always cuts people up and there's no blood and we don't ever see blood. Well, if you had that comment after X2, X-Men United, you don't have that no more. You got all the blood you want. And that's kind of the star of the show here.

But once again, hey, this team's negative. Fuck it. I like the game. Yeah. I'm having fun. Now, you hate it. It sounds like you hate it. I jump over and I cut somebody and I cut them up and then I like I dodge and then I stealth.

And then I ride the motorbike and then I'm walking through the weeds and they can't see me. I like the game. I'm having fun. Yeah. I think that the most successful comic book characters or superheroes in video games, well, it's Spider-Man and Batman, right, who are also just the, two most popular and successful characters anyway. But I think they succeed so much in video games.

There have been so many good Spider-Man standalone games or Spider-van. Sorry, I know it's not Spider-Man, it's you. But that works because just the web-slinging alone is. The web-slinging alone is so much fun. Right. I mean, that gets, you know, you could just do that all day. And the combat is so varied because Batman and Spider-Man, they can be airborne, they can web-sling, they can glide.

They've got gadgets. They've got gadgets. They've got gadgets. They can do the hand-to-hand and the complex combos and everything. They can fight in the air. They can fight on the ground. Whereas other characters are more limited. You know, there are really almost no Superman games, right?

There's the notoriously terrible Superman 64 game. They barely haven't dared to make one because it's tough to make a flying character game. Because it's like, well, how do you limit them? Or Superman is, you know, indestructible. What are you going to just have kryptonite around? every corner. It's just, it's hard to build a Superman game. And with Wolverine, it's not as hard, but it's still, you're constrained, you're limited, right? Even though this Wolverine, he's pretty agile, he's pretty mobile, he's leaping around. It's fun to jump with him. He can claw up walls and

stuff, but compared to, say, Spider-Man, you know, he's groundbound street level, and he's just clawing people up close, you know, the closest they get to a ranged attack is like, you know, eventually you unlock sort of this thing where you can do like an energy burst from afar. But it's not really a core focus of the combat. So it's just up close and personal. And that's almost bound to get repetitive. You know, it's like you unlock a lot of powers and abilities and special skills and stuff as you go.

And I fully leveled up the character. I went beyond that because there are all these like boxes of experience points. And I kept just scattered around for no reason, really. For no reason, very video gamey. And then I maxed out my level and I was like still leveling at the end of the game and getting nothing for it. But at the end, I was still doing the basic just like spam the square button and press Perry combo to get through most of the encounters. You know, and there are only so many reavers and sentinels to fight, right? And so and even the boss fights are kind of like more of the same, just a little longer and harder.

So I don't know. Like maybe the variety, I think, is the issue. Not that it's that long a game. It's, you know, 15-ish hours maybe on a typical play-through. But before I got to the end of it, I was ready for it to be over. Nah, I think you hit the nail on the head with probably, at least to me, the worst aspect of the game is the combat. It's really just a match X simulator or sorry, Max Square simulator.

That's really it. You know, till your point about Batman and Spider-Man, you can mix gadgets in there. You can get in the air, you know, like, what are my favorite combos to do in Spider-Man? It's the hold square. You punch them in the air. And you swing into them. Right? Yes.

And, like, that's a lot of fun. You can, like, you can beat people up in the air. That's cool. And this game, you really, like, you just, you get your mass square, you dodge, you pair it. And that's kind of it. You have the L2, you know, X, square, all the. that stuff. But ultimately, you just spend a lot of time. Square, square, square, square, square, triangle for healing points. Square, square, square, square, square, square, square, square, roll,

Dodge, square, square, square, square, it's a lot of that. It got me thinking a lot because, like, if I was Wolverine and I was, like, a constantly health regenerating killing machine with knives on my fists, I would probably just figure out, like, three really good fighting moves and then just do that for the rest of my life. Like, I would just be like, snip, snip, snip, uppercut. Works well. And it works on everybody, works on me. And that's kind of what this game is.

It's like, all right, you got three moves. It works on everybody. And the progression system, like you said, in the combat, it really is trying to do its best, like, God of War 2018 impression, where you have this, like, broad skill tree of different evolving, both techniques and buffs and things in the game that are supposed to help you, where you're like, okay, like, if you're sprinting and blocking, like it generates rage more.

And you're supposed to feel that difference when you get that experience. But I never really felt any actual progression as I played. Sure, I got a different fight move. I got the ability to like need somebody in the face. But after I used it, I'm like, okay, well, I'm kind of just back to using the same move set that I've normally done.

And I think that's a tough sweet spot to make because the progression in like we've said, Spider-Man and Batman and all of these other things, Like those are notable progressions, both in the game and kind of in the story, because it's what makes Metroidvania is so popular as a genre, because that level of progression changes the aspect of the game going forward. And this doesn't really change itself. It's more so just you get a couple of new shiny things along the way.

Also with him, though, is that the reality of the characters that, like, Wolverine wouldn't be concerned with any of these guys that he's fighting because, they can't kill them. And so, like, this game has, I mean, they can't kill them. They killed me a lot. Killed me a lot. Like, I know, I know, but, like, so the game has to do enough to make all of this stuff, to make you feel a sense of danger in being somebody that legitimately all of those guys

could grab him by each of his arms and pull him apart and he would just, like, sit there and regenerate. So, like, it, it, I personally think that even though the combat, is repetitive, I think the attack patterns from the enemies are not. So I think you feel what it means to be Wolverine because you're cutting somebody up, somebody's aiming at you from behind, so then you have to dodge that,

come back, hit that guy, come back to the guy that you were killing. Then if you get overwhelmed, do one of the special moves. So the game does a good job, even though the combat is pretty basic, of making you feel overwhelmed. by your foes.

So you have to mix up not the way that you're striking the button, but the strategies that you use to get out of those situations. How much do you stalk someone? And then once you've killed a couple of people with the stalking, can you then go head up with the fake? Yeah, that's a good point because in a lot of video games, you're surrounded by a ring of henchmen. And then they do the classic thing where they attack you one at a time.

And the rest of them just standing around watching. Here, they do team up on you. They do pile on, and it's still not enough because Wolverine's unstoppable, but it at least does give you something to think about. And you got people shooting you from afar while other people are up close kicking you or punching you. So, yeah, there is a lot to juggle. I think that's a good distinction. I think, you know, the depiction of Wolverine I like because obviously we've seen a lot of different visual Wolverines as well. And there were people who thought when Hugh Jackman was cast, he's too hot to be Wolverine.

And he's too tall to be Wolverine. And this is not 90s cigar chomping comics, Logan. And this is sort of a hybrid, right? It's kind of a tweener from a hotness standpoint. He's still pretty good looking, I'd say. And Liam McIntyre himself, six foot three. Exactly. But they made him a short king for this game.

He's very hairy all over. And I do like the kind of buddy duo. of Logan and Sabretooth, just super tall, super short, just wreaking havoc together. So I do like that, that even though you are just overpowered for much of the game,

at least you're looking up at everyone that you're talking to in the cutscenes, Gene Gray included. So that part at least was kind of comics accurate and cool, I think. And, you know, it helps because this was giant Wolverine

who also had these oversized, outsized powers. Then that might be too much. But, you know, I think that like a lot of the criticism of this game, it's kind of become this avatar of everything that people are tired of with AAA big budget games. And, you know, it's a lot of the handholding that Steve alluded to there. Yellow paint gamers rise up. In this case, white paint. But, yeah, you know, anything, anything you can climb on, it's going to signal that to you.

Fart gas is a big talking point. People are talking about the fart gas, which is, you know, whenever. you're tracking someone, there's just a line of the scent that is hanging in the air and you just follow that to them. And again, a lot of this makes sense for the character because Wolverine has incredible powers of smell and you can track people down. But that is also such a gaming convention. Or, yeah, like just the invisible walls or just the you can walk this way, but not all the way

that way. Or here's a walk and talk segments where we're going to slow it down and you can't sprint anymore because we want you to look over here and interact with this item and see this Easter egg or whatever. Just a lot of that stuff, it's like, I don't know if you guys have seen the AAA Mario memes

where it's like put Mario in an Unreal Engine AAA game and someone's constantly talking in your ear and you're constantly getting tips and hints and pop-ups to say press this button and go over there. And it's not that hard a game to begin with and it does really feel like, all right, just let me just, Let me cook here a little bit.

You don't need to keep pointing me this way or that. I got something to say, man. Like, legitimately, I feel like that particular criticism, like the white paint and the glowing stuff and all that, I feel like we've lost the plot completely on that, right? As far as criticizing it or as far as putting it in games? Both. Okay.

Right? Because there is a level of, yeah, we like to figure things out, right? I remember when I was playing the first Calcestus game and I didn't know where I was going. Completely lost. And on the first planet, I was like, where do I go? How do I do these things?

Blah, blah, blah. Games over the last like, even like 20 years or so has become a thing for everybody, right? It used to be, man, you had to spend all this money to get this console, man. So, man, and if you didn't know what you was doing, you was cooked, right? You had the GameShart thing. You had the cheat code thing that you buy.

You were putting in, like, 18 different bank accounts. Right. But at the end of the day, man, it used to be this, like, singular thing for, like, a group of people. Now it's for everybody, right? And for some people, they might need a little white paint. Right. That might need a little sniff line, right? The thing is, and the thing, and this is where I think people are, like, completely

like just like it's going over the heads. There's a reason why it's yellow paint in every game. Right. Because we know what that means. Yes. I know if there's white paint on that or yellow paint on that, I can jump on that. Right. I know if there's a sniff line there, I need to go somewhere, right?

First of all, and this is like super important, you can turn that stuff off. And a lot of games, you can turn off some of it. Yeah, I don't think you can turn off the fart gas, at least currently. I bet you they're patching that right now. I bet you they are working on a patch to turn the fart gas off. You can turn off hints, you can turn off the arrows that will tell you go here in some cases. So a lot of that is true. It's on by default, but you can strip some of it out.

It's true, though, like when you talk to people who make games, sometimes they weigh in on these debates about the yellow paint. And they say, like, we tried taking out the yellow paint and no one knew where to go. You know, so we all think like, oh, we've played enough games. We understand. Like, there's a ledge. You jump there. but sometimes you need that kind of heavy-handed sign posting. I need it.

I need it. The games I grew up on with side scrollers. You didn't have no choice but the way to go. There's only one way to go. Jump over shit. Yeah. Get through shit. And then you started playing all the other games.

The thing I hated, boy, I used to hate this. Halo was one of the first games that was truly intuitive for me. So, like, when you were playing through the adventure on Halo, you could just feel where you needed to go. Yeah. Right? That's the idea. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, when Halo would just, you were playing the game, I was like, oh, I think I need to go there. And then, like, later on, we thought we were psychic. But then later on, the game makers put out little things and it'd be like, hey, man, this area is brighter. This area is this. Like, we're so subtle. You don't even notice it. Yeah.

Yeah. We're pulling you, like, where you need to go. But the one thing that, I'll tell you one thing that kills my experience with a game, it kills my experience in the game. If I spend five or ten minutes somewhere and I can't figure out. where to go. Right. I got too much other shit I can do. I'm saying it used to be 10, 15 years ago

like, you know, or even longer, you're there and you connected to the game. Now I'm just letting y'all know I spend five minutes, I can't figure out where to go. It's a lot of shit I could be doing. I can turn on like other games. I could go on social media. I can fucking go to the movies.

I could, like, is a lot of stuff competing for attention right now. So I think some of that stuff, the hardcore gamers complain about But for some of the people that are walking into these games a little bit more, like not neophytes the gaming, but less into the world. They need that or else they're going to pick something else up. Right. And that's ultimately what this game is supposed to be.

It's a four quadrant. We all love Wolverine. Here's a game where you get to be Wolverine. And that's going to bring in a lot more people. Like, it's probably not going to be a system seller. But for anybody who's even marginally interested in being Wolverine in a video game, that's going to get their attention. And if they're not into games like that much, yeah, that's going to help them. But people's ire at this is so stupid.

No, it is. It is. People are so mad that somebody else might need help in a video game and that the developers of that game might put things in the game to help them play the game. To both of you guys' points, like, yeah, this is supposed to be something that people come to and they play and they enjoy. And they're not thinking about like, man, I don't know where to go, man. if only there was something that could tell me which ledge I needed to go on or where I needed to be. It just feels like really weird and like insensitive, not like a, not like a woke way, but just like,

come, man, let people play the game. I feel like a lot of the criticism that comes from gaming is that they deal in absolutes. If something isn't an immaculately designed 10 out of 10, oh my God, all of these things worked in perfect harmony and are exactly where they're supposed to be, anything less of that sucks. and the like I think the most scathing review that I saw of this game is that like this game is designed to assume that the player is perilously stupid and that every single thing is telegraphed to you and told you what to do. And I'm like, you know what? There's nothing wrong with telling the player what to do in a more overt way than what we're used to. Also, uh, the, not just like generally people, people are kind of stupid. Let's be honest.

like in general like the like the warial general is basically giving somebody a problem that you want to solve in a certain way and giving

and making them think that it's their idea dog I worked my first job in college I did social for the athletic department and we would put out graphics and posts about like

yo the game is here at this time uh can't wait to see you there and people will be like where's the game man what time is the game under the tweet that we told you where it was and what time it was.

Like, it's just like people are like that. And so if you want to build a game to Vance Point, that people continue to play where they're like, man, I don't know where this thing is. I'm going to turn this off. I'm going to go to the theater watch Coyote v. Acme. You know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't make any sense for the developers to not do that.

And so for people to get like, not like regular upset, like up in arms, like I can't believe that they would help these people play these games, rah. It's like, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen people would be upset about. I think there is a there's a gatekeeping aspect to that. There's a little bit of elitist. I don't need this. If you need this, you're a filthy casual or something. There's definitely something to that. I do think you could take it a tad too far. It's not just the handholding. It's also just some of the other conventions like the, you know, okay, it makes perfect sense that

Wolverine is traumatized and he has these hidden memories. He's recaptured. But then, you know, you turn it into like a literal physical nightmare door that you go in and you follow this like you follow this route that takes you to the door and then you claw away the bad memories and then you get a little it's not subtle it's not subtle 65 the mortars are going down time out time about time sorry hold on man hold on then because you're not wrong right i think i think that's a little different though yeah it's a little different that is a little bit different it's a little bit different it's a little bit different it's It's a little different because, yeah, they go, the problem with those in particular is, again, it's a linear game, right? So there's not a lot of downtime in between, like, you know, the missions and the set pieces. You're always on your way to do something, right? You're always on your way to go somewhere, right? Fellas, ladies, whoever is developing the game, if I'm on the way to, if I'm in a mission, I don't need a nightmare trial to show up, right? It's more so distracting of the fact, like, oh my God, we have to rescue these mutants, times of the essence.

Oh, wait a minute. I got to deal with my trauma over there. I got to do with the nightmare door right now? Yeah. Nah. Now, if I'm like, if I'm like, oh, I got to go find Gene somewhere. I got to do a platform stage. Yeah.

If I got to go, man, we will talk about that. Give me one second. If I'm on my way to find Gene in Magipore and then a nightmare door shows up, I'm like, okay, cool. But if I'm like actively in a mission, killing Revers or whatever, and then going to the next spot and then a nightmare door shows up, I'm like, whatever, cool. Speaking of which, the trials in the nightmares.

Okay. So they have the fighting ones, right? Like, that makes a lot of sense. I get it. The traversal ones. Parkour? Nuh. Look, I know people worked really hard.

I really like this game, guys. I really do. I just want to preface what I say. Just one of the worst things I've ever been a part of in my entire life. Because all you do is hold, what's, R2. And forward. And forward. Yeah, to sprint and forward on the subject.

and you jump occasionally. That's it. That's it. Ben, I am one of the worst platformers you will ever see. I am not a good platforming gamer at all. Brother, I got adamantium on my first try. I was like, whoa, that's never happened for me. In Spider-Man, too.

In the second Spider-Man, there's a clip of me. I posted this on Instagram or on Twitter on the first, or the second Spider-Man game, the first chasing with the, with the, the, the, whatever the flying things were in the Spider-Man game. Yeah. It took me an hour to complete that one because I just couldn't figure it out. I just couldn't.

The gliding was terrible for me. It was bad. It was awful. Isaiah Blakely and Kai Grady make fun of me every time they see me. They're like, yo, remember Jomey? When you took an hour to do those Craven drones, hilarious. You're an idiot. This game, the nightmare trial traversal, but I'm just pressing X.

I'm pressing slide. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Under 41 seconds for a 45-second thing. yo, I am not good at this. This is one of my response. I should not be planning this off the rip. Yeah. Is my point.

Which I, the only frustrating thing about me is that yes to everything that Jomi said. The one biggest thing is like the second time I was doing this, I'm like, why isn't this the danger room? Why aren't I just doing this in the X mansion? Why aren't we like, that actually broke me because I'm like, this is exactly what the danger room should be. This is exactly what the extra stuff of a, game that I actually wanted to kind of be

and like, again, I hate being like the thing where I'm like, I'm still having fun, but like game, you knew exactly what you could have done and you didn't do it. And that's what got me back. The stories that you're getting through the nightmare trials. Jesus Christ. He was out there to Puma and stuff and then he went back to Japan.

It's like, oh, it's cool. Yeah, I think if the handholding is sort of, is it detracting from the fun of the game in that if the game is about puzzle solving and you're suggesting the solution to the puzzle before I have a chance to figure it out on my own and get that feeling of accomplishment, then you're shooting yourself in the foot. Now, if this were a detective Logan game where it's really about following clues

and tracking people down and you've got fart gas pointing you to where the solution is, that's silly. If it's a game where really it's about getting from one combat encounter to the next and it's just do I want to wander around for a while or do I want to follow the trail that tells me where to go? You could say maybe it's for the best that you just get to the next combat encounter. Then I think it becomes, well, is the combat good enough to be the centerpiece and to be the hook?

Because if you're taking out any puzzle-solving or traversal, you know, that's as interesting as, say, in the Spider-Man games, then the combat really has to be the star and has to be enough to carry the experience. And I think it wears thin eventually just because of how limited the moveset is and the enemies and just how repetitive it tends to get.

But I'm with you. I think, you know, you want a big tent for a game like this that it aspires to be a mainstream success. Can you take that too far? I think, yes, in some ways. But that's not my main quibble with the game, I guess. I'm more about just the structure of the game than sort of the trappings, the cosmetic stuff, the tips and hints and all the rest.

But the lack of X-Mansion, the lack of X-Mansion. the lack of X-Men. Insomnia explanation for that is we didn't want to skip to X-Men. We didn't want the mutants to have a safe space and to be, you know. They did not say those words. That is not a direct quote. They did not say those words. Okay. I'm paraphrasing.

I'm like if you say they said that. No, but they didn't, you know, you're at a point in the story here where mutants are not widely known in the world. people do not know that mutants exist, right? And so they're in hiding. And so the idea is, well, if you have the X-Men, then it's out in public, not that the X-Men are always widely embraced or accepted. But in this, it's more about like we're in the shadows, we're trying to find other mutants, we're being persecuted, et cetera. So we're going with Team X. Obviously, we know there might be ulterior motives in that the roadmap for Insomniac leaked a few years ago. And we saw that they

planned to make Spider-Man 2 and then a Venom game, which didn't come out but may still be in the works, Wolverine, Spider-Man 3, a new ratchet and clank game, and X-Men. Ultimately, this is supposed to culminate in an X-Men game. And so this is sort of building up to that. And maybe they thought it served the story. And this is a good way to get to the X-Men game as you start with the Team X-X or solo Wolverine game. So that's the rationale for why the X-Men don't exist in Marvel's Wolverine. It is weird to see Logan and Gene and Mystique and all these characters, and they're not in the X-Men.

But that's the explanation, at least. Now, will this be successful enough to lead to the X-Men game? Probably, you know, despite the lackluster lukewarm reviews, you know, this thing's still going to sell, presumably, right? So I was wondering whether there would be more crossovers with the Marvel's Spider-Man universe that's been established in the video game. And not really, right? I mean, there might be some Easter eggs.

I don't know if there are any cameos or crossovers or Easter eggs you guys appreciated here where some comics characters showed up or at least got alluded to. But, you know, there's no Spider-Man in this game, right? So this is not really a crossover with the established insomniac Marvel lore. No, we got, at least on my playfrew, I saw a dazzler poster. They mentioned Hank McCoy in one of the missions. And then in Maghapur, you see a card IOU from Remy Labo. And I'm like, okay, cool.

Like, these characters, they exist, you know. It'd be really cool if they were in the video game, the Wolverine video game. But hey, you know, what can you do? Ultimately, I don't think I need that many, like, this is a point where, like, I actually don't want to be too MCU-pilled of, like, having all of these games and world constantly can. to each other or like where does this tie into Spider-Man 2 or what's going on here and there. Honestly, because I kind of want that game to speak for itself and not really have to worry about making it about something else because it kind of like in a small sense takes away from the game that I'm trying to focus on.

I think that the problem with Insomniac's quote unquote roadmap is that I don't think that there isn't a world where you wouldn't want to make an X-Men game first. and I think that this is a bit more of a Sony kicks the can down the road for that pitch to know when the PlayStation 6 comes out, that could potentially be a system. Well, no, you've got to remember, they're making the Kojima game. No, they're not. Not anymore. Not anymore.

Yeah. That's just more so. This is where I'm going to get on, wait a second, and I think that the people that are running Sony are actually sleeper agents for Microsoft, but that's my, that's my conspiracy. But I legitimately don't think they can afford it. Probably not. I legitimately think with the way the, not to, again, not to get to conspiracy brained, but legitimately the way memory works, the way like everything is going now,

they're like looking around like, brother, this game got to be a hit or we're not really going, we're not going to spend our time with this. And they just looked around. Business is not booming at Xbox these days. I don't know if you've noticed. But that game reportedly, Kojima's fizzint, I mean, reportedly, it's behind schedule, over budget, whatever. That's drama that's separate from this sort of.

But I did wonder about this just because of, you know, the impact that it has on the story. And it becomes more of a character story. It's, you know, a character study of Logan and then the will there, won't they, fledgling romance between Logan and Gene and, you know, through the ages and reincarnations and the phoenix and all of that stuff. And then there is just the, you know, like, Van, as you were watching this or playing this, I guess the virtue of the X-Men story is that it's been repurposed so many times. Like, it's always something that members of minority groups or oppressed people can identify

with the mutants being persecuted, right? So you could play this game now and, you know, Bolivar Trask is rounding up the mutants and everything. And you can read this as sort of like, oh, is this game about immigration crackdowns? Is this game about transphobia? Like, you know, that stuff, like, it's hard to. play this in 2026 and not think that, but it's not explicit, right? I don't know even how intentional that's supposed to be. And the X-Men framework, that just, it comes back and it's just, it resonates with whatever is happening at the time that story is told, right? But there are

definitely some, you know, some illusions or allegories or similarities there at least. Yeah, I think there's always going to be like whenever the X-Men story is told, because as human beings, we don't seem to be able to get civilization and society right in an equitable way that treats everybody with dignity and humanity. I do think there's something extra that happens in this game that I think is interesting. And I just realized in the last 10 minutes, just like what a gamer, I'm not. Like, it is like, because I legitimately did because like all of the stuff that you guys were talking about, like even some of the criticisms of the game, I don't know enough about video games to like

to even have those criticisms. I was like, listen to some of you guys. You guys know the scale and the business of the gaming world. That's pretty impressive. But there was something that this game does, which is it tries to, should I say, it tries to balance the brutality of the combat with a story of vulnerable people.

So, like, particularly when you're, like, killing people, and cutting them their heads off, it tries to give you a reason why that's happening. And when you see the treatment of some of the mutants, when you see how the mutants are living, when you see the brutality of trash and when you see all that, the game, in my opinion, and it would have to do this almost, right?

The game is underscoring why Wolverine-specific brand of brutality and really what Team X is doing, why that has to happen, because of people being kidnapped, even like when you first meet you know Leach and some of the other people that are in the game and all that stuff like that and you see kind of the fact that they're

trying to be people and be accepted by people you hear the voice of a child saying that like what I would want more than anything is to have a mom that loves me even though I don't look right all of that stuff and then Wolverine is hearing that and he's going fucking trash

the entire time he's doing that then he has to go out and like maim a bunch of of Revers, and you like don't feel as bad about it. Not that you wouldn't have. Not that you would have, should I say, like, because you're playing a video game, but it makes those guys, it doubles down on their villainy.

I think that's true of the X-Men period, right? Like the X-Men period. In that first movie, the fucking dude gets hit with the mutant thing and then at the end of it, he just like melts away. Yeah. And then Mystique takes it like Senator Kelly. He's like, yeah, he melts away.

And Mystique takes his place. He dies in a terrible, like, horrible crazy scene. Like, ridiculous way over the course of the entire movie. But that is butchers up against the fact that he has people hiding in the sewer, that he has people running for their lives, that he has people through what he's evangelizing, legitimately living as people that don't have any safety in the world at all. So that will always be something that's paramount in the end.

X-Men will never be able to not have the reverberations and reflections of that in our life because we don't treat people right. In this game, I thought that, you know, the Revers and Trask and all of these people, they really were, you know, the bad guys. Like, I felt like they hated people. They hated mutants. And they're stupid because they're cyborgs. So they're not really human either.

So I'm just, you know, I enjoyed that part of it. overall for me overall like it I tend not to be pedantic about things period like you really have to get it wrong for me to go crazy and talk about how wrong it is I get that but with video games even less so

like I get mad if the game is too hard I play MLB the show not to win I play MLB the show to hit 85 homeowner in the season with show hail time and that's the reason why I'm playing If I want to play games two to one, like I can watch the real shit where the whole league is hitting 233.

Like I want to play the game and hit the ball. Like we hit the ball in 1996. I mean, you got to do another baseball podcast to talk about this. Yeah, I got like, I don't like, hey, this guy's killing the ball. He's raking in August.

He gets up there, he's back to 232. 35 old grats. Like, I like, one problem. bombs out there. Like, what is this? God's just the guys have to support. The power numbers for this guy are off the chart. 24 homers.

I'm like, what? Like, so, you know, like, I got to, like, cut people up as Wolverine. And I got a lot more game to play. But I have fun with it. But I can still tell that it is no Spider-Man. Like, I can tell. For sure. I can tell that much.

I can tell that it is no Spider-Man. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, they do stuff a lot. of stuff into this story, not so much just like, you know, ooh, look at this character making a cameo way, but it's almost like there are three acts. I won't give away too much, but, you know, it's all about Trask at the beginning of the game, and it's not a little later on. They're really a few big bads in this game, and some of them make more sense than others, and we get

sort of a detour featuring Lady Death Strike and the hand. And by the way, the hand is getting too many minutes these days. We're seeing the hand in everything. I don't know. I don't know. I think they're too much They're overduements They're overduey They're random nidginas that we never gave a fuck about Like it's like

We're making them for last time now They're cool But I said this in the Spider-Man movie Everybody was like Oh my God the hand I was like oh my God the hand What you talking about? I think it's because they got

They got over hyped in Daredevil Season what three from Netflix And then we never We never lost obsession with them Like they were cool then Yeah It made sense then That's so funny

But like they ran them They're random ninja dudes That we never had As opposed to what If you're okay You're gonna go do a ninja clan In Japan The hand is the layup

Right? You might have to do a little deeper The yakuza That's crazy You want the yakuza in the game Man, I see you That's nuts man No that's it

That actually would be great Wolverine Yakuza game A Wolverine Yakuza game Yeah But like from Sega Where you're just walking around The streets of Tokyo You go into gambling,

play, go into the batting cages. You do some karaoke. Yeah. It'll be fun. That sounds great to me. Yeah. And sometimes, like,

I don't know if you guys thought, you know, there are times where it seems to be building up to a boss fight and then someone gets killed in a cutscene. You know, it's like a skullbuster. Yeah. Skullbuster gets got in a cutscene.

You don't have to fight him. There's like this telepath for the hand. I don't know if it's Ogun or Ogunn or not even named that you're just, he's like haunting you and then you don't get to fight him or anything. It's a little weird. I don't know if that was entirely planned. And then there's some characters like in Gene's mutant group

who just, like, Callisto, you know, she's around. Like, you're not really learning. What is that? What is that? What is that? From Matt TV. Deborah Wilson? She is in.

Shout out to her agent for getting these video game roles. Like every other AAA game she is in in some capacity. And I'm like, man, good for you. Yeah. It's a little distracted now because they almost always, if you have a well-known actor, because it's all motion-capped. And that helps with the animation. But then they use the actor's faces typically in the game. And so, like, Essex, Mr. Sinister just looks like Troy Baker.

It's a little bit distracting. I bet you that was in the contract, though. They're like, you're using my like this. It's going to be me now. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Anyway, yeah.

The nice thing about this is if you get sort of a semi-disappointment like this game, You don't have to have a whole round of superhero fatigue talk because it's almost separate because we're having a pretty solid post-peak year for Marvel on the whole, both critically commercially, brand new day, X-Men 97, Season 2, Wonder Man, even in video games with Marvel token fighting souls and then Doomsday is looming. And then Wolverine comes along and it kind of takes a little wind out of the sales, but we don't have to do the whole. It's so over. We're so back every time a video game comes out. Because I think Marvel's Wolverine falling flat is more of an insomniac and Sony story than it is a Marvel story or a superhero story, right? No one's saying like, Marvel, they've lost their touch when this game comes out because it's not like Marvel made the game. Right.

So it doesn't really fit into that narrative mercifully. So we don't have to hash that out again. And, you know, look, there's a lot to recommend it. People have focused on the negative. Often we have, too. and there is a lot of negative, but it's a fun game for what it is. It's just that because of the pedigree of insomniac,

because of the legacy of the Spider-Man games, because of the $70 price tag, because people were assuming that this would be one of the best games of the year. They also hyped the shit out of it. Oh, sure. Yeah. And then it turns out to be a decent action game

that's pretty fun to rip people apart for a while and probably not that memorable ultimately and maybe leans a little too hard on these tropes and everything. but it looks great. It sounds good. It runs well. You'll probably have a decent time with it for 15 hours or so, or at least 10 hours,

and then you might be ready for it to be over as I was. I thought this game was over like three times before it actually ended. But this podcast, I think, is over. We can bring this to a close. And I'm glad that you guys could come on. You know, you begged me to come on as we established. You basically invited yourself onto this podcast, and I was just like, I mean.

I guess you guys can come on. We'll do another Wolverine episode. So here you go. You got it. This is my gift to you. No, thank you very much, guys. I'm glad that I could get most of the midnight boys together. Hey, Ben, next time.

Midnight Mash, GTA 6, Locke's sick. Damn. I mean, we'll be doing several GTA six episodes, I assume. So you can certainly call one of them. This is just a way to get codes, though. This is, you're just established. No. We want codes for GTA.

Ben, why would you even say it like that, bro? You know, you know it's cool. You know it's family, Ben. Why would you even imply that we would come on the podcast just to get codes to the games? Just to use me for me. Joe, Joe, you got to shake it, though. You got to shake it. That's crazy, Ben.

Yeah. I hope anyone will get GTA codes. Even me. I don't know. That's the one thing. It doesn't matter. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, they're going to give you a code, bro. There's no way.

They'll be like, hey, yeah. You want to review the game? They need the button mash for. They'll pay $90. What? No way. You can contact button mash at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Thank you to Devin Rinaldo for producing this episode and to our Juneer Ramgapal for his senior podcast management.

Tons of big games coming out over the next few weeks. Fire emblem fortunes weave, control resident, silent hill townfall, Star Wars Galactic Racer. You got to be a vampire or a Don Walker who doesn't sleep to play all these. games. Fortunately, I am. And Buttmash will be back next Thursday to cover Zach Craigers' Resonant Evil movie. And before that, you can catch Van, Jomey, and Steve with a special guest substituting for Charles on Sunday night immediately after Lanterns, episode five. Until then, okay, suckers, we've taken our best shots. Now it's your turn.