The many faces of Wolverine


Above: A real Wolverine

Above: The Wolverine of our hearts


Above: An unlockable costume in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Peep the rest of the article for the other two unlockable costumes

Now that Wolvie’s been synonymous with the Tony-award winning Hugh Jackman since 2000’s X-Men movie, we haven’t seen too many comic book Wolverine games. With X-Men Origins: Wolverine just around the corner, we thought we’d remind you of his past gaming excursions with this handy chart:

Marvel’s X-Men (LJN, 1989) - NES
Wolverine’s taking front and center on this pretty cool box art, which resembles a comic book cover. Good luck spotting him in the game. He looks more like Teddy Ruxpin than a mutant with metal claws. Doesn’t matter - the game is incredibly difficult (almost unfair), seemingly broken and you needed a secret code to reach the last level.


Above: Wolverine’s in there somewhere


X-Men: Madness in Murderworld (Paragon Software, 1989) – DOS, C64, Amiga
X-Men II: Fall of the Mutants (Paragon Software, 1990) – PC, DOS

Murderworld played like a side-scrolling arcade game as the X-Men fight Magneto and Arcade in an amusement park. On the other hand, Fall of the Mutants played mostly from a top-down perspective (except the battle screens). Squint and you can barely make out Wolverine’s almost dog-like head.


Above: Showdown of the century against the Minor Demon

Spider-Man and the X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge (Acclaim, 1992-1994) – SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear
You start the game as Spider-Man until you happen upon members of the X-Men in bondage. From there, you complete two themed levels (Wolverine’s are circus-themed) for each of the five mutants in this criminally difficult game. Strangely, Wolvie’s bio incorrectly specifies his name as “Logan” - a name he adopted) and that his occupation is “adventurer”… whatever that means.

Above: Sexy