Movie tie in video games have had a rocky past. Sometimes they are brilliant and entertaining like Chronicles of Riddick or Spiderman 2. However most of the time time they are a complete waste of space and aren't even good enough to serve as my coaster. Fortunatly, X-men origins:Wolverine has not succumbed to such a horrible fate.

Straight away I will say this; the game is brutal. Not in terms of difficulty, but in the extreme amount of ways three claws from either hand can damage the human body. The game has a strong violence rating on it when bought in Australia and it has earned it. The amount of stabbing, slicing, dicing, impaling and other such damage is extreme. The last game I played featuring Wolverine was the tie in for X2 and it contained a far greater stealth element. This goes from brutaility and I love it for it. In fact the last time I saw this much blood and guts was when I played The Punisher and for those who played that game, they can appreciate just how much violence this game has. Better yet was witnessing the damage done to wolverine. He'd have massive chunks of skin and muscle blow off and you can actually see the intenal organs and adamantium lacing his bones, and then you can see it all grow slowly back. Its fantastic. 

The story follows the movie alternating between the timeline after Wolverine gets the adamantium placed on his bones and when he was in Africa three years before. Some alteration have been made but for the most part, if you've seen the movie, you know whats coming up. However despite a very good flick to based the plot on, the continual shifting between past and present doesn't really help the game. It feels really disjointed and I feel it would have been better off going through the "Africa" storyline before going on to the "present" story line. But this is a small point.

Combat is a huge part of this game if you haven't guessed and despite the simplicity of the combat controls, the number of ways you can kill things is astounding. You only have access to a heavy attack, light attack, grab, block and dodge but through these simple methods they managed to created a bigger bloodbath that a nuclear bomb. Quick kills are particularly lovely to watch as the damage is horrifying. Counters are partially more annoying whilst simple enough to execute, the animation you get is based solely on the type of enemy your fighting. So if you're fighting the same eight guys and you manage to counter each one, you going to see the same animation 8 times over. A lil variety would be nice but this is a very minute point. Once you get through the million dudes you will inevitably come up to a boss battle or mini boss battle depending as some of them occur so often its not funny. The game really falls down at this point I think because most bosses are a simple matter of dodge, lunge and stab,stab,stab. It gets very repetitive, very quickly. The few exception to this rule are when I was fighting Victor Creed and Deadpool. These two actually felt like boss battles and better yet, they played like a human was on the other end. Something which gave me endless enjoyment because they weren't entirely predictable. 

The game also has a small RPG element that really didn't need to be thrown in but it doesn't interfere with the gameplay so its not so bad.

A review on a game such as this was always going to be somewhat short, but I will finish will this. This game puts you in the shoes of Wolverine and allows you to get in touch with your inner animal. 

The end is nigh for the tv season (for the most part, I won't be noting shows like Burn Notice, Dexter and Top Gear) and so far it has all been reasonably good. So far I have managed to watch the finales of House, NCIS, Scrubs and Supernatural.

The NCIS finale was a bit meh to be honest. For a season finale it could have gone out with a bit more of a bang, instead it seemed like another weekly episode with a little tiny cliffhanger at the end. A season finale should have me hanging out and cursing the fact that I have to wait 5 - 6 months for the next season to start and NCIS just didn't have that. Although admitedly its hard for a crime investigation show to have such an ending, the genre doesn't really lend itself very easily to such an ending. That said, they managed to pull it off last year with the season finale when Director Vance split the entire team up so maybe the creativity just wasn't flowing this year.

Supernatural is next and boy was I hanging out for this one. This season has turned away from the "supernatural" aspect the show started with and taken a turn down bible avenue. The entire season has been about demons vs angels and the freeing of Lucifer from his cage and I have enjoyed it all. The season finale really gave viewers some lovely twists and turns and closed up some loose ends that were still hanging around such as the grand plan that Azazel (the yellow eyed demon) had for Sammy. Unfortunatly despite a great lead up, the ending proved to be somewhat disappointing. The ending of season three was brilliant, leaving Dean suspended by chains in hell screaming out for Sam was fantastic and was eagerly awaiting the start of this season. However this one really was a bit meh. It was still a cliffhanger ending but it didn't really have the "oh shit, what are they going to do now?" impact that it should have had.

House had a lot to live up to in this season finale. After last year's brilliant, BRILLIANT final two episodes, the show had to do put in some hard yards to top last season. The last finale they had focussed on everyone's character, albeit the main focus were on House and Wilson. This year they focussed on House entirely and while some could argue it focussed on House and Cuddy, I don't think so. The ending was somber but still well written and they have given House an interesting new angle they can work on next season.

Finally, there is Scrubs, and whilst the season has been renewed for a ninth season, this last season will always be the final one for me. For eight years, Zach Braff has been leading the crew through their exploits in Sacred Heart hospital and there really is no show without him. And to put things simply, the ending was perfect. I'm serious. I can't think of any criticisms for it. It is a rare thing when I can't find something wrong so believe me when I say I don't take such a statement lightly. For a show that has had some serious ups and down over the years, it ended on a beautiful and emotional high. Well done.

After hearing about the upcoming game, Fight Night Round 4, I had to immediately go out and pre-order this game. I bought Fight Night Round 3 when I bought the 360 and have loved it ever since. The game was simply fantastic and the next one in the series just looks even better. However something which I consider to be pretty unusual has come about from my pre-ordering the game.

I received a call a few days ago from my local games supplier that because I pre-ordered the game I get access to the demo. Now at this point I am unsure as to whether this is exlusive access or just get my hands on it a lil bit earlier access although recent research has led me to believe that it is only a 2 week bonus before it is released to the public.

The point I am trying to get to is that why should pre-ordering a game allow you any special privileges in regards to a demo of the same game. In my mind, the purpose of a demo is trying to get those either on the verge of purchasing to purchase the game and releasing it in a pre-emptive fashion to those who already know they want the game is pointless.

Some may argue that it is so the players can "practise" the game before it comes out which is something that certainly lends itself to sports games like Fight Night or Madden or anything else like that. Such an argument is a fair point but I don't think releasing it early is going to really matter. Demos are by nature a very very limited portion of what you are going to receive in the full game and despite the number of times you play it, you're always going to end up with the same result. It is because of that limited and repetive demo experience, that I don't think releasing a demo two weeks early to those who have pre-ordered is going to be that much of a benefit.

Pre-order bonuses do have their place in the world. Shirts, models, exlusive boxes and all that sort of thing go wonderfully with it. Having something like a demo that will become useless the second you receive the game in your hand. Not so much.