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Wolverine and the Marvel Universe in gaming
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Everybody’s favorite superhero slasher has long had a presence in video games. But he has an even longer history in other gaming platforms set in the Marvel universe. This article reviews Wolverine and the Marvel Universe in role-playing games, video games, Heroclix, VS collectible card system, and the upcoming MMORPG.
Wolverine has always been a tough customer; both in the comics as well as a gaming experience. Wolverine’s powers make him the Superman of the Marvel universe – too fun to ignore as a playable character but too powerful to accurately balance his abilities against other characters. With animal senses, regeneration, and an adamantium-laced skeleton, Wolverine is nigh unstoppable. Predictably, most video game representations tend to dumb him down to provide the player with a challenge.
The X-Men Origins: Wolverine game aims to fix all that, embracing the bloody nature of a hero with indestructible razor sharp claws and a body that can be torn down to bare bones and keep going. Wolverine, by his nature, is a rated-R subject and it’s about time a game treated him as such.
Long before the video games came along, Wolverine was represented in no less than three role-playing game incarnations, beginning in 1984 with the Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game (MSHRPG). The MSHRPG featured seven attributes: Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche, which gave the game system the acronym FASERIP. Like many role-playing games of its time, the MSHRPG used tables to resolve conflicts. Three other abilities included Talents (skills), Resources (wealth) and Popularity (reputation). Superpowers weren’t codified and handled on a case-by-case basis. The MSHRPG wasn’t structured to handle uniquely created characters and only provided the most basic character creation rules.
In the late 1990s, the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (creating the unfortunate acronym MSHAG) featured the SAGA System, a card-based system that replaced both die-rolling and experience points. Given the tremendous popularity of other dice-based role-playing games, like Champions and Heroes Unlimited, it’s not surprising that the SAGA version of Marvel Super Heroes didn’t do well.
When the rights for the role-playing game reverted back to Marvel Comics, the company decided to release its own version in 2003: the Marvel Universe Role-playing Game (MURG). Again embracing a diceless system, MURG used red stones to handle powers, combat, and experience. Predictably, it was no more popular than the SAGA system.
Created in 2002, Heroclix pre-painted collectible miniatures game featured primarily Marvel characters, although it later expanded to include many other comic book genres. Heroclix features all the game play of a card game with three dimensional miniatures and solved the challenge of using dice or complicated card maneuvers to adjudicate conflict. With ‘clix, all the numbers are built into the figure itself. The advent of Heroclix revolutionized the miniature gaming market and the collectibles market by producing cheap, pre-painted miniatures at an affordable price.
In 2004, the VS System collectible card game was published by Upper Deck Entertainment. VS covered both Marvel and DC characters, as well as indie comic characters like Hellboy. Cards consisted of Characters, Equipment, Location, and Plot Twist. The VS System provided something every comic gaming fan wanted: cross-universe compatibility.
Marvel’s presence, and by proxy Wolverine, has been a powerful force in every form of gaming except one: the massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG). Hopes of a cross-console MMORPG were dashed last year when Cryptic Studios shifted its MMORPG intellectual property to Champions instead.
Fear not, true believers. There’s hope yet for Wolverine and Marvel fans: Gazillion recently inked a deal with Marvel to produce the Marvel Universe MMORPG. I’m looking forward to it. Make mine Marvel!
For more info: The Dead End Avengers Headquarters features a treasure trove of MSHRPG products.
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