Wolverine's Rage is certainly well-rendered by Game Boy Color standards. Its backgrounds feature about as much color and graphical detail as you're likely to see on the GBC, and Wolverine himself moves with considerable grace; his claw swipes, in particular, feature a surprising number of animation frames. However, while Wolverine's Rage contains a large number of levels, they break down into only four themes, which only adds to the game's repetitive nature. Still, visual quality is easily X-Men: WR's best attribute. Sound is not far behind; while the music inevitably retains the typical Game Boy tinniness, it is fairly well composed, and a number of digitized samples add punch to WR's selection of sound effects. Considering the system's limitations, the presentation of Wolverine's Rage is well above average.

If only the gameplay wasn't more deadening than a triple dose of Novocaine. Wolverine's Rage is as generic a side-scroller as they come. Even in the age of the polygon, I have nothing but love for a good 2D action/platformer; the Castlevania and Shinobi series still have an honored place in my gaming habits. However, this game would've seemed uninspired even in the heyday of 8-bit. You jump around on platforms. You slash people. That's about it.

To make matters worse, most levels only have two types of enemies, and there's no technique involved in beating them. Either they have projectile weapons, which are trivial to avoid when they don't vanish against the background, or they have melee weapons with similar range and speed to your claws. Against the latter, you're almost guaranteed to get whacked. These cheap shots notwithstanding, Wolverine's Rage is a fairly easy game; when you've waded through too many hits, just stand around for a while and let Wolvie's famous healing factor bring you back to fighting condition. There's a timer to prevent abuse of this feature, but the levels, however numerous, are usually short enough for you to get away with it.

To Digital Eclipse's credit, they tried to inject some depth into WR's control scheme, but it just doesn't work. Wolverine has a vertical slash you can execute with the quarter-circle+attack motion familiar to anyone who's ever thrown a hadouken. However, this attack is only likely to hit enemies directly above you, and you'll rarely find one in that position. Rapidly pressing the attack button sends Wolverine into one of his trademark berserker rages. This smoothly animated move looks very cool, but you lose control while it's in progress; in a game with so many small platforms, this will often cause the enraged Wolvie to spaz himself right off a ledge. On top of that, the berserker attack drains a fair amount of health. This makes it a waste against regular foes, and the game's few bosses can shrug off the hits and pound on you until full control returns, resulting in a quick death from two-front energy loss. Special attacks don't do much to enhance gameplay when they're virtually useless.

I'm sure no small amount of effort was invested in making X-Men: Wolverine's Rage look and sound as good as it does. It does seem tightly coded, as well; scrolling, control response, and collision detection are generally reliable. It is not, in other words, the kind of release that makes me want to swear off gaming forever and join a monastery. Nevertheless, I can't recommend paying the asking price for a game so short on entertainment value. There just isn't enough to do, and the constant repetition of its simplistic play mechanics results in a game that turns to drudgery long before it reaches its conclusion. Sorry, Logan, but you aren't even close to the best at what you do.