all games are not created equal

Both of these games take one gimmick and build an entire game around it.  In Timeshift, you can control time by slowing it down, stopping it, or rewinding.  In Wanted, you can curve bullets and shoot people in slow motion.

Even though the gimmick in Timeshift seemed really cool, it was really really lame in action.  The game played terribly and just felt cheap.

Wanted did feel cheap at times, but I still had a lot of fun curving bullets all over the place.  When you weren't curving bullets, the gunplay wasn't that terrible either.

Even though Wanted is better, you shouldn't buy it.  Especially at 60 bucks, because I beat the game in about 4 hours.  Give it a rent if you like, but there are definitely better games to play.

Max Payne did slow motion and cool shootouts the way it's supposed to be done.  Wanted does try to pull of some cool looking stuff, but only really does so in one specific sequence.  I won't say what you do during it, but it's sweet and looks kinda cool.

Control-wise, Wanted feels terribly sluggish.  Turning corners doesn't feel natural in the game.  Neither does running around when you're not using cover.  Max Payne felt awesome when you were diving through the air shooting up a room.  The way Max moved in the air as you twisted around during a dive looked great.

If you haven't played Max Payne, you probably should.  I recommend a PC =)

Only because I've recently played both of these games.

I actually played through all of Wanted in one sitting.  All 4 hours of it.  I don't know if it was because I enjoyed the game or if I felt like I could beat the game in one sitting.  MadWorld, however, didn't keep me playing.  My sessions were maybe 30 minutes long. 

The thing is though, I think MadWorld did more things right than Wanted and ended up with a better game.  I have a couple issues with the way they pulled off the black and white effect in MadWorld, but it still looks decent.  MadWorld also has a combo system that I think if I gave it a chance, could grow on me.  Overall, you can tell that a decent amount of thought went into MadWorld.

As for Wanted, it does do the bullet curving thing right.  It is fun to use and can product some cool kills.  Mostly everything else in the game though isn't quite perfect.  Controls are sluggish, some sections of the game are terribly annoying, sniping is lame, graphics look kinda dated and you pretty much fight all the enemies in the exact same way (hide behind cover, curve a bullet to get them out of cover, then shoot them).

I give this to MadWorld, even though I may have had more fun playing Wanted.  I just know that MadWorld is the better game.

The big reason that I like Wanted more is because of how impatient I am.  Hitman seems like it could be a good game for the right person, and that person definitely is not me.  I don't have the patience to carefully watch all the people around me and figure out who can go where and how I could kill the people without being suspicious.  What usually ends up happening is me trying to be careful, they see me being suspicious, then I shoot them in the face a bunch of times.  Cue tons of other people running to figure out what all the rucus was about.

Wanted was a very short and flawed game, but I still found it enjoyable.  It was mindless shooting, but it was right up my alley.  No need to scope out patrol patterns, just shoot 'em and move on.

Both of these games feel like budget titles to me in there own way.  They get some stuff right, but then a lot of other stuff just doesn't feel like it has the same polish on it.

Wanted had cool moments with the shooting and the story part of it wasn't half bad.  It kinda did one thing kinda right, which is this whole cover and shooting thing.  Problem is, that's all the game was, for the around 4 hours it took to beat it.  Nothing more than taking cover and shooting the entire time.

Prototype is the same in its repetition.  You fly/run around, kill some stuff and just keep doing that.  It has a great system of all these little goals to accomplish which can keep you playing for a while if you're a 100% guy like I can be sometimes.  You can upgrade your moves, which is cool, but there are far too many separate moves and it's hard for me to actually use them all in battle.  I usually just use the same couple over and over until I make everything dead.

Story-wise, they are both interesting enough.  Wanted was a cool continuation of the movie.  Prototype goes with the Bourne Identity "who am i" kind of stuff the entire time and slowly shows you bits and pieces of your past as you play, which can be motivating enough to keep you playing to see what the deal is.

Prototype gives you more bang for your buck.  Wanted is a short game and there isn't much reason to 100% it, so you won't be playing it for long.  Protype isn't that bad of a game.  It's also not that great of a game, but it can still be enjoyable.