X-Men: The Official Game

X-Men 3: The Last Stand is the much-speculated end of the popular Marvel superhero movie series. Although the film has been in development since early 2003, the lack of actor commitment and proper direction had delayed its release. Now in theaters, the movie is accompanied by an overly-expected Marvel licensed videogame (adding to the growing laundry list of dirty superhero titles). I applaud Activision for titling this new addition to the franchise X-Men: The Official Game. Without branding this version as “officially” Marvel, many gamers would mistake this for a superhero video-game knock-off. X-Men feels like it was rushed through development to arrive in time for the movie release and lacks the innovative gameplay experience that fans rightly deserve.

The storyline, in general, is a little fragmented. Taking place between the 2nd and 3rd X-Men movies, you start out at Alkali Lake (the location from the sequel where Jean Gray got obliterated by a wall of water). At first, I was excited at the potential to carry forward from this point with a new X-Men adventure. Sadly, the game eventually breaks up into random levels of fighting with no real cohesion.

The game centers around three playable characters: Wolverine, Iceman, and Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming's character is noticeably absent in the latest X-Men film installment, but Shawn Ashmore's reprise of the icy teen mutant plays a more integral role). Each character offers up their own unique powers that players can use throughout the campaign. Wolverine's adamantium claws and fast attacks do a great job in tenderizing enemy bodies, Iceman surfs on ice through the air taking out baddies with lethal icicles, and Nightcrawler can teleport to otherwise unreachable areas of the map or to escape bad situations (is it just me, or is Nightcrawler a wimp?). Although I agree with developer Z-Axis' choice of playable mutants, the capabilities and moves given to each character is incredibly limited. At its core, X-Men is a repetitive button smasher with no combo attacks. The mutants can get away with using the same attack over and over again, mainly due to the artificial intelligence of the enemies that border on mentally retarded. Enemies attack in patterns using things like electric yard sticks, guns, and amateurish mutant powers (probably X-Men Academy dropouts).

Wolverine has been in virtually every X-Men title ever developed. Even so, the developers have failed to make Logan's badass-combat style come through in the game. Iceman will mainly be used during race 'n chase levels where Bobby is constantly in motion dodging hazards and using his powers for ranged combat (the levels are time-restricted, which plain sucks). Nightcrawler presents the most gameplay appeal. It is easy to control his teleport powers and comes in handy when evading groups of enemies.

The boss fights are the most entertaining part of the game. Bosses like Sabretooth, Pyro, and Multiple Man are quick to defend and attack, requiring a little more effort to take them down. But these battles do not make up for the overly simplistic gameplay mechanics this game suffers from. Bonus features like alternate costumes and character upgrades you must unlock add little to the replay value.

With only three main characters, you'd expect the graphical detail of the mutants would be quite impressive. I was unpleasantly surprised as X-Men falls short in every category. May baddies look identical to each other, the level design is below average, and the special effects including graphic-novel style cutscenes are unimpressive. All three actors as well as Patrick Stewart lend their voice to the project, which comes out strong. However, the repetitive soundtrack and sound effects don't meet expectations.

Gameplay: 5.5
Good boss fights, but everything else falls tragically short.

Graphics: 6.0
I know its not next-generation, but X-Men on PS2 should look better than this.

Sound: 7.0
Besides the actors, the sound is pretty weak.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 5.0
Marvel needs to step in to save its faltering brand from poor development of licensed games.

Overall: 5.6
X-Men: The Official Game had the potential to break free from the stereotypically bad superhero genre but ended up contributing to it. Fans will no doubt ignore my words of wisdom and purchase this game anyway. But movie goers looking to satisfy their cravings of more X-Men action should best stay away from this one.