This X-men title has been receiving multiple bad reviews by various critics. This game does have faults, but it is much more fun than critics will have you believe. This games story is supposed to take place in between X-men II: X-men United and X-men III: The Last Stand. The story takes you in a couple different directions, but it attempts to explain more about Alkaili Lake and the Sentinel Program. But it really is a link between the two motion pictures. The story isn’t one of Marvel’s best ideas, but it is an ok plot. The biggest downfall of the story was that all of the sequences that you get to watch in between levels were motionless. The movies to watch in this game were just still pictures with voices dubbed in.
The gameplay for this title depends completely on what character you are at the time. This game features three different playable X-Men: Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman. Each of the characters are level specific (There are certain levels for certain characters), and you have to play as all of the characters no matter how much you like one more than the other. Each character has completely different button layouts, stories, and gameplay specific to their stages.
The three characters are given a similar number of stages, but Wolverine is set as the “main character” of the game. He does have the most stages, and his boss fight with Sabertooth is the final stage of the game. Wolverine’s controls aren’t very difficult to a good grip on. Most of Wolverine’s gameplay is just a simple hack-and-slash. Then every once and a while when you build up enough energy Wolverine can go into a feral stage, where Wolverine goes into an enraged state and his attacks are pretty devastating. Very little strategy is needed for Wolverine’s levels, just how fast can you mash the buttons on your controller. Wolverine’s storyline focuses a lot on his rivals Deathstrike and Sabertooth. Overall the gameplay for Wolverine is mediocre, because of the repetitiveness.
Nightcrawler is the second character featured in this game. Nightcrawler’s stages are the most entertaining stages of the game. Nightcrawler’s attacks are based on his teleportation and agility. Doing acrobatic attacks while teleporting and kicking multiple guys in the back of the head was visually stunning, as well as fun. It is a little repetitive, but I still found myself simply waiting for the next Nightcrawler level. Nightcrawler’s storyline focused on the Sentinel Program. Colossus even made a special guest appearance on a Nightcrawler level. Overall Nightcrawler’s stages are the reason I liked this game.
Iceman was the last playable character, and frankly he is also the reason that many people hate the game. Iceman’s levels all feature Iceman sliding on the ice slide that he can create for himself for transportation. The controls are sluggish, and the gameplay just isn’t fun. His stages are quite boring. The fact that Iceman never gets down on the ground and walks is quite annoying. You just fly around and shoot ice to put out fires and such. If you missed something you have to do a big loop and try again. Overall, Iceman is the reason that this game is disliked by so many people.
If you are playing on a 360, this game isn’t very difficult to get all 1,000 achievement points. The hardest part is that there are little collectible objects in every level called “Sentinel Tech” and “Weapon X files.“ There are 5 Sentinel Tech on each stage and 1 Weapon X file. Most stages you can find all of them just by rooting around, but they are much more difficult to find on the Iceman stages, since he is constantly moving and some of his stages are timed. One other feature of the game is that as you progress through the game, you “mutate” your character, by adding value to your current attributes (character specific). Which adds a decent objective (mutate all of your characters all of the way), but many hard-core X-men fans have many complaints with the game. The hard-core X-men fans that are updated with the comic books have pointed out discrepancies between the game and the comics. For example, all of the characters in the game can regenerate in some form. Iceman and Wolverine are both capable of regeneration in the comics, but Nightcrawler is not. To regenerate Nightcrawler, you can go into a shadow realm to restore health, which was never a feature that appeared in the comic books.
This title is a great rental. It is fun for a few days, but it gets repetitive and there isn’t any online capabilities. This title only takes about 8-10 hours to complete and pick up all 1,000 achievement points.
