X-MEN: THE OFFICIAL GAME
XBOX 360
Genre: Beat'em Up
Difficulty: Medium
Players: 1
Developer: Z-Axis
Publisher: Activision
Review by Ruined
SYNOPSIS
Co-written by Zak Penn, the screenwriter of movies X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, and legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont, X-Men: The Official Movie Game immerses players in an original storyline that provides the back-story for the upcoming X-Men: The Last Stand feature film. For the first time ever, the game enables players to truly command the powers of popular characters from the X-Men movie universe by allowing players to assume the roles of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman as they wield and upgrade their signature powers and maneuver through unique environments designed to showcase their Super Hero abilities. Assisted by other X-Men characters, players will use an advanced control scheme to master and control the characters like never before as they unleash Wolverine’s combat rage, experience Nightcrawler’s acrobatics and teleportation powers, and glide through the air on Iceman’s ice slide.
Good game or pure cash-in? Read on.
GRAPHICS: D
Score reflects graphics viewed at 1080i resolution
X-Men: The Official Game would have high graphics marks if it was an XBOX1 game. Unfortunately, this is a 360 you are looking at. Though the game does look much sharper at high resolution, you can tell the graphics were shoveled over from a great looking XBOX1 game for the most part. Disappointing.
SOUND: C
Score reflects sound played back in 5.1 Surround
Sound is decent but could have been much better. All three of the main characters you play have their real life movie's counterpart doing voice acting in the game. Patrick Stewart's voice is also featured in the game. Sound effects and music, though, just don't cut it and are far too generic and recycled.
CONTROL: B+
Control is very good in X-Men: The Official Game. All three characters are very responsive, and Z-Axis did a commendable job in making Nightcrawler's teleport ability work so perfectly in a 3D game environment. Well done!
SINGLE PLAYER GAMEPLAY: C-
Prior to checking out this game, I took a gander at the developer of the game. Z-Axis? That sounds familiar... Ah yes, the developer of BMX XXX and Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX. Going through their history, I didn't see a thing that indicated they would have the slightest clue on how to make an effective action/adventure game. Well, we put trust in Activision that Z-Axis was the right choice for the official X-Men game, don't we? I mean, with all of that raunchy BMX action, they can't be half-bad of a developer can they?
Joking aside, Z-Axis almost did a good job with the core gameplay mechanics of X-Men: The Official Game. In this game the player gets to take control of Wolverine, Ice Man, and Nightcrawler - using these mutants to smash their way through tons of bad guys. While doing this, a story unfolds before the player which is supposed to bridge the story between the motion pictures X2 and X3; sounds a bit like the concept behind the game Enter the Matrix, doesn't it? Well, just like that game and many other movie-licensed games X-Men: The Official Game is a big missed opportunity.
Most of the time you are playing X-Men: The Official Game, you will be beating up hoardes of the same five enemies. While there are some unique ones here and there, for the most part you get hoardes of palette-swapped bad guys. The environments you fight in, like the enemies, also look very similar from level to level. It is a good thing that the actual X-Men are unique because the stages and enemies are incredibly generic and boring. That doesn't mean they are pushovers... Okay, they are pushovers, but there are a lot of them and they gang up on you! In short, your game consists of killing loads of nameless, faceless bad guys while you are rewarded with a cutscene and stat boost at the end of every mission. Cutscenes are rendered as still frames with light animation now and then to give a comic-book effect. So, wanna know how the X-Men themselves shape up?
Wolverine's gameplay is the most fast and furious out of the three (as it should be), however it also manages to be the least inspired. While it is certainly a blast to slice and dice with Wolvie, there really isn't much to his gameplay other than mashing the attack buttons while periodically healing. Wolvie also has a Fury meter which builds up over time and eventually when charged allows you to unleash some ultra-strong attacks while regaining life for a short period of time. That's basically it - no real strategy involved, just straightforward slashing. Though it proves to be fun at first, by Act 2 you will probably start to get pretty bored of Wolverine's gameplay.
Ice Man's gameplay is a bit of a change up where you essentially fly around the stage on a surfboard freezing enemies via ranged attacks, but to be honest it really doesn't fit that well with the rest of the game. While I assume this was done to give a change of pace, it really ends up just sticking out like a sore thumb; what is a flying game doing in what is essentially a beat'em up? Further, the Ice Man stages tend to be no more than an annoyance before you get back to the real game with Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Sadly, there are quite a few Ice Man levels so you can't just quickly breeze through them. The fact that most are timed means that you will likely have to make several unnecessary trips through them just to collect all the bonus items.
Nightcrawler's gameplay is by far the most inventive of the three. Instead of simply mashing buttons you can teleport around the stage, including behind enemies. This means you can use your teleport skill to surprise the enemy and get in a bunch of attacks before he can even move. This proves to be the most fun action, as you essentially can zip around the room smashing enemies left and right as they run around in a daze trying to catch you. To be honest, Z-Axis did such a fantastic job with Nightcrawler's gameplay that this game probably would have been a ton better if it was exclusively his game!
All said and done, Z-Axis did a fine job of creating core gameplay elements for Nightcrawler in this game and passable jobs on the other two. Z-Axis also threw in some bonus collectibles that you can collect to unlock costumes and other content in the game. It is worth to note that where this game truly falls apart is in its terrible level and enemy design. So much potential is wasted on drab, boring, short-lived, poorly designed levels. And to top it off...
MULTIPLAYER GAMEPLAY & XBOX LIVE FEATURES: F
Difficulty to earn XBOX Live Achievement Points: Medium
To top it off, it's a beat'em up without any multiplayer whatsoever. No co-op on the same console, no Live play, nothing. This type of game could really have gotten some extra gameplay value with some solid multiplayer put in, but it was completely omitted from the game.
And XBOX Live Achievements? The large majority of the points you won't get until you have beaten the game, and even then you likely will have to replay it through at least one more time at the hardest difficulty to finish them off. Though that may sound tough, believe it or not it actually won't take that long. Like the levels and enemies, the achievements are generic and uninspiring. Collect all of item X in the game, fully upgrade character Y in the game, etc...
OVERALL: D
X-Men: The Official Game is definitely a missed opportunity and definitely overpriced. While the Nightcrawler levels are fun, the Wolverine levels get boring fast and the Ice Man levels are just plain suckage. Without online multiplayer nothing can really save this title from the bargain bin where it is destined. Avoid.
Link to buy: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=200132
XBOX 360
Genre: Beat'em Up
Difficulty: Medium
Players: 1
Developer: Z-Axis
Publisher: Activision
Review by Ruined
SYNOPSIS
Co-written by Zak Penn, the screenwriter of movies X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, and legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont, X-Men: The Official Movie Game immerses players in an original storyline that provides the back-story for the upcoming X-Men: The Last Stand feature film. For the first time ever, the game enables players to truly command the powers of popular characters from the X-Men movie universe by allowing players to assume the roles of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman as they wield and upgrade their signature powers and maneuver through unique environments designed to showcase their Super Hero abilities. Assisted by other X-Men characters, players will use an advanced control scheme to master and control the characters like never before as they unleash Wolverine’s combat rage, experience Nightcrawler’s acrobatics and teleportation powers, and glide through the air on Iceman’s ice slide.
Good game or pure cash-in? Read on.
GRAPHICS: D
Score reflects graphics viewed at 1080i resolution
X-Men: The Official Game would have high graphics marks if it was an XBOX1 game. Unfortunately, this is a 360 you are looking at. Though the game does look much sharper at high resolution, you can tell the graphics were shoveled over from a great looking XBOX1 game for the most part. Disappointing.
SOUND: C
Score reflects sound played back in 5.1 Surround
Sound is decent but could have been much better. All three of the main characters you play have their real life movie's counterpart doing voice acting in the game. Patrick Stewart's voice is also featured in the game. Sound effects and music, though, just don't cut it and are far too generic and recycled.
CONTROL: B+
Control is very good in X-Men: The Official Game. All three characters are very responsive, and Z-Axis did a commendable job in making Nightcrawler's teleport ability work so perfectly in a 3D game environment. Well done!
SINGLE PLAYER GAMEPLAY: C-
Prior to checking out this game, I took a gander at the developer of the game. Z-Axis? That sounds familiar... Ah yes, the developer of BMX XXX and Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX. Going through their history, I didn't see a thing that indicated they would have the slightest clue on how to make an effective action/adventure game. Well, we put trust in Activision that Z-Axis was the right choice for the official X-Men game, don't we? I mean, with all of that raunchy BMX action, they can't be half-bad of a developer can they?
Joking aside, Z-Axis almost did a good job with the core gameplay mechanics of X-Men: The Official Game. In this game the player gets to take control of Wolverine, Ice Man, and Nightcrawler - using these mutants to smash their way through tons of bad guys. While doing this, a story unfolds before the player which is supposed to bridge the story between the motion pictures X2 and X3; sounds a bit like the concept behind the game Enter the Matrix, doesn't it? Well, just like that game and many other movie-licensed games X-Men: The Official Game is a big missed opportunity.
Most of the time you are playing X-Men: The Official Game, you will be beating up hoardes of the same five enemies. While there are some unique ones here and there, for the most part you get hoardes of palette-swapped bad guys. The environments you fight in, like the enemies, also look very similar from level to level. It is a good thing that the actual X-Men are unique because the stages and enemies are incredibly generic and boring. That doesn't mean they are pushovers... Okay, they are pushovers, but there are a lot of them and they gang up on you! In short, your game consists of killing loads of nameless, faceless bad guys while you are rewarded with a cutscene and stat boost at the end of every mission. Cutscenes are rendered as still frames with light animation now and then to give a comic-book effect. So, wanna know how the X-Men themselves shape up?
Wolverine's gameplay is the most fast and furious out of the three (as it should be), however it also manages to be the least inspired. While it is certainly a blast to slice and dice with Wolvie, there really isn't much to his gameplay other than mashing the attack buttons while periodically healing. Wolvie also has a Fury meter which builds up over time and eventually when charged allows you to unleash some ultra-strong attacks while regaining life for a short period of time. That's basically it - no real strategy involved, just straightforward slashing. Though it proves to be fun at first, by Act 2 you will probably start to get pretty bored of Wolverine's gameplay.
Ice Man's gameplay is a bit of a change up where you essentially fly around the stage on a surfboard freezing enemies via ranged attacks, but to be honest it really doesn't fit that well with the rest of the game. While I assume this was done to give a change of pace, it really ends up just sticking out like a sore thumb; what is a flying game doing in what is essentially a beat'em up? Further, the Ice Man stages tend to be no more than an annoyance before you get back to the real game with Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Sadly, there are quite a few Ice Man levels so you can't just quickly breeze through them. The fact that most are timed means that you will likely have to make several unnecessary trips through them just to collect all the bonus items.
Nightcrawler's gameplay is by far the most inventive of the three. Instead of simply mashing buttons you can teleport around the stage, including behind enemies. This means you can use your teleport skill to surprise the enemy and get in a bunch of attacks before he can even move. This proves to be the most fun action, as you essentially can zip around the room smashing enemies left and right as they run around in a daze trying to catch you. To be honest, Z-Axis did such a fantastic job with Nightcrawler's gameplay that this game probably would have been a ton better if it was exclusively his game!
All said and done, Z-Axis did a fine job of creating core gameplay elements for Nightcrawler in this game and passable jobs on the other two. Z-Axis also threw in some bonus collectibles that you can collect to unlock costumes and other content in the game. It is worth to note that where this game truly falls apart is in its terrible level and enemy design. So much potential is wasted on drab, boring, short-lived, poorly designed levels. And to top it off...
MULTIPLAYER GAMEPLAY & XBOX LIVE FEATURES: F
Difficulty to earn XBOX Live Achievement Points: Medium
To top it off, it's a beat'em up without any multiplayer whatsoever. No co-op on the same console, no Live play, nothing. This type of game could really have gotten some extra gameplay value with some solid multiplayer put in, but it was completely omitted from the game.
And XBOX Live Achievements? The large majority of the points you won't get until you have beaten the game, and even then you likely will have to replay it through at least one more time at the hardest difficulty to finish them off. Though that may sound tough, believe it or not it actually won't take that long. Like the levels and enemies, the achievements are generic and uninspiring. Collect all of item X in the game, fully upgrade character Y in the game, etc...
OVERALL: D
X-Men: The Official Game is definitely a missed opportunity and definitely overpriced. While the Nightcrawler levels are fun, the Wolverine levels get boring fast and the Ice Man levels are just plain suckage. Without online multiplayer nothing can really save this title from the bargain bin where it is destined. Avoid.
Link to buy: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=200132
