X-Men: The Official Game – PS2 – Review

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.

Review Scoring Details for X-Men: The Official Game

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.