X-Men: The Official Game
Posted May 31, 2006
Please be aware, the game review may contain potential spoilers to the X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men United.
Games that are released to coincide with their movie inspirations rarely fair well in the videogame industry, and X-Men: The Official Game falls more in the relatively unknown middle ground of somewhat redeeming.
Rather than follow suit with the animated look and team based approach of the two previous X-Men Legends titles, Activision is publishing the latest X-Men game, titled X-Men: The Official Game which takes a more realistic movie influenced approach.
The official game of what you might ask? Well, it doesn't follow directly with the storyline of the latest movie, but does fill in some gaps that take place between X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. For instance fans of the movies may wonder why the very interesting character of Nightcrawler was omitted from this summer's release, and to find this out you'll have to play the game.
Gameplay:
In the Official Game you play as one of three characters along three separate paths towards the final conflict; Iceman, Wolverine and Nightcrawler all make their appearance as playable characters, and on some occasions you'll have secondary support from other mutants to aid you in your quest. In a mixed blessing, all three characters play differently and each brings a briefly unique gameplay style to the title.
While all three have different methods of attack and modes of play, there are some threads that run the course of the title, such as the ability to upgrade your mutant of choice with additional mutations. Upon starting a level you choose which difficulty level you wish to tackle the task at; higher difficulties generally mean more mutations are awarded which make later levels that much easier.
Also scattered throughout each level of the character paths are "hidden" Sentinel Technology and a Weapon X File, which are used to unlock a couple of features in the game, namely alternate costumes to use when you want to head back and replay the game. While these items are supposed to be hidden, very rudimentary searching is required to find Nightcrawler and Wolverine's technology, which some navigation is needed to find the items in the slightly more open Iceman levels.
Wolverine as expected takes center stage in this title, with his adamantium claws tearing through hoards of the HYDRA (minions of Stryker) to reach his ultimate match up in Sabertooth in the inevitable anti-climatic climax. Controlling Wolverine winds up being a button mashing extravaganza not too far into the game, and levels become poorly executed waves of enemies that you must blast through. Sometimes without even leaving the same room!
Iceman's levels are not much better, although they do differ dramatically from the other two character levels. Sincethe Silver Surfer Iceman slides on his ramp of solid ice to maneuver, his levels become missions where you fly through checkpoints or use your skills to douse fires or seal leaks before either the timer expires, or too much damage is done. These on rails levels are very uninspired and become the chore of the game. I found myself dreading the necessity to do Iceman's few levels to advance the plot so I could get back to Nightcrawler's episodes.
The best playing character of the bunch is Nightcrawler thanks to his ability to teleport and confuse his enemies. These levels while still not the prototype of level design at its best offered more variation in their self contained shell.
In on level you have to disarm bombs and take out Hydra. In another you have to repair fayed wires, all while taking down Hydra. And in a face off against Multiple Man you have to deal with the many hims, and get this…disarm a bomb. The saving grace is definitely the ability to disappear from one spot only to reappear behind an unsuspecting baddie and start to pummel him before he can turn around. Sadly though, once the game is done you've done the same button combination so many times it too feels like a button masher, but at least with some cooler visual and audio effects, other than the Snikt of Wolvies claws.
The game packs 16 achievements worth 1000 points, but with some very strange things that go on. First, three achievements are worth 0 points. So why even bother with them? Second and even stranger is the achievement given for "Obtaining 950 points", why not dole these out for the three 0 based achievements? And finally a bug, two achievement descriptions are reversed; nothing major but disappointing to see. I mean if they can't get this right, what other corners did they cut?
Graphics:
Since this is a multi console release the graphics aren't top notch for the Xbox 360, instead they seem to be simple upgrades over the Xbox graphics. Sure they are rendered at a higher resolution, but overall I feel that this is nothing more than a port of a lesser generation title (which it is). The graphics aren't necessarily bad, but compared to titles developed exclusively for the next generation system, they pale in comparison.
The cut scenes in the game were an interesting touch, with the style taking on a comic book format but using the real people models. So Storm did look like Halle Berry, and Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine is well represented here too. The scenes were very slightly animated, with few moving parts, but were oddly interesting. No major graphical glitches were noticed in either gameplay or cutscenes which is worth noting.
Audio:
A huge coup for the audio department here with the actors from the movie reprising their roles in the Official Game. This does add a nice link to the movie and keeps the characters more in line with how we want to picture them. The voice work is very well done in keeping with the tone of the movie; it's not Oscar caliber, but still good none the less.
Conclusion:
Again it comes down to the big question: Is this worth the extra cash to purchase for the Xbox 360. Well, the real question should be is this worth the purchase at all. Not a terrible long (or difficult) game, and clocking in at well under 8 hours including some level replays to complete really puts this nicely into the rental category. Fans of the series will get a kick out of the title when played in conjunction with The Last Stand, but those looking for the fun and entertainment that the Legends titles brought well be disappointed.
Is this worth $60 on the 360? No, it's not – but it definitely is worth renting. Is it worth $20 less on the other consoles? Even then it might be better suited for a rental.
Games that are released to coincide with their movie inspirations rarely fair well in the videogame industry, and X-Men: The Official Game falls more in the relatively unknown middle ground of somewhat redeeming.
Rather than follow suit with the animated look and team based approach of the two previous X-Men Legends titles, Activision is publishing the latest X-Men game, titled X-Men: The Official Game which takes a more realistic movie influenced approach. The official game of what you might ask? Well, it doesn't follow directly with the storyline of the latest movie, but does fill in some gaps that take place between X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand. For instance fans of the movies may wonder why the very interesting character of Nightcrawler was omitted from this summer's release, and to find this out you'll have to play the game.
Gameplay:
In the Official Game you play as one of three characters along three separate paths towards the final conflict; Iceman, Wolverine and Nightcrawler all make their appearance as playable characters, and on some occasions you'll have secondary support from other mutants to aid you in your quest. In a mixed blessing, all three characters play differently and each brings a briefly unique gameplay style to the title.
While all three have different methods of attack and modes of play, there are some threads that run the course of the title, such as the ability to upgrade your mutant of choice with additional mutations. Upon starting a level you choose which difficulty level you wish to tackle the task at; higher difficulties generally mean more mutations are awarded which make later levels that much easier.
Also scattered throughout each level of the character paths are "hidden" Sentinel Technology and a Weapon X File, which are used to unlock a couple of features in the game, namely alternate costumes to use when you want to head back and replay the game. While these items are supposed to be hidden, very rudimentary searching is required to find Nightcrawler and Wolverine's technology, which some navigation is needed to find the items in the slightly more open Iceman levels.
Wolverine as expected takes center stage in this title, with his adamantium claws tearing through hoards of the HYDRA (minions of Stryker) to reach his ultimate match up in Sabertooth in the inevitable anti-climatic climax. Controlling Wolverine winds up being a button mashing extravaganza not too far into the game, and levels become poorly executed waves of enemies that you must blast through. Sometimes without even leaving the same room!
Iceman's levels are not much better, although they do differ dramatically from the other two character levels. Since
The best playing character of the bunch is Nightcrawler thanks to his ability to teleport and confuse his enemies. These levels while still not the prototype of level design at its best offered more variation in their self contained shell.
In on level you have to disarm bombs and take out Hydra. In another you have to repair fayed wires, all while taking down Hydra. And in a face off against Multiple Man you have to deal with the many hims, and get this…disarm a bomb. The saving grace is definitely the ability to disappear from one spot only to reappear behind an unsuspecting baddie and start to pummel him before he can turn around. Sadly though, once the game is done you've done the same button combination so many times it too feels like a button masher, but at least with some cooler visual and audio effects, other than the Snikt of Wolvies claws. The game packs 16 achievements worth 1000 points, but with some very strange things that go on. First, three achievements are worth 0 points. So why even bother with them? Second and even stranger is the achievement given for "Obtaining 950 points", why not dole these out for the three 0 based achievements? And finally a bug, two achievement descriptions are reversed; nothing major but disappointing to see. I mean if they can't get this right, what other corners did they cut?
Graphics:
Since this is a multi console release the graphics aren't top notch for the Xbox 360, instead they seem to be simple upgrades over the Xbox graphics. Sure they are rendered at a higher resolution, but overall I feel that this is nothing more than a port of a lesser generation title (which it is). The graphics aren't necessarily bad, but compared to titles developed exclusively for the next generation system, they pale in comparison.
The cut scenes in the game were an interesting touch, with the style taking on a comic book format but using the real people models. So Storm did look like Halle Berry, and Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine is well represented here too. The scenes were very slightly animated, with few moving parts, but were oddly interesting. No major graphical glitches were noticed in either gameplay or cutscenes which is worth noting.
Audio:
A huge coup for the audio department here with the actors from the movie reprising their roles in the Official Game. This does add a nice link to the movie and keeps the characters more in line with how we want to picture them. The voice work is very well done in keeping with the tone of the movie; it's not Oscar caliber, but still good none the less.
Conclusion:
Again it comes down to the big question: Is this worth the extra cash to purchase for the Xbox 360. Well, the real question should be is this worth the purchase at all. Not a terrible long (or difficult) game, and clocking in at well under 8 hours including some level replays to complete really puts this nicely into the rental category. Fans of the series will get a kick out of the title when played in conjunction with The Last Stand, but those looking for the fun and entertainment that the Legends titles brought well be disappointed.
Is this worth $60 on the 360? No, it's not – but it definitely is worth renting. Is it worth $20 less on the other consoles? Even then it might be better suited for a rental.