X-Men The Official Game
Officially mediocre.
Published: May 30, 2006
There's also the issue of the game's storyline. Having comic/movie talent behind the game would lead one to believe that it could make for a pretty cool storyline with some great dialogue. One would be dead effing wrong. Instead, we're treated to comic panels that zip by at mach speed and bits of artwork animated with still frames moving across them the likes of which even Adult Swim wouldn't post. If it were presented with a sense that it's not half-assed, it would be a different story, but this goes beyond aesthetics to something that just feels like an afterthought.
The storyline in the game itself isn't much better. You'll basically guide a single X-Man along a path until the game deems it necessary to get a differing viewpoint. Sometimes you'll get to see the same basic environment from multiple viewpoints, but the game locks you into things until you've let that character's chunk of the level run its course.
About the only saving grace is the boss fights, though those are pretty easy too. Most of the time you can sneak away to refill your health (oh, yeah, fun fact: apparently Iceman and Nightcrawler have contracted mutant healing powers like Wolvie) and then charge back into the fights, but aside from zipping around levels while snapping to all sorts of surfaces as Nightcrawler, these are really where the game is any fun, mainly because they're so different from the levels you've been stuck in previously.
X-Men is an unusually pretty game. After such a long break from games, it's a little surprising to see Z-Axis return with a game that looks so much better than their past efforts, but I'm not complaining here. Good texture detail, a decent framerate (though it's fairly inconsistent), and some nice level designs for Iceman and Nightcrawler make for lots to look at. Plenty of visual effects, some high-detail character models and solid animation all make the game feel like they're really using the horses under the PS2's hood.
The audio's a little less consistent. You'll sometimes hear voice samples that are of varying qualities, and though a good chunk of the talent from the games is present (Hugh Jackman, Shawn Ashmore, Alan Cumming, Patrick Stewart and Tyler Mane all reprised their on-screen roles of Wolverine, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Professor Xavier and Sabretooth, respectively), the other characters aren't quite so convincing. Storm sounds like Mad TV's Deborah Wilson rather than Halle Barry, because, well it is Mad TV's Deborah Wilson. The sound effects clank and bamf and snikt like they should, which is nice, but then these are the things one would expect from a game based on a movie where all this foley has been recorded in the past.
I'm not trying to skim over this review, but there's just not a lot of reason to go into any depth on it. X-Men: The Official Game just feels too much like a quick cash-in. Brain-dead enemy AI, a story that does nothing to recall some of the better arcs from the comics -- especially around this, perhaps the most powerful storyline the comics ever saw, and an experience that isn't befitting of the development team all add up to something that's wholly underwhelming and reeks of missed potential.
