X-Men The Official Game
Officially mediocre.
Published: May 30, 2006
For the most part, comic-based games have escaped the Curse of the Licensed Game rather easily. In just the past couple years, we've seen some absolutely awesome Spider-Man, Hulk and, yes, X-Men games. Alas, when paired with a tag-team of movie and comic licenses, it's just too much. X-Men: The Official Game is a horrible treatment of one of the best comics and comic-based movies, and by no means should it be something you force yourself to sit through.
I'm just pissed because all the elements were there: X-Men comics scribe Chris Claremont and X-Men movies writer Zak Penn were both contributing to the game's storyline. Z-Axis, the guys behind the Dave Mirra and Aggressive Inline series were developing the project. Hell, they even got the people that played the muties on the big screen to reprise their roles, and best of all it was meant to serve as a bridge between the second and third movies, explaining why Nightcrawler wasn't in the third one after being so prominently featured in the second.
I'm tempted to just tell you now and spoil the only reason to play the game, but I'll hold off (or maybe I'll do it in [forums]the forums[/forums], I dunno). So why am I seething with nerd rage? It's not that the game takes a complete dump on the license, but it does give us a completely worthless title of which maybe half is even playable through -- and here's the best part: it isn't the parts with Wolverine, who was good enough in the past to have is own game.
Wolvie is in the game, along with Iceman and Nightcrawler, for those that haven't been reading the site. All three of them were designed from the start to play differently, and in this respect, Z-Axis has done well. Wolverine is a pure brawler with some simple light and strong attack combos and a rage attack for extra damage and healing; Iceman surfs on a sheet of ice just like in the comics, making for some basic flight sections of the game (he can form a brief ice shield, shoot an ice beam and launch ice missles too), and Nightcrawler bamfs all over the place like the BAMF he is.
Of the three, Nightcrawler's sections are easily the best, but only because the developers nailed the act of teleporting all over a level. True to the nature of the superhero, if Nightcrawler can see it, he can pretty much teleport there -- including behind guards for some fun combat sequences. The Iceman levels would have been more entertaining, but a BS timecap is put on his levels, so the exploration and experimentation is thrown out. And Wolverine... Ugh, his levels are little more than endless button mashing, and end up being the most frustrating of the three.
I'm just pissed because all the elements were there: X-Men comics scribe Chris Claremont and X-Men movies writer Zak Penn were both contributing to the game's storyline. Z-Axis, the guys behind the Dave Mirra and Aggressive Inline series were developing the project. Hell, they even got the people that played the muties on the big screen to reprise their roles, and best of all it was meant to serve as a bridge between the second and third movies, explaining why Nightcrawler wasn't in the third one after being so prominently featured in the second.
I'm tempted to just tell you now and spoil the only reason to play the game, but I'll hold off (or maybe I'll do it in [forums]the forums[/forums], I dunno). So why am I seething with nerd rage? It's not that the game takes a complete dump on the license, but it does give us a completely worthless title of which maybe half is even playable through -- and here's the best part: it isn't the parts with Wolverine, who was good enough in the past to have is own game.
Wolvie is in the game, along with Iceman and Nightcrawler, for those that haven't been reading the site. All three of them were designed from the start to play differently, and in this respect, Z-Axis has done well. Wolverine is a pure brawler with some simple light and strong attack combos and a rage attack for extra damage and healing; Iceman surfs on a sheet of ice just like in the comics, making for some basic flight sections of the game (he can form a brief ice shield, shoot an ice beam and launch ice missles too), and Nightcrawler bamfs all over the place like the BAMF he is.
Of the three, Nightcrawler's sections are easily the best, but only because the developers nailed the act of teleporting all over a level. True to the nature of the superhero, if Nightcrawler can see it, he can pretty much teleport there -- including behind guards for some fun combat sequences. The Iceman levels would have been more entertaining, but a BS timecap is put on his levels, so the exploration and experimentation is thrown out. And Wolverine... Ugh, his levels are little more than endless button mashing, and end up being the most frustrating of the three.
