X-Men Legends (X-Box)
Developed by: Raven Software
Published by: Activision

For all the mainstream success video games have had in the past few years, they are still very much the domain of nerds, geeks and dweebs. A large majority of games continue to rehash tired fantasy and sci-fi themes, and guess what… a lot of them sell! But I have to wonder why there hasn’t been more attention paid to the comic book genre, because we all know that comic fanboys love their videogames too. Perhaps the problem is that a horrible streak of bad comic book games have turned people off and forced developers to pursue other avenues of income. This is unfortunate, because when it is done right, a comic book video game can be an exhilarating experience. Just look at Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2… of course, that particular game never would have existed without a blockbuster movie tie-in.

This is why I find X-Men Legends to be such an exciting proposition. Not only is it not directly linked to the movie franchise, but it is also well-designed and captures the spirit of the X-Men comics quite well. It is quite possibly the best X-Men game ever to be created, and while that may not sell you on it, you certainly shouldn’t write off this game because of past disappointments.

Developed by Raven Software (who are known more for first person shooters like Soldier of Fortune I and II, Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy), X-Men Legends is an action RPG that utilizes an isometric overhead view similar to the Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance games. You may wonder how an RPG can work with superheroes instead of fantastical wizards and warriors, but I have to say that it works surprisingly well. Actually I’m wondering why more roleplaying elements haven’t been added to other genres too.

As you progress through the game, you gain access to more of the X-Men (15 playable characters in total… not too shabby), each of which have their own arsenal of powers and specialties. Characters actually level up along the way too, and at each new level you have points to spend on new abilities so you can customize the character to your preferred style of play. Do you want to speed up Wolverine’s health regeneration or give him the ability to go into a raged state for a brief period of time? Do you want Iceman’s freeze blast to be more powerful, or would you rather take a defensive approach by investing points in his Ice Armor? It’s all up to you baby. Of course, if you find this kind of technical RPG stuff tiresome, you can also just hit a button to do all the customization automatically behind the scenes.

There’s even some fun loot to be collected… not swords and shields and potions, but rather high-tech backpacks, belts and armor that enhance your mutant powers. Of course, a lot of these items are dropped by enemies, but it’s kind of odd that some are also found by smashing objects within the levels — you wouldn’t really picture the X-Men going in to save the day and completely trashing the place as they go. However, destroying the environments is a lot of fun… a lot of the levels are very interactive, and nothing quite gives you the feeling of super power like throwing a guy with enough force to smash through a wall.

To flesh out the story and dialogue for this game, Raven Software recruited the comic writing group Men Of Action, many of whom are former X-Men writers and it shows. Not that the story is especially deep but the characters are done right and there are a lot of fun little details that fanboys will love. The main storyline centres around Alison Crestmere, aka Magma, a lesser known X-Men character who was part of the New Mutants. In between missions you control Magma and wander around the X-Men mansion, getting to know the facilities and the other X-Men. However, there are also side stories such as playable flashbacks to other comic book storylines.

During missions you will almost always have your choice of a variety of X-Men. Following up on one of the most fun aspects of Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance, X-Men Legends opens the game up to be played co-operatively with up to 3 friends. However, you can assign any of these players to be computer-controlled as well, or you can simply cut down the size of your team. In some cases this is preferable, as 4 characters sharing the same pool of health and energy packs (a maximum of 10 of each can be carried at a time) makes it difficult to keep everyone healed. It also gets a little chaotic with 4 players in the fray, and since the characters are all wearing their Ultimate X-Men outfits, it can be hard to tell them apart in a group. This leads to a lot of unnecessary resentment when your buddy throws an explosive barrel at you by accident. However, the flexibility to change your team on the fly is a great thing, as you can be playing through the game as a single player, but then have some friends jump in to the game part way through if they drop by for a visit.

Once you come down from the initial fanboy buzz, you will notice that there are some definite problems with X-Men Legends. One of the biggest complaints people seem to have is related to the multiplayer implementation. You see, not every level in the game is playable with 4 players. When you are back at the mansion your buddies will have to sit and watch you walk around and scan through endless screens of dialogue just so you can get to the next mission. It’s also annoying that you need to spend tech credits to revive a character that gets killed. It doesn’t take long before your list of available X-Men is whittled down to only the ones you are currently using. Also, since character revival and swapping can only occur at Xtraction Points, a player who dies in action can sometimes be waiting for at least 10 or 15 minutes before they can get back in the action again. One smart thing they did do is allow dead characters to continue to gain levels even if they are not being used. Otherwise, the majority of your X-Men roster would quickly become useless.

The overhead perspective also brings with it some frustrations. It’s nearly impossible to judge jumping distances and hard to tell where you can and can’t go. There are also a lot of invisible walls in the outdoor environments that tend to get on your nerves.

Voice acting in the game is okay, but there are many cutscenes with pieces of dialogue that feature only text and no voiceover. It’s very inconsistent and feels pretty sloppy. There are also some places where you get to choose what you want to say during conversations but there is no real point as it doesn’t affect the outcome. It just seems there to give the player the illusion of interactivity, and in the end you still get bored of reading too much text.

Still, X-Men Legends is a lot of fun and once you get past some of its annoyances you can really get a lot out of it. There are so many different ways to play it, and they packed a lot of extras into the game like the Danger Room, which allows you to train against computer generated opponents or spar against friends. It’s mostly an action game, but the combat never gets boring with all the different characters and attacks at your disposal, not to mention the multiplayer combos. The RPG element adds some nice customization options without getting too carried away. But most of all, it uses the X-Men franchise in the best ways possible, and if you’re a fan of the X-Men you won’t want to miss it. — Sean