The curse of the bad movie tie-in games is in full effect with X-Men: The Official Game. It is your standard third-person beat-em-up where you could plug in pretty much any characters and the experience would be the same. It feels rushed and the graphics are far from the best the Xbox 360, or Xbox for that matter, have to offer. I know your desperate need for all things X-Men has reached a fever pitch thanks to the new movie, but do yourself a favor and play X-Men Legends II instead.
Quick Hits
- Title: X-Men: The Official Game
- Platforms: Xbox, Xbox 360
- Publisher: Activision
- Developer: Z-Axis
- ESRB Rating: “T” For Teen
- Genre: Third-person beat-em-up
- Pros: Nightcrawler and Iceman
- Cons: Wolverine is boring, bland graphics, reeks of “quick cash in”
Story
X-Men: The Official Game bridges the gap between X2: X-Men United and X-Men 3: The Last Stand. It follows Wolverine, Iceman, and Nightcrawler as they beat up wave after wave of generic bad guys while trying to recover from the events of X2. The only really interesting thing the game covers is it answers the question as to why Nightcrawler isn’t in X-Men 3.
Gameplay
Acitivsion
The gameplay starts off okay as you learn to use your powers, but it quickly degrades into mindless and repetitive button mashing. As you would expect, each of the three mutants play rather differently but none of them are really all that great. Wolverine in particular is just a bore to play as (slash, slash, yawn) and constantly having to run off so you can heal gets tiresome pretty quickly. Nightcrawler is far more interesting as his teleportation combos are very cool looking, but after a few fights you have already seen and done it all. Iceman’s stages are more open than the others, but the thrill of gliding around fades pretty quickly as the levels just turn into a standard “on rails” shooter as you shoot ice beams at enemies that pop up out of nowhere. Nothing here is really all that bad, but none of it is all that good, either.
One thing I do like is that the levels are all very small and short and there are a lot of them. You switch off between characters throughout the game which gives the game the illusion of having a lot of variety. There are hidden items to collect on each level and you earn upgrades by beating the various difficulty levels, but it isn’t really worth the effort unless you love achievements.
Graphics and Sound
Another area where the game is a major disappointment is in the presentation. The graphics aren’t terribly detailed and seriously pale in comparison to recent comic book games such as X-Men Legends II, Ultimate Spider-Man, or Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. The characters look decent enough, but the environments are bland and mostly forgettable. On the Xbox the game is only average looking and the 360 version doesn’t look too much better which is a big problem considering the $20 price difference. Sure, the 360 version is clearer looking and the lighting is better, but it doesn’t stack up well against real Xbox 360 games.
The sound is also pretty disappointing. Hugh Jackman, Alan Cumming, Shawn Ashmore, and Patrick Stewart provide voice work for their respective characters and they do a good, if not uninspired job, but everyone else is voiced by sound alikes that give pretty poor performances. Sound effects for all of the fighting are pretty standard and don’t add much.
Bottom Line
Activision
X-Men: The Official Game can only be considered disappointing compared to all of the great comic book games that have been coming out over the last year or so. Bland, repetitive combat and poor presentation are the big problems here and it is hard to shake the “quick cash in” feel of the game. There is also no multiplayer option to speak of which is a big issue as well. I have been saying it for months now, but I’ll say it again: Charging $60 for a cruddy Xbox 360 port of a game that is only $40 on the Xbox is absolutely unacceptable. If it was actually better (like Fight Night Round 3 or Burnout Revenge) it isn’t a problem, but when it is nothing more than a gussied up version of a game that was bad to begin with, we’ve got problems. Even if you are a huge X-Men fan, I can’t really recommend this one for anything more than a rental.
