X-Men Legends (PS2)

While these games were ok they never had a chance of exploring the team-based action the X-men represent through their many mediums of comic, film and cartoon. However, X-men legends addresses this problem reverting to a roaming action/adventure game including RPG elements. The game uses the same engine and dynamics as Baldur's gate so fans of this series will understand the mechanics of the game.

The game sees you taking control of up to four x-men at a time as your progress through missions suing your mutant abilities to defeat all manner of mutant evil doers. All X-men have quite different abilities and teams can be swapped over at any save point dotted throughout the levels. RPG elements enter the game through the traditional 'experience points' method as your team receives points for each objective completed and enemy defeated. Characters gain more moves and powers as you progress; these are all faithfully recreated from the marvel characters we know.

It does take different tactics to get the most of out of the characters. With Cyclops' optic beams its more effective to hang back and deal damage from a distance, with Wolverine's claws and healing factor it's more productive to head straight into the
action with claws at the ready.

The graphics are hardly anything unique anymore. The most over-used graphical style award goes to........ Cel-shading. This looks ok and probably will relate more to the cartoon x-men fan but can look childish to the rest of us. To us cel-shading reached its peak with jet set radio on the dreamcast. A fun, jaunty game it suits perfectly, but with a serious affair (and lets not joke, those claws are sharp) it leaves the mature gamer feeling a bit silly in this case.

The camera works from a top-down view and is controlled by...you, with the right analogue stick, so it keeps up with the game 95% of the time. One impressive thing in X-men legends is the amount of destructive scenery placed around the game, you can throw enemies into computers and barrels, and you can also make yourself shortcuts by using your stronger moves on the occasional wall. Which is always fun. It helps the games versatility that you can go through the level rather than around it on occasion. The level design itself is very monotonous and it's only the New York missions that look pretty. They also include lots of fires and debris from the war torn city which adds environmental damage to your list of woes, but also gives you a chance to use cover and cook some of your enemies. With your more powerful characters you can also use parked cars as weapons, finally bringing a reason for the production of Skodas.

While the story is really good for fans of the comics and cartoons, others may feel left out by its intricacies and certainly won't feel as involved as the average fan would.

If you do enjoy the game then longevity isn't an issue, there's about thirty-five hours game play here and fifteen characters to complete the game with, and so this game could be HUGE for the fan. Other cameos from characters such as Bishop, Forge and Multipleman are all worth finding.......if you know who they are. They story is huge and just keeps on going and going, it's the Duracell bunny of action games.

However it's now that we hit the main problems of the game, blandness. Levels are quite bland as they are largely set in military bases, so expect to see several shades of grey while you play. On top of this levels are used several times as you have to return to them, this just seems like lazy development to us. Enemy design is also repetitive, most them look the same and follow a pattern of being physically or energy resistant.

Team-mate AI should have been improved akin to Freedom Fighters, just being able to get them to wait or attack certain enemies would have made the team-based fighting seem less repetitive, but no, they follow you around like a trio of poodles. While on the case of team-mates they seem to have very little effect on enemies and vice versa. It's rare to lose a team-mate but they are incapable of finishing off bad guys.

Finally we move onto the FMV's. As previously stated the opening FMV is pure comic genius as wolverine dives straight into action. From here on in any character or style is lost and only pitiful direction is left. If licences are to step into the RPG world they need to learn to use FMV to hold the game together and grasp the gamer's attention at the right moments.

In conclusion, the game has SO MUCH from the comics it's a fans paradise. Like a good comic book, fans would struggle to put this down and would also be thankful for a decent X-men game to be released since the megadrive. It's also value for money as it's a looonnnggg game.

But it's a game that lacks story involvement and team management is minimal. It also feels like the management put the youth team on at half time as the game seems to drift away as it goes on. At the end of the day it's a treat for the fans only.

Overall:

6/10 ...but add accordingly if you're a fan. It really means that much that you know you're x-men stuff if you're going to play the game through.