Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

X-Men: The Official Game

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PC
3. Publisher: Activision Blizzard
4. Developer: Beenox
5. Release Date: 05/16/06
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mitch Youngblood

It’s been a colorful ride watching the development of the last two X-Men feature films. After years of development hell, studio interference, and a cattle call of writers, directors, and producers, it is nothing short of stunning that the movies actually happened. Even more amazing was that they were actually good. My hat is off to Bryan Singer and his team of wizards for pulling together two wonderful stories that mixed lore from the comics while still creating a universe unique to film.

With the third and far from final movie coming up soon, we now have our hands on the Official Game of the Movie which is something I personally won’t refer to a game as. This goes back to King Kong which used the same title but pretentiousness only goes so far in this dojo. As such, you will see the title X-Men 3 from here on out. Rest assured that this reviewer’s comments are directed towards the game and not the film unless specifically noted. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we may now proceed with our review already in progress...

Visually, X-Men 3 recalls the arcade action titles which it’s derived from. It looks, feels, and plays exactly like you’re standing in an arcade popping quarters into the machine. The resolution can be pumped up as high as you want it and the game is such that it won’t tax your video card too much. This isn’t Oblivion by any stretch of the imagination but what is on display has a hand crafted feel to it.

Running across the Brooklyn Bridge or through the corridors of Stryker’s base you can see the textures on the walls and how someone paid attention to each and every detail. This makes it even more enjoyable when you’re throwing enemies across the room and seeing them bounce off walls or over tables. X-Men 3 uses a ragdoll physics system that results in some truly excellent fights. Wolverine brutally takes out his opponents with a combination of fisticuffs and adamantium claws and small details like sparks and shield reflections add immeasurably to the game.

The cutscenes are also pretty unique because they’re a riff on comic book panels. As the characters speak the camera moves over the different panels and the characters react to one another. It’s a cool way of breaking up the action and paying tribute to the source material.

Patrick Stewart must be living large these days. After collecting a sizeable paycheck for his 30 second cameo in Oblivion, he also appears as Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men 3. He provides solid support to the team whenever he shows up which is exactly what he does in the films too. Stewart was perfectly cast for the character but it’d be fun once in a while to see him cut loose. He’s a terrific performer whenever the material requires tremendous passion, but the Professor is so reserved by nature that it’s unlikely we’ll see him tear into anyone with more than a stern glance.

Hugh Jackman, on the other hand, rips it up as Wolverine and he must have been having a blast while in the recording studio. He perfectly captures the thrill-seeking nature of Wolverine so much so that by now it would be impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Landing him as the voice for the game must have been a major coup, or someone realized that it was worth the cash. Either way, this is money well spent because regardless of how tough his sequences are it remains fun to listen to Jackman.

The sound effects are excellent as well and exceptionally detailed just like the graphics, and there are quite a few gems throughout. Listen to the clang of Wolverine head butting someone and tell me that wasn’t pulled straight from the films. It seemed like his claws made different sounds depending on what material they were hitting and it not using generic or canned sound effects is a very good thing. I may not have enjoyed the mission itself but when Wolverine heads to the Far East it sounded great listening to him rampaging through the Zen gardens.

The controls for the PC are very simple to pick up because the only controller used is the keyboard. Movement is the standard W-A-S-D configuration while all of the attack moves are on the right hand side. The letters J, K, L, and the semi-colon are your standard attack moves and special maneuver, respectively. Consider the J button the quick attack, the K button the medium attack, and the L is the strong attack move. The key controls are also completely customizable in the Options menu.

Different combinations result in different attacks. For example, when players control Wolverine they can hit the J button then hit the L button and he will slash then head butt his opponent. Prompts show up in the beginning stages that let players know which button combinations will result in which move, but the game can still easily devolve into button spamming. It’s tough to remain focused enough to carefully consider which letters to hit when you’re surrounded by opponents all wanting a piece of your hide.

The camera is primarily fixed but it does rotate depending on the sequence. When players take control of Nightcrawler, for example, the camera can rotate 360 degrees by utilizing the arrow keys. It helps when you’re teleporting across a map to be able to see where you’re going. Unless of course you just like hitting the teleport button to see where you wind up which adds an especially fun element to the boss fights. Not that I’d know anything about that.

Ninja Gaiden was known for its ridiculously steep learning curve. The result of that however was a game where the combat would eventually click. Once that happened, players were decapitating rival ninjas with ease and flipping off walls with reckless abandon. There was a method to the madness at work and once players finally clicked with it the fun went through the roof.

If only that were the case with X-Men 3. Unfortunately the only thing going through the roof was my blood pressure. I almost stopped the game during the first act, but I convinced myself that I couldn’t review it based solely on the Alkalai Lake sequence. It’s only the opening for Christ’s sake, how bloody hard could the rest of it be?

As it turns out, there is one single philosophy at work here. Should the player go toe-to-toe with the enemies they will get their butts kicked. As such, players need to play smart and use their mutant powers to overcome their foes. "But what about Wolverine," you ask. "He’s a bruiser and the only thing he can do is go toe-to-toe with people."

Shhh, my friend. You have stumbled onto the exact problem with the game. Other mutants give you more options to stem the endless tide of foes, but Wolverine (the focus of the game) can only slug it out with them on equal ground. It also doesn’t help that the majority of it is Wolverine’s show, so a lot of frustrations will result out of seeing him smacked down repeatedly by swarms of shielded enemies carrying long electrical poles. This reviewer would like nothing more than to take one of those poles and beat the dev team with it for just the "Testing Chamber" sequence alone. Even playing smart and using Wolverine’s special Fury move and his regeneration ability wisely results in a crap shoot that you may or may not make it out of. I hated it so much that I went back to where the timeline split between the characters to see if I could play along a different story arc for a while.

Alas, it was not to be. When your characters first split up in the beginning, you have to play one character arc through until it’s finished then you go back and play through the next one. So why is it that when they branch off again later that I could switch between stories? If I’m growing hostile thanks to Wolverine’s missions, then why can’t I switch to Nightcrawler’s missions for a while? Those are actually pretty fun.

Credit is owed to the developers for absolutely nailing all the mutant powers in the game. Battling several foes at once is a glorious amount of fun as Nightcrawler when you can teleport behind them and lay the smack down, then teleport to the other side of the room and assault another foe. Wolverine’s brawling techniques are terrifically fun as well because when you slash with his claws and follow it up with a head butt it’s hilarious.

You might notice how I’m leaving off Iceman’s path and the reason for this is simple. He’s little more than a cameo until much later in the game. For the sake of completion, he’s fun to play as and his powers are a blast to use. Surfing on a sheet of ice sounds like fun and it truly is when you get to experience it. But use it a lot in the tutorial because it’s a long while before you get to see it in action again.

I can’t talk about the story line without giving it away, but let’s just say that William Stryker was deeply committed to crushing the mutant "problem." The results of this are felt throughout the game and the story line is the one I wish they were using for the actual movie. But maybe it will come back for the fourth film.

As for the game itself, it nicely dovetails into the beginning of the third film. That’s if you make it far enough to see the ending without breaking your keyboard, of course. This is a tough as nails game with jack worth of play balance anywhere. It feels like an arcade game because there are always multiple enemies on screen and they all rush you at exactly the same time. Which mutant you’re playing as determines the difficulty you’ll face because the Easy-Medium-Tough settings apparently are in name only. It’s fun to brutalize the enemy soldiers as the various mutants, but after a few missions it not only becomes repetitive but the challenge makes it not even worth it.

Every level has six collectibles to find and when you do manage to pick them all up different items unlock. Should each character complete the game and find every single one on every single mission then that character gets a new costume! Wheee!

To be serious for a moment, the unlockables aren’t anything special. The game overall has its moments, such as any mission involving Nightcrawler, but since the majority of the Wolverine missions quickly lose their appeal the replay value drops off a cliff upon completion. While the storyline carefully walks the fine line between the film and comic universes, it fails to transcend either genre to the point where it demands repeat viewing. Play it, beat it, move on to the next game in your stack.

X-Men 3 has a solid story and some fun elements to it but is so disproportionately difficult that it leads one to believe this, like the movie itself, was rushed out to meet a release date. I’m all for old-school tough as hell games (longtime Contra fan here) but not when it comes at the expense of fun. The Nightcrawler missions are a blast with only a minor exception here and there, Iceman is barely there until the end, and the Wolverine missions border on the ridiculous.

One upside to it is that the game is roughly six to eight hours in length so if you have a weekend to kill then this one may be up your alley. It certainly looks pretty, sounds great, and the ragdoll physics are put to great use. It just would have been nice to play a challenging game instead of one where nothing is balanced out.

Gaming Trend Score

77

1. Graphics: 90
2. Audio: 93
3. Controls: 94
4. Gameplay: 66
5. Value/Replay: 55
6. OVERALL:77