X-Men Legends

a classic comic, a classic game?

Among comic books it does not get more popular than the X-Men. Activision has sought to translate this into a video game here. The X-Men are a team of super powerful mutants fighting evil mutants and sometime a fearful society. You get most of the best know mutants like Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Iceman, Storm and more. There mission is to protect a young mutant named Magma from evil mutants. This leads to bigger dangers one might guess. Besides that you get to roam around the Xavier Mansion between levels. You control one mutant in a team but can change characters during the action. Each X-Man is given a colorful and usually potent arsenal of moves. This action game has RPG elements too. You can upgrade each mutants attacks by getting experience points for defeating enemies. Like for instance Cyclops eye blast starts as small and weak. By the time you fully upgrade it is a large powerful blast. Each character has their own special moves. There are melee attacks too. There are a variety of enemies to fight. The real fun, though, is when you run into the bosses. They include Magneto, the Juggernaut, and many others. The levels involve a lot of smashing. Not just your foes get damaged though. The backgrounds and objects can get destroyed too. Breaking down walls feels good. Visually the game is average. The characters are colorful and cartoony but not detailed. However, their special moves that shoot like gambits cards are bursting with color and It gives you a feeling of their powers. The sound is equal to the graphics. It plays its role without standing out during the special moves or character voices. The biggest problem with this otherwise fun game is the camera. It uses a top down camera. Which means you cannot much ahead. Enemies can be just ahead of the screen's view and be unseen. This is a glaring weakness. It really spoils the game for me.

X-man Legends is exciting at times but it is an average game overall.

A wonderful surprise

When I saw this game lying in the bargain bin at wal-mart for 10 dollars I was questioning how good my friends said it was. But as soon as I finished the first level I was hooked. The graphics are decent, the storyline isn't bad but it is the gameplay that completely won me over. if you have a chance to get this game, get it because I promise you it is worth the money.

Good gameplay meets poor presentation

Nearly every child growing up wants to be Wolverine from X-Men at some point in their childhood. The game allows four X-Men at a time to play a mission. The player can easily switch between different characters during play and can have anywhere from one player controlled character to four at a time. Also, each individual X-Men character grows with experience and the player has the choice of what to upgrade out of many different options from special attack powers, to max health, and even the sharpness of Wolverine's claws. Even though this is a good franchise game, X-Men Legends does fall short in some areas. The top-view camera angles can get in the way sometimes. Also, if one character advances position, then another player that is almost out of frame can become stuck and will not be able to move unless the lead character comes back toward the player. This happens because the camera view does not zoom out when characters are extending the limits of the viewable frame. This can get very frustrating, making it hard to enjoy the gameplay. Another huge drawback is when the game goes away from its bread and butter of being a high-action, multiplayer game. After an intense four-player mission, the game goes back to a boring, one-player story mode at the X-Mansion. The story-mode is also told by still-frame picture and text with voice-overs reading the text. X-Men Legends tries too hard to incorporate high pace, multiplayer action while trying to be true to the history and story of X-Men. When a player finally completes the boring one-player mission, the player has to contest with poor camera use. The selling point of the game, however, is the ability to improve the X-Men through experience, and being able to customize what attributes are improved. The game also includes extras such as original artwork for the diehard fan. I recommend renting this game because this is a hard game to purchase knowing the flaws that it contains. ~Kevin Nuest

Short, but good

This game is really a great game to play if you like the whole marvel comics theme to your games. It has plenty of characters to choose from, and each one has their own special ability which is really a great feature to the game. The nice thing about legends is the fact that that you're not always choosing the same players to go into battle with. Secondly, every time you level up, all your players level up, which really makes the game that much better. Only complaint, to short.

X-men+Roleplaying, awsome

Think back, back to the days of sitting around with three of your friends, playing Gauntlet legends. Everyone is yelling, laughing and having fun. Now think that experience with X-men, A pinch more roleplaying and a great new story. Now you have X-men legends a great game to play alone or with three friends. The voices and graphics are wonderful, they capture that comic book feel perfectly. The character building system is great to, with a new level comes special points wich you allocate to stats and skills, you also have three equipment slots so that you can add that extra touch. All in all a great game.