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