X-Men Legends Review (GC) By Richard Stites Published: 12/17/05 PrintEmail
The X-Men have seen a variety of games of the decades. We have been able to play as our favorite mutants in 2d action platformers, 2d fighters and 3d fighters. It has always been hit-and-miss on whether they have been worth our time, or not. Well, X-Men Legends has definitely found one aspect that has been lacking in many X-Men games over years; it is fun.
X-Men Legends is a pretty standard dungeon crawler. In other words, it is an action game with rpg elements such as equipment power-ups and leveling up your characters stats and their powers. What makes this game stand out over other dungeon crawlers is that you are playing with some of the most recognizable comic book characters ever made, and you are battling enemies' right out of the marvel universe.
Just as you have with other action / rpg games, you have magic spells. The twist is that instead of being magic spells, they are the characters mutant powers. Storm can shoot lightning bolts, Wolverine automatically heals, Nightcrawler teleports, and Gambit throws explosive cards. The character powers are authentic, and can be upgraded to more powerful attacks.
You can also expect a fair amount of minor puzzles. For example, in the beginning you control Wolverine and he is blocked by a fire. Next to the fire is a fire hydrant. So by slashing the fire hydrant thus releasing a plume of water, you put out the fire and clear your path. An example of multiple ways to bypass an obstacle could be found with the many pits you must cross. You could use Ice Man or Magma to build a bridge allowing you party to cross. Or you could use Phoenix or Rogue and carry your team-mates over the gorge. There are usually several different ways to bypass an obstacle, or puzzle, which ads a little strategy to the button mashing that combat can be.
You start off the game by viewing a few cut-scenes that throw you into the storyline. Then you are controlling Wolverine. You must make your way through the streets of New York City, battling law enforcement along the way. You must chase after the Blob who has kidnapped a mutant named Magma. You quickly level up for the first time, and get to choose what powers to activate, or upgrade. You have a slew of offensive special attacks, defensive, automatic and an Xtreme attack.
The offensive attacks are what you would expect; Wolverine's slashing, Phoenix's telekinesis, or even Cyclops' optic blast. The defensive upgrades are pretty basic. They are things such as Ice Armor for Ice Man (which doesn't actually change his appearance). The automatic upgrades would be powers such as Wolverine's healing factor. It is always active and does not use any mutant power.
You have three gauges. Your life gauge, your mutant power gauge, and your experience gauge. They are pretty self explanatory. You can refill your life and power gauges by using potions, and you can fill your experience gauge by defeating enemies. All pretty basic rpg elements. But as I mentioned, X-Men Legends also has some action elements.
You battle your enemies in classic beat-em-up fashion. And you can do it with up to four characters that you control at the same time. You choose the character you wish to control by pressing their direction on the d-pad, and the computer takes over for your other three characters. You can also switch your character at any time by pressing the d-pad in the appropriate direction. This works pretty well when you are facing a foe that is strong against physical attack and weak against energy attacks.
This isn't a single player game either. Your buddies can join in at any time, and you can play through the game with your friends controlling your team instead of the computer. This is one of X-Men Legends finer points, and one of the things that make it so much fun. Switching from one player to two to four players is seamless, and implemented very well. The only draw-back is that at times the camera can make playing with a group a little difficult.
The camera is viewed from a third-person perspective, and is rather high above the action. It is usually pretty good, and helps you keep an eye on the action as you go. In multiplayer modes it can cause players to get stuck behind objects, or even fall to their deaths off cliffs. But overall it is a good camera angle that lets you keep the on-screen action moving.
Graphically X-Men Legends isn't anything incredibly special. You have your basic hero and villain models and basic textures covering the many caves and compounds you will be battling through. From the normal viewpoint things look pretty decent, but the second the camera zooms in on a character you will immediately notice that there really isn't much detail to any of the characters.
The various levels are laid out pretty well, and there are enough objects around to keep things feeling fresh. You get to explore snowy Canada, the Weapon X facility, a nuclear reactor, the X Mansion and many more locals. Pretty much everything can be thrown, or destroyed, which makes battling the constant waves of foes pretty fun. If you can't find a door, half the time you can just go through the wall.
There are plenty of main missions to play through, and you get a couple flash-back missions as well. The flash-back missions were great, but you only get to play them once. And you can't go back to old missions or areas to search for missed comic books or danger room discs. This was one of the main draw backs of the game. You spend twenty to thirty hours building up your characters, and once it is all over you lose them. If you want to keep playing you must start a new game.
All and all X-Men Legends was one of the most interesting games I've played in a while. The concept feels fresh, and the source material works very well for this type of game. If you play it, your time will best be spent with a couple of buddies because that is when the game is at its best.
The X-Men have seen a variety of games of the decades. We have been able to play as our favorite mutants in 2d action platformers, 2d fighters and 3d fighters. It has always been hit-and-miss on whether they have been worth our time, or not. Well, X-Men Legends has definitely found one aspect that has been lacking in many X-Men games over years; it is fun. 
