X-Men Legends : Web Wombat : Games

Oh, what's this? It looks like X-Men Legends on the consoles, and what's that - cell shaded graphics, an RPG-like character building premise and a professionally written story by X-Men comic group Man of Action?

Damn straight it is.

And as soon as I'd watched the intro, I knew that X-Men Legends was going to be a good tale at the very least. The story begins with a TV report about mutants and their wrong doings, highlighting the distrust humans have of mutants.

There's a posse of mutants angry at humans, called the Brotherhood of Mutants (BoM), and they proceed to kidnap a young girl in the intro, Allison Crestmere. Playing as Wolverine, the first few levels task you with rescuing the young lass, and to find out why the BoM wanted her.

As the game kicks off I'm already in action RPG heaven. The isometric viewpoint gives a great birds-eye-view of the gameworld, which has good attention to detail. The graphics aren't going to knock your socks off, using lightly detailed textures and low polygon models, but they do create a very faithful X-Men universe that is bursting with colour if nothing else.

Taking elements from the movie series and also the Uncanny X-Men comics, the game melds them together to create a rich game world, and one that's feels alive thanks to the distinct personalities and back stories of all your favourite mutants. In addition, the voice acting, the script and the game's general presentation is well above par.

Next I fiddled with the controls, and again - nothing but good news to report. There's a couple of attack buttons that can be used to form combos, a block button, plus jump and 'use' buttons.

During the first few levels where you play solo as Wolverine, there are a number of small helpful 'hint' beacons scattered about the place, which act as tutorial go-betweens. By this stage in the game I was also discovering hard-to-reach secret areas, and all the bonus items that go with them.

From the character screen you can access
all the menus for stats, items, powers etc.

The fun really begins as soon as you hear your first enemy hurling some anti-mutant abuse your way, and it must be said that slicing up foes with old Wolvey is quite a lark.

There's a meaty sense to the way you hack your foes down, and sussing out all the combos is a lot of fun. As well as your normal combo moves (which are identical for each of the 15 playable characters), there are also special moves.

As well as a health meter, there's also an energy meter, and every time you activate a special move it depletes this somewhat, as the special moves are pretty cool and much more powerful than standard close combat attacks. This energy bar slowly regenerates of its own accord however, which is nice.

Cyclops has lots of a laser-based special attacks, where Storm is all about electricity and the elements and Magma likes to burn things and, better yet, when you have a team of two or more venturing out and about, you can combine two special attacks for 'unique power combos' that do more damage and give you more experience.

After spending the first few levels getting used to the controls and perfecting your six-hit combos, you'll eventually level up your character with the accumulated experience, which you receive after dispatching a each foe. You can tweak the four main statistics - strike, agility, body and focus - and there are other skills that you can spend points on. Cyclops's Optic Blast special attack, for example, can be advanced to level 5.

As well as being able to micro-manage more than a dozen different X-Men across the course of the game (and statisticians will revel in all the figures), you can also equip them with items, such as armour, belts and backpacks that add to their vital statistics.

After cutting your way through the first few levels, taking advantage of the fully destructible environments (nice one, Raven), you'll come across the first major end boss - Blob. The Bosses are quite cool and often require a bit of lateral thinking to defeat, while dropping unique items and gifting you with mucho experience points.

After this, you'll get some more cut scenes and then it's off to The Mansion. It's here that the game starts to really unfold, as you'll get an inkling of what exactly the nefarious Brotherhood of Mutants are up to, and you get to explore The Mansion too, which is a sizeable structure.

Hidden deep underneath the Mansion grounds is the danger room, a secret mutant training facility if you like, where you can upload various virtual reality scenarios that actually reward you with experience points.

Cyclops lets one rip, giving Wolverine a close shave

It's a good resource if you get to an area or end boss that is too tough to defeat. Simply jump on the Blackbird, fly back to base at speeds of around Mach 4, complete a few sessions in the danger room and blammo - your characters pass another level and get that little bit stronger, faster and sexier.

Within The Mansion, there's also the control room where you can select new missions from around the world, giving the game a less linear feel. You can also talk to Forge and buy stuff from his equipment shop with tech bits, the game's currency.

Though the first few levels involve just the one character, Wolverine, throughout most of the game you'll be able to complete missions with four characters, whose AI can be set to defensive, normal or aggressive.

The AI is okay, but the most fun is to be had with up to three other mates playing at the same time. Standard on the Xbox and with the aid of a multitap on the PS2, the four-player action is some of the best co-op this side of Halo 2.

Think of it as a much more advanced version of Gauntlet Legends and you'll get the picture, and as more players opt in, the the AI keeps an equilibrium by throwing tougher and more numerous baddies at you. You can also play versus games, where you and your friends have to beat the tripe out of each other. This last mode of play isn't as good as co-op in my mind, but is still a worthy feature to plug away at every now and then.

All told, X-Men Legends is a sweet-as-saccharine game. There are a few minor scars blemishing its otherwise smooth surface, such as all characters having the same melee combination moves, but at the end of the day I reckon even non-fans of X-Men universe will find something to like.

And now, finally, X-Men fans have something to crow about. Everything about this game is well sorted, and the story is just sensational and quite compelling too. Anyone who likes comic books, or even just science fiction will want to play the 20-hour adventure just to experience the cool plot.

There are plenty of other tasty features that make Raven's action RPG a winner, including the stylised cel-shaded graphics, the addictive combat, the massive special moves and character advancement. And I must say that the voice acting is also excellent, adding bucket loads of charm to the game world, giving it a truly populated feel.

If you like old school arcade beat-em-ups like Final Fight or The Punisher, and have haughtily indulged in the RPG elements of titles like Diablo 2 and Champions of Norrath in the past, X-Men Legends will delight.

Game: X-Men Legends
System: PS2
Players: 1-4
Online: No
Developer: Raven Software
Distributor: Activision

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

X-Men Legends is on the shelves now.

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