X-Men Legends

Added August 21st, 2004 by Derby

Are you a true believer? If so I bet you're anxiously awaiting Raven Software's newest project: X-men Legends. Instead of a Marvel vs. Capcom style fighting game, or being threatened with another X2: Wolverine's Revenge, Raven is treating us with something we haven't seen yet. An X-Men RPG.

Based largely on the Ultimate X-Men series, X-Men Legends will feature a wide range of selectable players, interactive (read: destroyable) environments, and great playability. If you like RPGs, if you don’t you may want to stop reading this now. Although there will be good action, this is still an RPG game and players would do well to remember that.

You'll start off with four selectable characters, through your missions you will be able to unlock another eleven playable characters. So far we know of the involvement of Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Storm, Iceman, Magma, and Gambit. Not only will the characters be unlockable, but Raven tells us that there will even be unlockable costumes from different X-Men eras (Uncanny, Ultimate, etc.) On the flip side the only bad guys we know about so far are The Morlocks, Marrow, and the infamous Sentinels.

As any true RPG this one will feature upgradeable skills, your characters will have four main categories: Striking (physical power in combat), Agility (a staple of any RPG, physical speed in combat), Body (toughness, this increases hit point or 'hp'), and Focus (mastery of mutant ability which is measured in energy points). So with the ability to add points to Focus you can throw points into blade attacks for Wolverine, energy attacks for Cyclops, etc. This brings up the topic of character balance. Your best bet in this game is to have a balanced team, some people, like Wolverine and Colossus, will be better for up front, melee combat, while Cyclops and Storm are better suited for long distance attacks. There will be puzzles in the game, which will be better suited for the more intelligent characters like Jean Grey. No one character is dominant and if you want to succeed, balance will likely be your only way. On that note you will receive mission details which should give you information as to whether you'll need more brawn, or more intelligence, for any given mission.

There have been some rumblings that perhaps the graphics are not going to be up to par, as of the screenshots I've seen it does look a little weak. Raven chose cell shading, which has brought success to games like Zelda and XIII, but they don't pull it off without some flaws. It doesn't look very clean from the shots I've looked at so far. That being said there's still plenty of time left for them to fix the issues. Either way I don't think they're bad enough to be a complete deal breaker, this game looks like it will be a lot of fun.

As for multiplayer, Legends will feature four-player co-op and competitive modes on the console itself. No Live support which isn't very surprising.

All in all I think this game is bound to do well based purely on the popularity of X-Men and the recent X-Men movies. Do I think the game will actually be worth playing? Yes, especially if the graphics are a tad nicer come release.