Home > Reviews > Xbox > #463

X-Men Legends Review - Xbox

X-Men Legends is a game that should possibly be bought by every X-Men fan that ever existed. Only one game that we know of involving X-Men comes close to the quality of X-men Legends and that was X-Men VS Street Fighter back on the old Sega Saturn. Comparing that game to X-Men Legends is impossible though, as they are completely different genres. X-Men Legends is a squad based action title, where you'll see yourself trying to defeat the Brotherhood, and various other infamous villains in the world of X-Men. After the poor quality of X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge, one can finally embrace in a good quality X-Men action title.

Gameplay

If you were to call X-Men Legends an RPG, you would obviously much prefer the linear RPGs full of levels, and unwilling progression through the game. This of course isn't a definition of an RPG, so let's stick to calling X-Men Legends a squad-based action title. In X-Men Legends, you run around and kill whoever tries to attack you. Normally they'll shout out just before they come in view of the camera so you can prepare your attack. At the start of the game, you begin with just Wolverine and are soon joined by Cyclops. Wolverine is by far the X-Man of choice, as his vicious blades are a prime choice weapon when destroying the enemy.

All X-Men have their special moves that you would remember from the infamous Marvel comics and movies. They can be used by holding R and pressing whichever button you have for the move. This uses up a blue bar down the bottom left of the interface which heals slowly, and can be healed faster by picking up the blue capsules that some enemies drop when you kill them, or if you find them inside trash cans, and such. The other bar next to the blue one is the health bar, which is coincidentally red (did you see that one coming?). This bar doesn't regenerate unless you use some of the red capsules that you'll find around the place as well. Don't worry, the regeneration works similar to Fable where you can simply press a button during combat to heal, unlike Ninja Gaiden where you had to pause and find your health in the options menu.

In combat, the framerate stays very steady and everything looks fantastic. It doesn't really make a difference how many enemies are on screen or how many X-Men either, and sometimes things do get a bit hectic. The squad works as a group of four X-Men, which you can rotate around at each check point, known in the game as Extraction points where you can also save if you wish. This makes the game much easier as you can then go back to Professor Xavier's mansion, and boost up your skills if need be. Yes, that's right, Professor (continued next page)