In short: A game more than a little like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2… but without the ability to play as any of the really cool Marvel superheroes.
Developer: Silicon Knights
Publisher: Activision
For fans of: … games which feature superheroes and button bashing.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Also available on: PS3, Wii, DS
If we had to give it a numerical score: 5.5 out of 10…
What I liked
- Super powers!
- Easy, mindless fun.
- Wolverine and Gambit make an appearance.
Not so much
- Last generation graphics.
- Boring voice acting.
- Cutscenes can’t be skipped. And they’re boring.
- Choices have very little impact on the game.
Overview
I had fairly expectant hopes for this game. I enjoy fleeting moments of escapism as much as the next person. So here we have mutants (with super powers), their variety of enemies and choices – a fairly decent way to have a good time then. Except… not really.
Gameplay and Features
The game kicks off (and largely stays) in San Francisco which is divided between mutants (and their supporters) and the humans who think the mutants are dangerous, child abducting freaks. Or something. The peace rally that the main protagonists are attending turns into a disaster zone after an attack by an unknown force hell-bent on causing a full blown war between the two groups.
For some strange reason this attack is also the catalyst which awakens your mutant powers. You can choose to play as one of three brand new characters who have been specifically created for the game. Which means they’ll not be memorable enough to be seen in another game ever again… Aimi is a young Japanese girl, Grant is a stereotypical jock and Adrian is the son of an anti-mutant extremist – oh the irony… Choose carefully, because the worst part about the choice is you will have to listen to their slightly robotic conversations.
Whomever you decide to choose, your next task is to help civilians escape the catastrophe around them and battle the extremist group known as ‘The Purifiers’. To do this you get a choice of one of three ‘core’ powers – Density Control, Energy Projection and Shadow Matter – with additional power choices being offered as the game progresses.
You are then off on a relatively generic third-person button bashing romp, beating up Purifiers, Soldiers (who are meant to be the ‘UN’ in all this) and other (sometimes) fellow mutants. The game throws in some levelling up options for your powers, abilities (or X-genes) from other mutants and suits. In theory it does mean no two playthroughs should ever be the same, but all the variations and options really don’t appear to be fully realised. Add to that variety the option to side with either members of the X-Men or the Brotherhood (Magneto and his evil bunnies) and that’s the gist of the game. Unfortunately, while the option to help one band of merry mutants over another – and the option indicates an alignment shift – one doesn’t get much of a feeling that much is changing other than the colour and shape of the outfits vaguely assisting you are different. There is a branched ending, but it seems more defined by a final alignment choice late in the game than the continued choices made throughout the game to actually mean anything.
Graphics and Sound
The game is colourful. The graphics are almost the best I’ve seen… on last generation consoles. And that’s about where the positivity ends in this regard. It’s not even that one could excuse the sub-standard graphics due to thousands of enemies being on screen at once. Even with around thirty enemies I found myself feeling that everything had slowed down a bit. And then the age old issue of wonky camera angles rears its head when you move in to corners. In the end, I’m being partly unkind I suppose. The graphics probably achieve the more cartoon look that the Marvel games appear to prefer. Maybe I just want my comic book hero a little more gritty… *swoon* Hi, Batman.
The voice acting almost always had me imagining the characters were from a 60’s soap opera version of a super hero story. Their personalities were almost non-existent. I was consistently trying to skip their monotonous drone, but… There. Is. No. Skip. Button. The. Torture.
Final thoughts
This is a game that could’ve been so much more. It promises much but simply fails to deliver. It is let down by repetitive gameplay, poor graphics and poor sound. The choices generally feel irrelevant and I would have preferred to play as Wolverine rather than just see him now and then. However, it’s good, clean fun, and if it wasn’t for the 16 Age Restriction, I would heartily recommend it for your 13 year old.
Zombiegamer rating:
