X-Men Destiny Review
Kid Safe: High (7.0 / 10) Game Quality: High (7.0 / 10)
Genre: Action/Adventure
- This
game is identified by its action-based tone of gameplay that focuses on
one or more characters being faced with a challenge and going on an
adventure to solve it through puzzle solving, avoiding obstacles, and
battling enemies with multiple forms of weapons and attacks.
Internet Requirements: None
- X-Men
Destiny, to the best of the reviewer's knowledge, does not feature any
kind of internet-based service. It does not feature any online
multiplayer, "score keeping"/leaderboard, or downloadable content
services.
Story Summary:
- X-Men Destiny picks up during the current events of the X-Men comic book series; but
don't
worry, they do a decent job filling in the gaps for those that haven't
read them much. In this game, you choose one of three different
characters who have just discovered their mutant powers: a refugee from
another country, an aspiring high-school football player, and the
tormented son of a "Purifier", i.e. mutant hunter. When a rally
attempting to promote peace between humans and mutants is attacked by an
unknown force, rioting and chaos spills into the street as groups of
Purifiers and "U-Men" begin to hunt down mutants, who they blame for the
attack. Not only this, but the two bands of mutants, the X-Men and the
Brotherhood of Mutants, are now both at each other's throats thinking
that one is at fault for the attack. Now you must choose: not only your
mutant powers, but who you will side with in this conflict that is
looking to tear the whole of San Francisco apart.
Kid Safe: High (7.0 / 10)
- Foul Language: Low
o X-Men
Destiny contains a relatively low amount of foul language in the form
of the following words: "a*s", "h*ll", and "d*mn". These words are
generally used infrequently at most and are generally specific to
certain individuals; probably the worst offender being a character named
"Surge" who uses the words roughly half a dozen times through a
specific conversation. These words are generally used in situations of
extreme frustration, annoyance, or anger.
- Violence and Gore: Moderate
o X-Men
Destiny features a moderate amount of violence with very few notable
scenes of blood and gore. In this title, one of the primary focuses
through gameplay will be fighting and defeating large groups of enemies
that are attacking you. These enemies generally include humans, i.e.
"Purifier" and "U-Men" members who often wear combat armor and attack
you first, other mutants, and robots. Players are unable to attack
innocent, non-combative civilians or mutants. Players will use a wide
array of mutant powers and capabilities that include laser-beam like
attacks, ethereal blades and projections, and solid rock wrapped around
the character's hands is used to punch enemies.
o Combat
in the game is generally more action-packed rather than gruesome.
Enemies will attack from all sides, keeping the players on their toes as
they fight. Enemies will fall back from attacks as though they had been
attacked. When defeated, enemies will collapse or fall down on the
ground and simply disappear. Combat does not show any explicit scenes of
blood or gore. Do note that, if an enemy is knocked off of a ledge,
building, bridge, etc. the enemy will let loose a scream as they fall
and will not return.
o Aside
from combat, there are some scenes that require note. For one, while in
the U-Men facility, players will see some disturbing scenes of
violence. There are scenes of bodybags being tossed into a truck. There
is a scene where an incapacitated mutant is dragged into a cell and then
beaten before the player's character, lying on the ground and holding
his hands up as his captors beat him with a rod. There is also a scene
where a man injects himself with a hypodermic needle and the camera
shows the view from his bloodstream of the tip of the needle entering
the bloodstream. Finally, scenes with the character Wolverine feature
the mutant fighting a number of enemies; several times Wolverine sticks
his claws into the enemy's chest or gut, however no explicit scenes of
gore or blood are visible...not even a hole.
- Sexually-Related Content: Very Low
o X-Men
Destiny features a very low amount of sexually related content that
relate primarily to skimpy dressing and some minor innuendo. Starting
off with the dressing, as anyone who has read a comic-book or scene a
comic-related movie, the dress attire is occasionally revealing. Several
women in this title are wearing costumes that reveal an ample amount of
cleavage. Aside from that, there are several comments that have a
sexual overtone; "Hey, find me a chick with super flexibility!" and
"Then I'll pick out some girls for you freaks."
- Use of Drugs and Alcohol: None
o To the best of the reviewer's knowledge, X-Men Destiny does not contain any kind of drug, cigarette, or alcohol usage.
Game Quality: High (7.0 / 10)
- Graphics / Visuals: Low
o Oh
boy. It's a little disheartening to say that, for a game that is based
on a largely visual medium, i.e. Comic Books, the graphics and visuals
in X-Men Destiny are just plain bad. To the game's credit, they at least
tried with what they had and added in a number of very cool elements.
Examples of this include a look at San Francisco as it is slowly falling
apart from the in-fighting going on as well as some very cool "text
effects" where text will suddenly fly onto the screen in a very
comic-book style fashion. While these things are certainly cool to look
at, they do not have nearly enough weight to save this game's graphics.
o Narrowing
it down, the game has two major flaws. The first problem is character
design. Starting off, the characters themselves just do not look up to
snuff compared to a large number of games that are being released today.
Poor facial animations, emotions, and expressions often turn the
characters into very robotic looking people that have their expressions
literally painted onto them. Aside from the "known" characters and
mutants from the comic books, the enemies that you fight are incredibly
generic and come with very little variety. I think I counted less than a
dozen different enemy designs in the entire game with the exceptions
with the obvious exception of when you have to fight a known mutant
character. Fighting carbon cut-outs just doesn't get you too far when
you progressively have to fight more and more enemies near the end of
the game.
o The
second major issue is a matter of polishing. I had to contain a giggle
when I started playing through the game and the smoke, explosion, and
fire effects seem like they are from ten years ago. Ontop of this, there
are many, many scenes in this game that could have used some extra work
to clean up exceptionally rough edges and very low resolutions. What
this means is that you end up having a very fuzzy, distorted, blurry,
and choppy looking picture quality on this game that should be
performing at a much higher level.
- Audio: Very High
o Luckily
for the X-Men, their sound quality is much better than their video
quality, and the team did a great job in really using the game's audio
to make an atmosphere that the graphics didn't quite accomplish. First
off, allow me to praise the voice actors. While there are one or two
actors that generally were unimpressive, sounding more like they were
just reading off their lines, they were the exception rather than then
rule. Most every voice actor is spot on and well-done with them properly
portraying everything from frustration to happiness to anger to sorrow
simply through the tone of their voice. Plus, every actor is
well-matched to previously established voices for the mutants in
question; a good thing given X-Men has been running for so long now.
o Aside
from the acting was the music. Building on top of both the acting and
the action, the music really helps to build the tension or the
atmosphere in the game. While many games really boast hard rock songs
that get your heart pounding for chases or fights, very few can claim
that they catch your attention with a guitar. There was a fascinating
little bit in the game that did not feature any background music short
of a couple of notes on a guitar; however this piece was so simple and
went along with the tone of the gameplay so well that I found myself
enraptured by these few simple notes. Very well-done. This is, of
course, forgetting about the well-toned action music such as hard rock,
techno, and rhythmic drum beats that make the score for this game a
winner.
o Finally,
and often left unnoticed in these reviews, is the matter of sound
effects. Now, generally we don't try and cover this too often because we
just can't honor these effects right, but X-Men deserves special
praise. The team did a great job in adding in little bits here and there
that really caught my ear. Wood softly shaking and rattling under you
as you run, or creaking over your head. The soft tink of metal or zap of
electricity. The howl of wind or sirens or crumbling in the distance.
These were all well done and I think deserve mention.
- Gameplay / Playability: High
o X-Men
fell just short of a very high rating because of some issues in combat.
However, before we get into that, allow us to cover the matter of
Playability. This title does an excellent job catering to both the newer
and the more experienced players. Players are able to choose their
difficulty (easy, medium, or hard) at the beginning of the game and are
able to change it at any time during gameplay. Likewise, as the game
starts off, it does an excellent job in introducing just about every
facet of gameplay in a controlled and simple to follow manner.
Everything from walking around to using your mutant powers is explained
in a set of instructions that will pop up on screen that will only leave
when you tell it too. But don't worry! You can always look up those
controls again at anytime. On top of this, the game does a fair job of
always pointing out where you need to go or what you need to use with
simple but visible icons. Players can almost always see a ray of light
or an icon indicating where they need to go. Similarly, icons will
specify the top of attack or power that you have to use on certain
puzzles in the environment so that you can get started.
o The
customizability in gameplay was some of the coolest I have seen
recently and especially more than I had expected out of an X-Men title.
The game literally will freeze just before something major happens (the
first time right as a car is flying at your head during the rally
attack) and allows you to choose your mutant power. This happens several
times throughout gameplay, always giving you multiply options to choose
from. On top of this, players are always able to find and use "X-Genes"
that will give them access to powers or similar abilities from more
famous mutants like Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Cyclops. From there,
players will not only be able to mix and match these X-Genes and their
mutant abilities, but they can also use "XP" that they collect to make
their attacks more powerful and unlock even MORE capabilities. Even
doing the math briefly, that means that the number of different
combinations for combat and gameplay are HUGE.
o The
one major problem boils down to the combat. While I must say that the
fighting in the game is actually very smooth and fun, especially
integrating all of the customization and cool mutant powers, there is
one major flaw. The combat is just shallow. As awesome as it is, we
already touched on just how few different "types" of enemies there are.
This turns to the game into little more than a hack and slash where
players are just endlessly beating up the same archetypes of enemies
without any major variation short of the game throwing more and more at
you. This makes less for exciting combat and more of a chore.
- Dollar-Value: Moderate
o Overall,
X-Men Destiny has a moderate dollar value. The game is sadly rather
short, boasting somewhere between 5 to 7 hours of gameplay to beat the
title's story. While the game boasts a truly impressive amount of
gameplay, I can't imagine that there is much reason to play through the
title again unless you are simply interested in seeing how the three
different characters react to the same situations. When you couple this
with the kind of rough graphics and occasionally shallow combat, it
might be better to hold off and wait for the price to drop a bit. While I
really did enjoy the game and I think it would be a good choice for
some younger players, I also can't say that I feel it's really worth
dropping full price for this title.
Recommendations
- As
a highly child-friendly title, we do not have too many other
recommendations. However, if you and your's are super-hero fans, you
might also check out the Marvel Ultimate Alliance or the X-Men Legends
series. Likewise, if you are looking for a comic-book game aimed towards
a slightly older audience, you might also appreciate Batman: Arkham
Asylum.
