• Graphics
  • Controls
  • Sound

Growing up in the 90′s meant that Saturday morning was worth getting up for. Back then we had the coolest cartoons around no contest. One of the best had to be X-Men. Every week I’d tune in just to see what evil deed Magneto was concocting, and how the X-Men would save the day. Of course back then I didn’t catch the bigger meaning of class struggles and racisim, but going back now and rewatching has made it even better. Sadly not a lot of X-Men video games have done justice to the franchise. The original arcade was awesome(minus stupid Dazzler) and the Legends game were ok for being RPG’s, but they still didn’t deliver the full experience. Enter X-Men Destiny, the newest try at delivering the true X-Men feeling. Whether you’re a part of the X-Men or The Brotherhood let’s see if this game breaks the mold like Batman Arkham Asylum did.

STORY

X-Men Destiny begins at a peace rally between humans and mutants in San Fransisco honoring the late Professor X. The peace rally is being help by Luis Reyes head of the MRD. During the rally an attack takes place causing death and mayham. Sadly the X-Men are only able to save Luis Reyes or the mayor of San Fransisco. Nightcrawer chooses Luis Reyes and the mayor is killed in an explosion. The attack looks like it was orchestrated by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. While the destruction is happening you are shown three new characters Aimi Yoshida, who was smuggled out of Japan by her parents before they were taken into a mutant concentration camp. Grant Alexander, a college freshman looking to go pro in football, and Adrian Luca, a member of the anti mutant group “the Purifiers” and enemy of mutant kind. Its up to one of these new mutants to work with the X-Men and The Brotherhood to get to the bottom of the attack and see who was responsible.

Gameplay
Whichever of the new mutants you choose to play as you are givin a choice of 1 of 3 powers to have. The 3 powers available are changing the density of your body and limbs to rock, being able to control the air and matter around you creating blades that do damage and allowing slight phasing abilities, and being able to create energy and shoot it out of your hands like Havok. Each mutant power also comes with a skill tree that adds certain attacks to your repertoire. You are givin four powers to choose from and two abilities. Once you’ve selected your two powers and ability you unlock a super attack towards the end of the game. This attack requires almost a full energy bar to pull off and it starts off lasting about 30 seconds. All of your attacks can be upgraded to deal more damage to more enemies and last longer. Every enemy you defeat gives you exp to use on moves and abilities. It takes about one and a half playthroughs to fully upgrade everything. The combat system plays like any action adventure beat em up, where you are givin a room full of enemies to take out. You have your quick attack (X) and your strong attack (Y). You can combine the two into combos which do more damage.

Hidden throughout the levels are challenge rooms and thing called “X-Genes” Challenge rooms are marked with the same giant x as your objective. Challenge rooms are enclosed areas that requires you to defeat a set amount of enemies or destroy certain objects in aset amount of time. None of the challenges were that difficult and didn’t take a second attempt. Completing the challenges reward you with a X-Gene. X-Genes are collectibles that reward your character with certain abilities and traits of other mutants. Their are offensive and defensive X-Genes. If you match all of the genes with the costume that that certain mutant wears you can unleash a super attack at the cost of 4 energy bars. I’m telling you right now though that most every other costume you get looks horrible on whichever character you use. Just stick with the default costume. It looks the best and that super attack you can use isn’t worth it.

One glaring issue that was the biggest letdown was the absence of multiplayer. How can you have a game involving the X-Men that doesn’t allow you to utilize teamwork? They are known for working as a team and with so many characters to choose from why not throw some mp in. There are time where you fight with an NPC against enemies so its not like they couldn’t have added it. Another issue that got on my nerves was how you cannot skip the cutscenes. No matter how long they are or how many times you’ve seen it you will be watching it until its over. I know it isn’t a huge deal to some people, but it got annoying going back for collectibles after I finished the game and having to watch the long cutscenes again. The graphics and animation also weren’t the greatest. While playing as Aimi, who wears a scarf around her mouth, the scarf would go into her face in almost every cutscene and you would see her mouth. Now again not a huge deal, but some people care about the little stuff like that so just letting you know. The game plus the challenges and achievements should take you around 6 hours if that.

Achievements
The achievements for X-Men Destiny were actually pretty well done. It didn’t require any grinding unless you want to earn the 0 point achievement for dying 100 times. Playing on hard I died maybe 15 so I had to load up a checkpoint and just die for about 30 minutes. Also a big plus is not having to scour every level for collectibles. Yes there are collectible achievements, but way more are available then the number you need for the achievement to pop. Now I did have to play twice in order to unlock all the challenges because I thought there would be an achievement for maxing out your trust with each faction. Nope don’t have to do that so just talk to everyone and accept their mission. If you do end up missing a faction specific challenge just restart and choose everything related to that faction. The killing a set amount of enemy achievements carry over into challenge mode as well so they will come quite quickly. I recommend playing on hard seeing as the difficulties stack, and hard is a joke compared to the standards of today. The only achievement that I needed to grind was dying 100 times for the awesome 0 point achievement.

Final thoughts
Overall I believe that X-Men Destiny has the potential to become an excellent game if they reworked a few things. If and when they get a sequel they NEED to incorperate multiplayer even if its just you and a friend. Being able to create your characters costume and also allowing more freedom when choosing what powers and attacks you can learn. I did enjoy my time playing this game and never dreaded having to finish it for the achievements. As far as spending more than $20 on it isn’t really worth it. A short story and no multiplayer to speak of hurts its replay value. A great title to rent and a quick 1000 points to add to your gamerscore if you are an achievement whore like yours truly. Sadly it looks like we are still going to be waiting for a X-Men game to deliver the uncanny experience we all want.