My X-Men Legends (XML) Review

X-Men Legends
Published by: Activision
Developed by: Raven Software
Genre: Third-Person Action RPG
Number of Players: 1-4
US Release Date: September 21, 2004
Features: Dolby Pro Logic II, Dual Shock, Memory Card, Stereo Surround, Vibration

First of all, its cover, I would say, doesn't look very attractive.. especially on those unfamiliar with the X-Men...

The game starts off with a News Broadcast by the RVN World News... with updates on the mutant-related events around the world... which included one live breaking-news on a very recent discovery of yet another mutant, a young girl name, Alice Crestmere.
Forcebly, she was being taken away by the GRSO Soldiers, while all around were a crowd of humans rioting against her.
Just as things were looking its worse, suddenly one of the soldier turned out to be a disguised Mystique of the Brotherhood of Mutants!!
With help from Blob, they got Alice, though Wolverine was at the scene to try and prevent them from getting her.
With Alice's still uncontrollable fiery mutant powers, she undeliberately caused a large explosion that blew nearly everyone away and left herself unconscious...
With Alice in the hands of Mystique's and literally, Blob's, Wolverine sets out to get her into safer hands, namely the X-Men's...
What plans have the Brotherhood of Mutants for the fiery, lava-generating powers of Alice Crestmere?
And why are the mutant-killing machines, the Sentinels, back in production?
The story unfolds many smaller stories to combine into one big climax where you have to fight against Magneto, leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants and a particularly money & military-powered mutant-hater, General Kincaid.
I have to say, the story is quite acceptably & satisfyingly good... and you can get to know better of many of your favorite X-Men characters and others!

The character menu

OK.. let me comment on its graphics and animations first of all...
The graphics and animations during gameplay isnt' that great, but neither is it bad... just right to look at as you play...
However, the animation of the characters I have to say are very stiff and just plain not right in my view...
Can you imagine Wolverine talking his rough and 'I just wanna slice something' talk while his body moves with the only part of his arms that move are the rest after the elbow.. like some penguin tilting form one side to the other while it walks?
definitely not something that I would believe is suitable for Wolverine...
On the topic of graphics and animations, let me get to the cinematic scenes...
I like the cinematic scenes... but the visual of the graphic isn't as nice, especially with some of facial look of the characters... though it is enjoyable to see Prof. Xavier in those cinematic scene, with his muscular build and cool glowing eyes, plus his so right voice!!

Speaking of which, the voices.. I believe all of the characters scored a different voice actor/actress from the animated series... maybe I'm partially wrong...
but it's still cool to listen to the voices from the SO MANY characters! Some of which I've never heard or seen before... but most of which I've came across before.. with the some of the popular characters that everyone familiar with the X-Men should know.. Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Beast, Rogue, Storm, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Prof. X, Magneto, Toad, Mystique and more!

Next, the gameplay..
to be honest, I had A LOT of fun!
The fighting is really fun. Trying to do the button combos to make powerful melee attacks, seeing the special effects of each charater's mutant powers and even combining two different powers to create an effective combo for extra damage and experience gained, etc...
Pummeling the hordes of enemies is loads of fun and different type of enemies poses different type of challenges for players to beat them to a pulp...
What adds to the fun of fighting is that you get to choose FOUR from out of 14 available X-Men characters, including a special character for a short mission, namely Professoer X himself!!
Some of the characters' mutant powers can alter the environment to suit a specific need, like a need for a bridge, which can be made with Iceman's ice-generating power or even with Jean Grey's telekinetic power!!

Iceman creates a icy bridge over a valley

Besides that, whenever you are done with a mission, usually you are placed in the X-Mansion, the home-base of the X-Men, where you get into the point of view of the new member of the family, Alice Crestmere herself...
Here, you get to look at many small bonuses, such as sketches, comic book archves, portfolios of some of the X-Men and the villains, etc, including the Danger Room, where you can train both your characters and yourself during and within the game!
At the same time, you can interact with some of the X-Men themselves and even unlock a few flashbacks where you can to get some of the X-Men history...

There is no option of difficulty and I believe the default difficulty can be quite challenging for those unable to comprehend the gameplay....
I myself have some moments in the game where I lost my temper and started shouting 'unhappy' words...
And oh yeah.. what adds to the difficulty is the pathetic AI for your allies.. as you can use up to FOUR characters during missions, you'll be controlling one character while the other three are played by the game's AI...
unfortunately, they're not very smart or as flexible as players would like...

Whoa! That took me quite a while to finish!
Anyway, in conclusion, I'd give this game a FOUR out of five... cause it's still enjoyable to play, though it's unfortunate that you couldn't continue playing your characters after so long and hard to level them up...
Do get this game, if you're a fan of the X-Men genre.. and if you're not but into such action rpg, do give this game a try.

Oh yeah.. another thing I wanted to add about the funness of this game..
The destruction of nearly everything in the environment.. Hahah!
With such powers, it's a wonder why you wouldn't be able to destroy things around you! haha!
just so enjoy just destroying the walls, the chairs, the barrels, and plenty more! Even a large military tank is in the list!!

"ALONE, YOU ARE MIGHTY.

TOGETHER, YOU ARE LEGENDS."

~ Professor Charles Xavier