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A Review from somebody who has actually played the game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 70 / 75
Date: October 07, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is great.

It's a brawler with RPG elements, in the Baldur's Gate: dark Alliance / Champions of Norrath / Fallout Brotherhood vein, but better executed. I would recommend this game before any of those games. The controls are "pick up and play" easy, and the mix of characters keeps things interesting.

One great feature is that I was playing the game during the Juggernaut attack flashback, and my brother came in and wanted to try the game out too. All he had to do to join the game that I was playing in story mode was to pick up a controller. No interruption in my game whatsoever, and the easy to learn controls meant that he didn't screw me up either.

For those who don't like the ultimate costumes, various original costumes such as Wolverine's make appearances in flashback, and they are also unlockable.

The AI characters are pretty smart, and don't do stupid things like charge off into nowhere or run off of cliffs and for this I am grateful. Sometimes AI wolverine even does a better job than my wolverine, which is a high compliment.

I'm not finished with the game. I just beat Magneto (he was a wimp, even though Sabretooth and Mystique were helping him during the fight), so I think that I'm pretty far along in the game. When I'm done, I will probably re-play the game to find all of the the danger room disks that you need to unlock the ultimate offensive attachments of the mutants, but a harder difficulty with fewer dropped potions and stringer enemies would make things more challenging, and the game doesn't have this. However the game does have a "Danger Room mode" where you can play as any character in the game or team of characters and play against any character or teams of characters that you've met (I tried to beat Magneto, Juggernaut, Cyclops, and a Sentinel with a team of wimpy brotherhood marauders, and the result wasn't pretty, so I swiched teams and stomped them up with Juggernaut).

Oh, and the writers knocked the story for this game out of the ballpark. Better than the output of any X-men comic this year.

Possible negatives include the cell shaded graphics, which are good enough for the overhead perspective of the game, but look awful in some game-engine cut scenes. Still, the story is great, and I prefer the good story to the pretty, but useless, cutscenes of a "Baldur's gate 2." Another negative is that this Brawler with RPG elements is less "Brawler" than, say, Kingdom Hearts, but the variety and customizations of you characters makes up for that. Instead of using the same attack pattern on level after level, you can mix characters or level up characters differently for different styles of play. I also like the simpler controls and lack of complicated combos. A final negative is that the game is not difficult, and over in about 20-30 hours. My game is at the 31 hour mark and I'm just about done, but that's the genre standard so the value here on game difficulty and on depth still compares well to similarly paced games.

These are the REAL X-Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 31
Date: September 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As an avid X-Men fan I'm always on the look out for the "next big thing", and I don't mean Brock Lesnar. Finally, the game experience that all of you "X-Philes" have been waiting for is here.

If you've seen any of the gameplay movies or screenshots then you know just what's in store for the people who pick-up a copy of this game. Even though it's not quite an RPG in the true sense of the words (i.e. Final Fantasy) there is enough here to make any RPG/comic book fan go nuts. If you've been to any of the review sites or the main game site then you know what to expect from this game. If not, then here's a quick run down:

* Choose from 15 playable X-Men including Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Rogue, Psylocke, Beast,and even Jubilee

* Go it alone in one player and choose a "team leader" to control with the other three team members controlled by A.I. and switch between the four X-Men you have chosen in the middle of gameplay.

* Grab some friends and have them join in for up to 4-player insanity.

* Earn points and upgrade your team to grow in strength, agility, leadership, and mutant abilities (just to name a few attributes) or have the game itself distribute the points throughout the team equally.

* Play bonus trivia, visit other X-Men, unlock hidden costumes from different decades, or take on the Danger Room as you explore the X-Mansion.

* Relive classic battles from the pages of the comics in bonus missions.

* Excellent voice cast, including Patrick Stewart, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Steven Blum (Spike Speigel from "Cowboy Bebop") as Wolverine.

So there you go gamers. X-Men Legends is out in a week and it's gonna be one helluva game. Oh, and why five stars? C'mon it's the X-Men!

Good superhero fun, remembers X-men well

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 31
Date: September 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Although the game came out 9/23, and it's only been four days since I owned the game, my buddies and I have been proceeding through the game at a good clip. The rumors about the AIs functioning fuzzy are somewhat true -- this is a game better played with buddies. And you should be playing it with buddies -- it's a team game!

One nice thing about the multi-player mode is that load times are not so bad and the game doesn't get bogged down when your team and the enemies fill the screen (like, say Samurai/Dynasty Warriors). Plugging the memory card in the Ps2 and not the multi-tap also helps the system load the game levels faster.

Here are the bummer points about the game:
1) During the game, you occassionally have to play a New Mutant and she has to "discover" the x-men culture on her own. This is so tedious and boring. Especially because your friends have nothing to do while 1 player does all the navigating.
2) Most of the information you "discover" or the movie screens have no relevance to the game. Making them really non-essential. They have nowhere near the charm or pizzazz of Metal Gear Solid. It's mostly filler. And what a shame -- the game producers hired Patrick Stewart, among others, to help out. Why not get a writer to lend some help with the non-combat tidbits to make them fun. The conversations with other X-men are truly boring -- you'd think that every character was Cyclops.
3) Geek point: Brotherhood of Evil hiring non-mutant thugs to accompany them on missions? Err...

Overall, when the game is in action it's a lot of fun. My buddies and I played the game until my tear ducts refused to work and I collapsed with polygon headache. It's a good arcade game. Very fun to build your own X-Men and use the strengths you think he/she should have. The flexibility of the powes and combat moves is a great thing.

Let's hope the next X-men game will build on this one's strengths. I'm giving the game a conservative star rating for the weak points I mentioned, but anyone interested in a superhero game or a co-op console game should definitely give it a try. Other folks: you may want to pass. (9/26/04)

Some reviewers just irritate me...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: October 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Hmm...well, first off, I remember reading a review by Derek Mok before buying the game, and almost didn't because of his bad review (of course, I bought it anyway out of boredom and curiousity). As it turns out, he had played, oh, approximately 5% or so of the game. As such, he got lots of things wrong, and, since Amazon's evidently deemed fit to still place his review at the top of their list, I'd hate for others to be misled as I was.

First, the Danger Room bit where he claims you can only train one of your characters. At first, this is true, and the initial trainings act as a tutorial, teaching you the combo sequences. But there are many, MANY Danger Room exercises to be found as you progress through the game, and the Danger Room becomes a big part of the Story Mode as it allows you easily level your characters up by replaying old training exercises.

Now, as a side note, don't confuse the Danger Room I mentioned in that paragraph with the Danger Room option that's accessed through the main menu. THAT Danger Room mode sucks; everyone's gotten that point right. It does have about 10 minutes of entertainment value, as you can play as the villians, but that's about it. But no, it's the Danger Room exercises within the Story Mode itself that I'm referring to. I know, a bit confusing if you haven't played the game.

Also, some people complain about the save game engine; in my opinion, it's really not bad. It isn't a "Save Anywhere" style as in Champions of Norrath, more like the Save Point system in Final Fantasy, but the SP's are spaced fairly conveniently. After playing all the way through, I'd say they're spaced about 20-30 minutes apart. At the SP's, you can also access the Danger Room (the Story Mode style, mind you), change your teammates (which is necessary if you come to a point where you need a bridge built or a flier), and buy equipment/health thingies (I wanna call them potions 'cause that's what they are in every other RPG, but oh well...).

On to mission length. Yeah, the missions are long, but like I say, you get enough Save Points along the way if you need to stop for a break. Also, a mission will never start unless you confirm that you want it to. The flashback sequences are optional also, although I'd highly recommend playing them. Still, Derek said the first mission took him 2-3 hours. What, did your intestines explode mid-game? My first time through, the first mission took me maybe 45 minutes, and that was checking each nook and cranny. Second time through, twenty minutes, tops.

However, don't expect the whole game to look like what is presented on TV; those clips are just the FMV sequences. Though the in-game graphics are pretty darn good (they look just like a comic, anyway, which is something I'm more than happy with).

The character balance is good, but like almost any RPG, the fighters (like Wolverine and Beast) are overpowered at first while the ranged fighters (Cyclops, Storm, etc.) are weaker; as the game progresses though, they really balance each other out, and by the end, the ranged fighters are really capable of so much more than the melee's are. Additionally, there are mixed characters like Nightcrawler or Gambit capable of either role, depending on how you decide to level them up. Good system all around, in my opinion, which is something I expect from Raven Software. They've got too much experience in the field not to have balance by now.

My only beef was that Psylocke isn't available until way late in the game. Such a bummer for such a cool fighter. Of course, there are characters I would've liked to see, both villians (umm...lemme put it this way, so I don't spoil anything: I really would've rather fought the villian who sets up a sequel in the final FMV than fight Magneto) and heroes (Havok would've been great as a playable character, as would somebody like Cable or Bishop or even Quicksilver, though Bishop makes a VERY small cameo as a child), but there's so many X-characters that it's hard to make beef when there's so many of them out there.

All in all, a great, addictive game with enough RPG elements to keep role-players interested and enough action to keep more normal people entertained as well. And bottom line, ignore the guy who makes judgment and writes his review before he's even gotten a quarter of the way into the game.

Most fun game since Genesis/SNES days...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: October 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what's with all the negative comments about this game. Is it because they're avid comic-fans who are whining cause they're more caught up in the history of the X-Men than to play the game? This isn't some overly pretty game where it's based more on graphics than fun. Sure I've had a couple of problems with the game, such as getting across a missing bridge, but that's where the save points come in handy because you can change up your team there. Jean Grey and Iceman come in handy for those spots. And as you play the storymode, you unlock more and more characters, all of whom you can upgrade them however you wish by gaining experience.

I have not played a game this fun since the old genesis and super nintendo days. It's like streets of rage or double dragon in a fully 3D rendered environment. This is the game I've been waiting for years, and my only reason to even have a PS2, since all the other games I've bought are sorta fun, yet frustrating the first time, and when you play them again, it's deja vu, and boring. This game has multiple re-play value, and is 4 players. Also, you don't just choose one certain X-Man for the whole game, because the X-Men are a team, and this is a team game, and when it gets down to just one, no one X-Man can do it themself. So pick your 4, and make a go of it, and remember that you can change-up at the save points that are all over in the game.

Plus, as Alison Crestmere aka Magma, who is coming to learn of her mutant powers, you go throughout the Mansion and talk to members of the X-Men over time, and are able to bring about flashbacks which you get to take part in. Remember when Juggernaut first stormed the mansion? Well, think you can stop him in less than 4 minutes, with the original X-Men in original costumes? I wish there were more games like this, where you have a couple of people fighting various enemies at one time while moving on to try and fight end boss at each level. Granted there is no end boss at end of each level, but you are on a mission so you've got to get your tasks done.

X-Men and RPG don't mix..but oddly enough this does

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: September 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having first appeared in the pages of Marvel comics more than 40 years ago and recently starring in two highly successful movies, dozens of comic spin-offs, and video games on nearly every platform since the 8-bit NES, the X-Men have broken out of the geek-chic mold of the comics universe to become modern pop culture icons. But thanks to their new digital debut in the action/RPG genre with X-Men Legends, you've never seen Xavier's men (and women) quite like this before. X-Men Legends is equal parts super-powered team-brawler and carefully customizable RPG in the vein of successful genre-benders like Baulder's Gate, but mixed with the familiar flavor of the Marvel universe - meaning Legends is saturated with atmospheric authenticity and comic book continuity. The exciting and original story (penned by former X-Men comic authors) starts when Magneto's minions attempt to kidnap a powerful young mutant named Alison Crestmere for use in his attempts to rule the world and subjugate humanity. In order to combat Magneto and his evil Brotherhood of Mutants, you assume control a group of four X-Men selected before each mission stage from an overall pool of over a dozen of these famous fighters, with the ability to switch between each character on the fly. Perhaps the coolest part of X-Men Legends is the handy Dynamic Joining feature, which allows you and up to three friends to each take control of an X-Man at any time and come and go as you please without disrupting the progress of the story mode missions - thereby effectively transforming a simple single-player game into a multiplayer melee at a moment's notice. Fortunately, the friendly AI is also quite bright, allowing your uncontrolled characters to follow your lead intelligently without being distracting or requiring any substantial coddling. Each individual X-Man also has a set of upgradeable and unique mutant abilities that are useful both in heated battles and in solving small puzzles and overcoming otherwise impassable obstacles, making the character selections a crucial part of pre-combat customization. Legends also packs a plethora of side-quests, unlockable items, mini-games, hidden bonuses, and multiplayer modes to keep you busy well beyond the scope of the primary missions of the story mode. Chief among these extras is the inventive Skirmish mode in which you and your pals import your saved character data and individual statistics to battle it out in a head-to-head duel, with the myriad of entertaining and addictive Danger Room challenges coming in a close second. The bulk of X-Men Legends is comprised of team based combat with waves of enemy soldiers and can, at times, become a bit repetitious. But the cool ability to perform specialized combo attacks with your teammates adds a nice layer of depth to the battles and becomes an integral part of defeating challenging bosses and defeating overwhelming odds. The detailed environments also boast an impressive level of destructibility that allows your mutant marauders to bust through walls and leave beautiful rubble piles in your wake. But Legends isn't just about beating the bad guys, as the aforementioned "RPG elements" are rather substantial. Character buildup is accomplished via an accumulation of experience points earned in battle that can then be used to purchase new mutant skills and enhanced statistics that incorporate each character's unique powers from the comic book series. Plus, each character can equip several defensive and offensive items, which can either be bought from Forge or earned through victories, making Legends more than just a simple fighting game with player stats.
X-Men Legends isn't perfect, but it comes pretty damn close. A few notable gripes do arise, like the abhorrently sluggish and leisurely loading times and the unimpressive and outdated cinematic sequences that jar with the otherwise slick visual stylings. The camera also hangs at an awkward ¾ perspective and occasionally moves too far out to cover all the action, leaving you with a screen of indiscernible mini-mutants. However, such complaints seem petty and entirely forgivable when juxtaposed with the stellar cell-shaded graphics, excellent voice acting (with Patrick Stewart reprising his cinematic role as Professor X), and multiplayer mayhem that make Legends look and feel like the A-list game that it is. Whether you're a long time X-fan or simply an action/RPG enthusiast, X-Men Legends is an outstanding addition to any gamer's library.

One of the Best superhero games ever created

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: October 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It's Grand theft auto Vice City of comic book superhero games. There are tons of characters to gather throughout the game and choose from. Among them are Wolverine, Gambit, Iceman, Beast, Rogue, Jubilee, Nightcrawler to name a few, and they all have a wide selection of unique and powerful moves that can be strengthened with experience. All Throughout the game Professor X sends you on various intense missions as the team while at the same time you play the role of the young mutant Magma as she's dealing with her newfound mutant burden and she's just enrolling in the school and going through danger room training sequences and introducing herself to all the other schools mutants. While on the missions, you (The X-Men) get to fight Pyro, Blob, Mystique, Toad, Avalanche, Sentinels, Morlocks, Magneto and even Juggernaut in one of the sequences where the heroes recall certain historic fights that they've been through and you're left to act them out. Juggernauts rampaging through the mansion looking for Xavier to kill him and he's plowing through everything in sight, tables, furniture, walls, and it's just one of those sequences in games where you actually feel like you're in there yourself running after him. I think the voice of Juggernaut is the same voice of that cigar smoking talking robot from the Simpsons. There are a few entire days worth of gameplay and believe me it is so involving that it will pull you right in and not let go and everything else around you in the room you're in will seem very distant.

Frustrating, poorly paced, awful save-game system.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 40
Date: September 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Activision got the mechanics of this game pretty much spot on, and it looks and sounds great, with good artwork and graphics, plus good voice acting. But the gameplay is seriously hindered by some massive problems:

- There is no alternate mode available to play. When you start out, you pretty much have to play Story Mode. You get very limited control over which X-Man you play as. Yes, there is a roster of tried-and-true favourites to choose from -- Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Rogue and Jean Grey -- but they're not all available at the same time, and their abilities are poorly balanced (Wolverine is overpowered as usual, but Cyclops positively sucks).
- Why bother having a Danger Room training mode if the only character you can train is Magma? When you start out, there *are* a few team-training missions where you can build up the abilities of your preferred X-Man, but it's not possible to do the single-character training lessons as any character other than Magma. Boo.
- Each mission is far, far too long, with too much running around looking for things to smash. The second mission in the game (also the first mission proper) took me about two hours to finish. Two hours! When your characters actually go up nine levels in one mission, you know you have a design problem. By the time I got to the end, the fun was gone. The maps should have been half the size.
- With such long missions, you better give us the healing icons we need. Well, in this game, healing icons are mostly hidden in environments and objects you have to destroy, and you get maybe one healing icon every 20 objects you smash. So when your health is low, you end up running around smashing objects desperately hoping the game would actually give you a healing item. Absolutely dreary.
- The save-game system is one of the worst I've ever encountered. What could the logic be of not having an auto-save feature at the end of missions? If you finish a mission, you end up at the Xavier Mansion -- where it's supposed to be safe haven, right? Unfortunately, this game has a habit of launching super-hard missions at you when you're not intending to move on in the game. I was just about to catch my breath after the two-hour first mission when the game sprang a "flashback" on me. Turns out this was a mission like any other where you have to battle eight sentinels at a time, whose attacks take half your health -- no exaggeration. Maybe the game programmers had a ball designing this mission; playing it was like water torture.
- The loading times are excruciating. Even when you press start to pause the game, there is a substantial lag, and loading times between parts of a level are inexcusable. This game really doesn't seem that much more complex than others of its type -- why the long loading times?

I enjoyed this game at first, but after about an hour and a half of struggling with the above issues, it got to be laborious and joyless. Too bad, because this game had born the promise of being the best X-Men game yet outside of Capcom's two-player fighting games. It allows you to progress your characters and features a plethora of background detail. But the problems are just too substantial for this to be even a somewhat good, let alone great, game.

Best Game I've Played in Years

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Seriously, this is the best PS2 game I've played since Wild Arms 3. A lot of games have been well done, but they were nothing like this one. Graphics may not have pushed the limits of the system, but the cell shading helped give the game a comic book feel.

The story was very well done too. The missions themselves seemed to fit together quite nicely, and without and obscure space fillers...except for maybe the Astral Plane missions, but those were a blast since it let you play as Professor X himself!

While the inbetween stages with Magma wandering the Mansion were getting repetative toward the end of the game, it did give it lots of depth. There was a lot to do in the mansion between trivia games, the danger room, and hidden flashbacks courtesy of Beast, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler.

One of the games biggest sell factors was the ability to play with a team of four X-Men all at once, and the developers didn't slack off creating their AI either. The list of 15 plaable X-Men made for an intersting variety of experiences through each level, and it provides a lot of replay value.

The only thing I didn't like about the game was the fact that once you beat it, it's over. I would have liked to be able to play the missions over again inside the danger room with a new team of X-Men, similar to where Magma runs through a replay of the first mission. That would definately mke it easier to unlock all the secrets inside the game.

Though all the good qalities of this game definately outweighed this minor setback, so I'm still giving this game a 5

Just a few words

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: October 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have not been able to complete this game as of this review, but with what I have played so far, I love it!. The graphics are a little on the cartoony side, but still looking good. The game play leave a little to be desired, especially in the co-op mode. I find the co-op mode needs some work, there are so many places in the game where the co-op mode does not exist and I believe that if you are going to make a game co-op, go all the way not half. Combat is great in co-op mode, the battles are quite involved and rather enjoyable. The ability to use multiple x-men in one battle makes for a great way to fight, if it turns out that a boss or something else is re. The leveling system is great for allowing you to control the development of your heros, you can either develop the combat skills for the front line fighter, or you can lean more toward the mutant power to be able to stand back and support the brawlers with incredable powers. I really like the fact that the fliers are actually able to fly through the game(as long as you have the power), and all the mutants actually have the powers that they are suppose to have, wolverine heals, nightcrawler teleports, rogue drains life. I also enjoy the fact the they have more then just the most prominent x-men in the game. The only part that kinda bugged me was the fact that you keep getting place in single palyer control of a budding X-men and are unable to co-op play during that time. but that all from me for now.

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