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Horrible level design, frustrating gameplay, incredibly difficult

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I played this game for 4-5 hours with my 8-year old son and it was unbelievably frustrating. I've never played a game before with such horribly designed levels, where you fight your way through hordes of bad guys for 2 hours only to find yourself facing a bridge and the WRONG X-Man character to get across it, so you have to start all over at a long-gone save where that particular character is still alive, and someone manage to keep him/her alive long enough to reach the bridge. The camera view is horrible, so that you can only see about 10 feet in front of your characters. There is no way to heal your most vulnerable characters because there are woefully few health drops. The A.I. controlled X-men characters are so freaking stupid that they'll walk right off a cliff and die, which means you have to constantly switch from your favorite char to one of the idiot A.I. chars to get them in the right place, and they constantly get stuck and are too stupid to jump over little obstacles to keep up with you. This game is fun when it works, which is only really when you're playing solo or 2-player co-op, when you don't have to deal with the stupid A.I. Overally, I became so frustrated and angry while playing this game that I had to shut it off. Only an X-men fan would give this a 5-star rating because the game levels are a confusing mess, the A.I. is stupid, there are no clues for solving puzzles (like crossing damaged bridges), and you have to use a specific X-men character to solve certain parts of the game, with no warning in advance, and that char probably will die before you reach it. Horrible, horrible game. The only game I've played that's worse than this is TMNT for Xbox, and I play about 100 games per year.

Best X-Men game, but still far from being a good game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game could have been excellent if not for a long list of flaws. Here are some of the major issues that make it be only a 2 star game:

- Game advertises itself as an Action/RPG. In reality, this is nothing like Baldur's Gate or Diablo, but it is more like a beat'em up arcade (think Mutant Turtle Ninjas in arcades).

- There is ZERO Artificial Intelligence. In Single Player, you control one of the 4 X-Men, while the other 3 are controlled by the AI. Normally, this would work, but not in this game. I had X-Men falling from bridges (very expensive to revive them, unless you replay that segment), X-Men standing on grenades and not moving, X-Men getting a beating with no reaction, and so on. If you think Single Player - then DO NOT get this game.

- There is no way to really 'control' what the other 3 X-Men are doing. While pressing L should bring them to where you are, this hardly ever works. And if they come to where you are, the moment you let L go, they run back to fight.

- There is no way to set-up the use of potions for these 3 other X-Men. You can only choose to have them use potions at 20% or 40% of their health, but 20% is not enough (by the time they use the potion - IF they use it - they are dead) while 40% is too much (they start chugging potions when is not needed). Choosing other options or percentages is of no use too.

- There is no way to go alone to scout, if you already have the group with you (similar to Brute Force or KOTOR). They always follow you and even when you set them up to NOT charge the enemy, they will still do it.

- Like in LOTR: Third Age, your characters level up every 2-3 minutes. This gets annoying really fast, especially since you only get 1 point every time and most skills require more than 1. Still, basically you have to go through 3 menus every 2-3 minutes, to level up.

- This game gives new meaning to term 'linearity'. There is always just one way to go. Even Fable seems non-linear with respect to this. Invisible walls are everywhere, even though you can see the road, you cannot go on it. No real surprise here since this game is a beat'em up and this linearity is typical of these games.

What is good about the game:

- good graphics and distructable environment. Never get tired of breaking walls, etc.

- even if it is presented poorly, the story is good enough.

- length of the game is around 20 hours, 3 times that of most new games.

- X-Men characters (old and new) are excellent. Skills - even if not a lot of them - are a lot of fun.

Overall, unless you are an X-Men fan, I would not recommend this game. I think the potential is definitely here, but execution is amateurish (strange, since Raven has been around for a while). If they work out the AI issues in the next one, I may give it a try.

Like Diablo 2, only not very good

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I honestly tried to make myself like this game but in the end it proved futile. The only part of this game that makes it even remotely appealing is the fact that all our favorite X-Men are in it. If your idea of fun is a lot of repetitive mindless button mashing then this just might be the game for you.

Decent gameplay, but quite buggy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Overall, this is a good, but not excellent game. First the pros:

Excellent overall gameplay - the character progression is well done, and you end up with some very powerful characters by the end.

High replayability - with the ability to select different party members for each mission, and to allocate your level advance points differently with each game, no two games are every entirely the same.

Now the cons:

Buggy: The game stalls frequently, and I have recently found that I cannot progress beyond a certain point in the game because it locks up every time that a mutant uses an "eXtreme" power. This wouldn't be so bad except that the CPU uses those powers from time to time, and the game's up once they do.

Poorly planned mission checkpoints: Sometimes you will find yourself replaying the same mission over and over again.

Overall, this is a good game, marred by bugs.

Really fun, but also frustrating...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: December 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that this game could have been one of the greatest games on XBOX if it weren't for a few flaws. These flaws don't ruin the game but they can't all be overlooked. I'll start with the graphics. The graphics in general are okay, but in some of the cut scenes they are laughable. It looks like 2D which is unacceptable for XBOX in 2004. For the most part though you won't notice the lack of graphics during gameplay, because you'll be having too much fun or getting ready to pull your hair out. Speaking of which, there are some levels that will drive you insane. Why ? Because you will be given no clue what you have to do and you will walk around and around until you figure it out. I had to search the net for a walkthrough or else I never, ever would have gotten through at least 2 levels. Another big annoyance is the camera view. There is only 1 to choose from and it sucks. It is a helicopter view directly over your head. You can see a certain radial distance around yourself, but you can't see up ahead, which sucks because sometimes you'll walk right into a group of enemies that you would have seen earlier if the camera view was behind you instead. And sometimes the camera gets stuck and your player will run ahead while the camera is still way back. This drove me mad. No other game I've played has ever done that, so I don't know if it was just my copy or not. Okay enough bad, on to the good stuff. Once you get used to the ridiculous camera view(trust me you will) this game is a lot of fun. I loved all of the mutant powers. My favorites were Iceman, Colossus, and Wolverine. Almost every mutant has some cool powers, and its a lot of fun to try them all out. I loved to go into a room and just start bashing through enemies like crazy. You can also destroy the environment depending where you are. Sometimes you can even punch through walls which is really fun. Like I said this game could have been great. It definitely leaves you wanting more. The storyline is actually pretty good, all this game needs is a little bit better graphics, and a few camera angle choices. One advantage to the mediocre graphics is blazing fast loading times. Your game will load up really fast compare to most RPG's. One last thing, any true fans of X-MEN comics will love the ending.

Too easy and too short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: October 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Gameplay is cool, but the game is a little on the easy side and way too short. It makes a better rental.

Awesome for multiple people; not as much fun by yourself

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Me and three other friends spent about four late nights playing this game. We had a blast. You get too choose from pretty much all your favourite X-Men. I enjoy going smashy, smashy so I chose Rogue at first and later Colossus after we unlocked him.

With four people there was the usuall map problems with people getting stuck and I'm famous for going the wrong way, but despite these expexted flaws the game was great.

Looking forward to the sequel

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Yes, I loved this game, and I like the comic book genre in general.

Some things I liked:
1) Danger room! Very fun. Wish I had found all the 'CDs' scattered throughout every level.
2) Large array of charcters, but there were still problems (see below).
3) Good use of voices, Patrick Stewart, that chick from the Wonder Years, and Ed Asner were welcome suprises.

Some problems I had with the game:

1) Too easy. Use the 'big 4' (Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Cyclops) throughout and you'll breeze through this thing, with maybe one or two hiccups on the way. They could fix this by:
2) Stop the level-up of characters that weren't on the mission. It doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure exactly how it worked, but I didn't play with Jubilee until one level where I decided to mess around, and she was already a level 20, without even trying her once. Weird. I think the game could have been made more fun/challenging if you had to work on increasing the levels of ALL the players so that later on. That way you may need, say, a powerful Jean Grey to get through a mission, but it'd be more difficult because all you used was the same 4 characters. But to have the non-playing characters piggy-back is dumb, in my opinion. This could be easily solved by having each character go through the danger-room, have a checklist of the characters that have and haven't completed it.
3) Wayyy to easy to get a special powerup/armors by breaking boxes or killing guys. I think 15-20 of those 'Green powerups' would have been plenty, or at least make it so you can't purchase the rare ones from Forge at any time (though you can get the character-unique ones, and the super-powerful one in the danger room sequences). It could have beeen organized a bit better too.

That said, I did enjoy playing the game and beating it, took about 2 weeks (20 hours of gameplay). Looking forward to (hopefully) an improved sequel. Just make the game tougher (or at least with difficulty settings this time)!

The best X-Men offering ever

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 37 / 39
Date: October 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The title of best X-Men video game ever isn't saying much - past efforts have bordered on criminal. However, Legends offers a fresh spin on the comic book genre by placing it in an RPG format. With a total of 15 playable characters and the ability to control a party of 4 at any given time (except for the first stage in which you start with Wolverine), the game offers a high level of variety which creates high replay value. Some of the pros and cons are:

Pros:
Many playable characters
Control any one of the 4 members of your current party
Good combat and experience system
Excellent story reminiscent of traditional x-men comics

Cons:
Mediocre graphics and sound
Must unlock certain characters as the game progresses

This game took me about 20 hours to complete. The level designs are long, but there are save points along the way where you can save and change your party if you want. Playing the game through a second time is an option not only because of the number of characters, but you can pour experience points into various skills, essentially changing the same character each time you play.

If you are a fan of the X-Men, you will love this game. It is well worth the price tag.

Finally a good X-Men game...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In an age where big name licenses never live up to the hype (Enter the Matrix, Bruce Lee, the list goes on), I must admit that even after all of the coverage, screen shots and FMVs of the actual game play, I was still a tad bit skeptical on my latest purchase of X-Men Legends. The plain fact is, just about anything that has "RPG" tacked onto its genre, I need to have because of the scarcity of quality RPGs on the XBox. I was lucky enough to get the last copy at my local video game store. That should have been my first clue that this game was worth the purchase. After getting home, pressing the "A" button through all of the publishers when the game first loads, I got to an unimpressive menu screen. Ooooo, Cerebro...Anyway, then I started the game. My initial reaction after watching a well done CG intro, I'm looking down on the man himself, Wolverine. Experimenting with the attack buttons, fighting Anti-Mutant soldiers, I'm thinking to myself, "Typical hack-n-slash". That was, of course, until I hit the 'game tips' icon that was ominously glowing. What's this, combos? In an action-RPG? I haven't had this since Xenogears! This turns out to be a great addition to this game. Finding different ways to string together combos to dish out maximum damage is really cool, especially when other X-Men are available for 4-man missions.

Raven Software did a great job with the presentation of this game. The characters in XML (not to be confused with the mark-up language, people) are very colorful with black outlines to give them a more comic book look. The most surprising thing is they brought in the voice talent of Professor Xavier himself, Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately, they didn't bring in Rebecca Romjin-Stamos for Mystique.

The story of XML is around Magma, the newest member of the X-Men. The first stage plants you in the middle of a rescue where you use Wolverine to release the soon-to-be Magma from the clutches of the Brotherhood of Mutuants, while giving you gameplay tips along the way. As you progress through the game, the X-Men are trying to uncover the reason for Magma's attempted kidnapping and fight through Anti-Mutant soldiers and Brotherhood mutants. The action is fast paced, and sometimes confusing when you have a four-man squad fighting off hordes of enemies. Other than the bane of all video games, camera angles, this is a top-notch addition to the X-Men franchise.

Leveling up is cool in XML. You can choose new abilities for your heroes, or improve the ones already in your inventory. In battle, they are accessible by pressing the right trigger, then A, B or X, making the beauty of decently-stringed combos easier to come into fruition. The level-up menu is a little confusing, so after a while, I just let the game level up my character with the recommended abilities by pressing Y. Just make sure you press the start button to accept the changes, or else the level up won't take.

Just about everything displayed on screen is destructable, from park benches to bus stop shelters, sometimes yielding energy and health potions.

Once more X-Men are unlocked, you can pick and choose which X-Men you would like to use for missions. Note, some X-Men are better than others for certain missions, as you will need their abilities to access unreacheable areas or to even advance. The game supplies you with decently placed X-traction points where you can modify your team of X-Men so you can, for example choose Iceman so that he can make an ice bridge to cross over to the next section of the stage. During battle, you can call for help from the X-Men that you've chosen, by simply pressing the left trigger. This will call your other heroes to your side and attack the enemy that you are currently locked onto. Doing this can give you more experience if they use their powers. For instance, using Iceman's freeze blast on an enemies and calling for aid from, say, Cyclops by using his optic blast will give you extra experience. The cool thing is that the name of the special combo appears on the screen. In this instance, the combo is called the Optic Freeze. Nice.

This game isn't always as perfect as I'm describing. It does have it's glitches, some of which is annoying. As an example, I destroyed a garbage can to find some much needed energy, and a potion popped out and disappeared into the frickin' wall behind the garbage can! Also, the AI for the enemies that you encounter can be a little, hmmm, how do I put this, stupid? If you are not close enough to the enemies that are on screen, they run towards you and....turn away? It's like they're trying to get to you, but they realized that it's too far to travel to fight your mighty X-Men. The last thing really urked me, but it only happened once. I was walking up a hill on my first mission, that was off to the side of the screen. As I was walking, the character I was controlling fell through the ground and died! Other than that and the fact that if you corner an enemy with your attacks, sometimes they get knocked back up a wall and don't come back down. This doesn't happen that often, just often enough that it's noticeable.

The game isn't always battling the Brotherhood. You can always retreat back to the Xavier Institute to visit with other gifted youth and X-Men, or you can even go to the danger room to practice honing your skills. By taking Danger Room "courses", you can obtain experience for your X-Men. This comes in handy if you take a mission and get destroyed every time. You can go to the nearest X-traction point and head into the Danger Room. Once you have enough experience, you can pick up where you left off, hopefully with better results. You can also visit with Forge to buy items and armor, most of which can be found in destructible items on your missions. Every now and again, you'll find "rare" items to equip your team with.

X-Men Legends is a pretty decent action game with good RPG elements to customize your X-Men with the powers that we only read about in comic books. Other than some slight oversights by the programmers, this is a pretty decent game. You'll spend a lot of time experimenting with a lot of different heroes and combos. You'll also spend a lot of time leveling up your characters if you want to do this manually. It's a well-rounded action RPG with a famous franchise. Who would've thunk it?! See below for my stars.

Graphics - Very "Marvel"ous. Nice comic book touch- 4 stars

Sound - Decent voice acting, superb voice acting from Patrick Stewart. Music is ok, but not annoying. not noticeable, either - 3.5 stars

Gameplay - Hack-n-slash with hot combos a la Marvel vs Capcom with above average RPG elements. Some of the same moves too! Knock a character in the air and continue to combo? Oh yeah. - 4 stars

Controls - Very responsive and accessible. What else do you expect from an overhead action game?! 4 stars

Replay - I'll let you know when I finish the game. Long levels, a bunch of stuff to destroy and find. Good deal - 4 stars

Downside - 1.The camera angle is a little too overhead for my taste. You rarely see your characters' faces.
2. The glitches in design and AI!
3. When the screen is filled with enemies, this game changes from an action-RPG to a button masher...but you can't find your character
in all the melee. So press buttons and pray.

Overall? - The best game out with the X-Men name on it.

Questionable stuff - The best line in the game is when Magneto says, "I must put my house in order!" Why couldn't they sneak the arcade version of the X-Men in as an unlockable? I can just walk right into Cerebro. No eye scan, no voice prompt, nothin'.
Finally...who would've thought that by smashing a park bench, you can find a cool X-Men utility belt?!?

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