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BAD GRAPHICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 11
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this game might be fun but has bad graphics,that annoyed me when i played.BAD GRAPHICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A solid game with a few rough spots

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 42 / 44
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Having been an immensely popular comic-book series for some time, the X-Men have recently enjoyed a new level of mainstream recognition thanks to the live-action movies starring Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. Whether you've followed them for years or have just become a fan recently, X-Men: Legends is game you'll probably enjoy.

GAMEPLAY: EXCELLENT
A note: I played this on the GameCube, YMMV on other platforms.

Gameplay is typical for a hack'n'slash console RPG -- your party roams through a number of dungeon-like levels and kills a bunch of baddies, picking up experience and various goodies along the way. The game is arranged into a series of missions (some long, some fairly short) spaced by interludes in the X-Mansion.

Controls are generally good, and the character under your command will generally do exactly what you want, though sometimes large thrown objects will explode rather closer than you expect. Attacking and moving are simple and intuitive, though stringing some of the longer attack patterns together can be difficult. There is a limited ability to command those characters that are not under your direct control, but if needed it is a simple matter to take over whatever member of your party you wish. Enemies can also be thrown around -- off of bridges, into walls, and even into each other, making for some interesting battles.

The camera, however, is problematic. Despite obvious efforts by the programmers to make view-obstructing surfaces transparent, you will often find yourself completely unable to see your characters. Even when this is not a problem, you will also experience difficulty on occasion in trying to see an enemy. The ability to zoom in or out is very limited, and consequently you will sometimes find yourself being blasted by opponents who are offscreen and unseeable.

The incorporation of mutant powers is done fairly well, though at times it seems like the programmers worked a little too hard to come up with four different power attacks for each character. It seems odd, for instance, that Wolverine has any special attacks, or that Colossus has a special punch. It seems like any punch from Colossus would hit just as hard as this 'special' one. Additionally, it does seem a little strange for the mutants
to 'run out' of power (particularly Wolverine, whose attacks are all physical). This is a necessary concession to gameplay, however, and in most cases the attacks make sense and fit the character, so these are minor quibbles. The arrangement of attacks is also intuitive for the most part, with A and B special attacks for offense, X for buffs, and Y for the character's super attack (usually an area-effect blast rather than pinpoint destruction).

The ally AI is fairly competent, though it tends to underutilize powers. AI characters also don't seem to use health packs, even when they are set to do so automatically. Thus they will occasionally die. They will also get trapped in doors at times, and, because there is some effect caused by bumping into each other, occasionally fall off bridges and die. However, a lot of these problems can be solved by having your friend pick up a
controller and join the fray. It's not too hard.

Level design is a little uneven. Although some areas are very convoluted, progress is almost always linear, with only a few instances where there are genuinely different routes one can take through an area. Save points usually appear in every other zone of a mission, which is sometimes too infrequent, given the prospect of accidental character death. Additionally, there will be times when you need to have a particular X-Man in your group (usually Iceman or Magma will be required, but sometimes Storm or Cyclops), and you must pick your way back through a level to change out your team. You'll find yourself always using Magma or Iceman and trying to swap out other characters, but the game really isn't long enough for you to get used to them all. There is mercifully little key-hunting to do, and when a key or other pass is needed it can usually be found close to where it must be used. Additionally, just about everything in the levels can be destroyed, from trash cans up to (in some cases) walls. It doesn't all yield treasure, but if you're frustrated, having Magma or Wolverine blow up the scenery can blow off a little steam.

The spoils of war are not terribly exciting. Characters can only use three accessories, and the effects of these aren't usually very interesting, though they can be quite helpful. Some accessories can also be purchased using "tech bits", but this monetary system feels stilted and artificial; additionally, these tech bits can be very hard to find at times. Most items can be sold for tech bits, but because of a limited inventory size this is not a reliable way to make a buck. Health and Energy packs are only rarely dropped when you need them. On one level my dying characters strode waist-deep through a sea of useless energy packs, with nary a save point (where health packs can be purchased) in sight. Additionally, because of an obscure and arbitrary cap on the number of health and energy packs that can be carried, you will find yourself passing up a whole zone full of them with ease, only to run out in the next zone, where there are none to be had.

The only real awkwardness in the game setup was the menu system. There are different buttons for "Back" and "Accept", but in most cases "Back" also accepts your setup, while "Accept" sends you back to the game. Also, some actions at save points will return you to a menu once completed, while others will send you back to the game, forcing you to enter the save point and start the process over again. The "objectives" system was also not particularly helpful, as some objectives only appeared on the list after being completed, and others never got checked off even if I did them. Ignoring that screen is easy, though.

Despite the (mostly minor) problems, gameplay is a blast. The breadth of moves (and characters) available means that you'll probably never run out of ways to engage the enemy, and the destructability of the environment means that battles are visual treats. The first time Wolverine slashes a guy and knocks him THROUGH a wall, you'll know what I mean. Your exploration of the X-Mansion in the interludes also provides some nice insights into the massive web of backstory behind the X-Men, though it seems a little smaller than it should be. And I frankly had a ton of fun just getting around at times; there's a unique thrill in ice-gliding through New York City as Iceman.

STORY: EXCELLENT
The writers for the game have produced a very good story that lays out the situation simply enough for X-Men novices to understand what's going on, while simultaneously layering in a number of references for the comics' hard-core fans to enjoy. The various X-Men and their abilities are introduced gradually enough that we get an appreciation for most of them. The plot is reasonably tight, the various X-Men and villains all behave
naturally, and the dialogue, though occasionally stilted, never really bogs down.

Thematically, however, the story disappoints. The usual arc of human hatred for mutants is nicely constructed, but the parallels to real life are drawn only tenuously. Given that the plot could have allowed a more convincing analogy to real-world terrorism, this is something of a disappointment. Also, the rapid end to the story sort of waves off the mutant vs. human problem, leaving the issue hanging without any real sense that progress has been made. The inclusion of a major, non-mutant, sympathetic character whose viewpoint changes even a little might have helped this out; except for a brief cameo by Moira McTaggart, all the humans in the game appear as unrelenting monsters. A more on-the-fence character who comes down on the side of the mutants would have created a more optimistic closing.

Given the usually lame and paper-thin stories one usually finds in games, however, this was much more fun and a lot meatier.

AUDIO: MEDIOCRE
Most of the voice acting is quite good; Patrick Stewart shines as always. A few characters, however, feel a little off. Wolverine is particularly uneven -- sometimes dead on, sometimes sounding like a piggish moron. Cyclops also sounds a little too peppy, and Allison's voice grates on my ears. The music in the game, however, is seriously annoying. Outside of combat, the music is repetitve and droning, adding no pleasure and in some cases seriously detracting from it. It's nice that the tune changes in the proximity of enemies; however, the battle music is only louder, not better. Fortunately, the score is mostly quiet enough that you can ignore it.

Sound effects are nothing to write home about, but not bad either.

GRAPHICS: EXCELLENT
The graphics in this game are generally good, with just a few painful failings. The character models move realistically, and it's a real treat to see enemies tossed about by Storm's tornadoes. Most of the attack effects are strikingly good, though the buffing powers almost universally look lame. Character and enemy designs are very good during gameplay, but as many reviewers have noted, the heavy outlines of the pseudo cel-shaded
technique cause the game's appearance to suffer in many of the cutscenes. The movie-style cutscenes look fine, though a few characters look distorted or rubbery.

The environments in the game also look very good, for the most part. The Astral Plane, however, is horrible. You'll have to do several levels in this monotonous, semi-transparent, muddled hell-hole, and I grew to dread it.

The character heads used in the HUD and the character screens are pretty uneven. Some of them look awesome, and others look simply hideous. Allison and Gambit look particularly bad, but ugliness, flawed proportions, or muddled texture are not uncommon. Which is unfortunate, because you see these heads constantly.

REPLAYABILITY: AVERAGE
The game is pretty short, even more so if you don't partake in many of the Danger Room missions. The second playthrough offers the ability to choose the appearance of the characters from several iterations of the X-Men saga. The linearity of the levels means there's not much else new to do the second time around. However, the "Danger Room" feature from the main menu offers you a chance to play out numerous scenarios and battles, for some additional gameplay. You'll be able to get a little extra mileage out of this one, but not a lot.

OVERALL: GOOD (76%)
X-Men: Legends offers great hack-and-slash gameplay and an entertaining storyline, paired with a much-loved franchise and generally good graphics. There are a few sour notes in the graphics and programming, and the music is a boring droning mess, but these problems don't ruin the fun. Though not a game for the ages, Legends is a solid offering that will please hardcore X-Men fans and newcomers alike.

Decent Game w/Some Major Bugs

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, I would like to mention that I have not yet beaten this game, but I've played it for nearly 24 hours (actual playing time).

Secondly, I'd like to mention the pros, in my opinion, about the game. A lot of people complain about the cell shading graphics, yeah, they're a bit annoying at first, as are the repetative "talking" animations, but honestly, you really stop noticing them after a few hours of playing the game, and theres enough true 3D animation clips that it's pretty cool.

I myself have not played any other x-men games, but this game does give you a sense of playing actual x-men (minus health potions, and the comparable mutant powers).

One thing you'll notice is that all the mutants have 4 mutant powers. The first one is called your "light" mutant power. The 2nd is called your "heavy" mutant power (which you can't start putting points into until level 3 or 4 I do believe).

The next is the mutants "buff" power. Each mutant has the ability to give themselves (and possibly allies) certain bonuses for a limited amount of time. These bonuses vary greatly from mutant to mutant, but they all have the similar characteristic of costing a LOT of energy. Additionally, I've found that, when left up to the computer AI, the AI will only use the "light" and "heavy" mutant powers, it will never use the mutants buff or extreme powers.

Finally, all the mutants have an "extreme" mutant attack. These don't take power, but use "extreme tokens" which you collect through the game. I have some gripes about them, but suffice it to say, your extreme mutant attack is pretty useful from the time you get it until probably close to the end of the game.

However, there are a number of bugs that I've discovered:

1) Emma Frost has a skill that, at the two highest levels, does the exact same thing. There's simply no point in maxing the skill out.
2) You lose extreme tokens (powers your extreme mutant attacks) at the end of missions, as well as unpredictable times during certain missions.
3) Aiming at certain hostile objects doesn't work. You have to do it manually, and it takes a LOT of time and patience.
4) The friendly AI's are buggy. I've caught them huddling next to an enemy in a corner without actually attacking them, just standing there. AI also won't move out of your way if it's moving the opposite direction as you. Almost cost me my life more then once.
5) Co-op mode is lacking. The computer can use your allies off the screen, so you're actually more efficient not having your friends play with you.
6) Vs. mode just sucks. It gets old fast, you can't set the time limits, and you can't customize the characters other then choosing them.
7) Game experiences crashes.
8) Abilities in the game are left unexplained. Example: Many items subtract a % or completely eliminate your character from taking/experiening "pain." I don't even know what pain is and I'm starting to get close to the end.

I'd like to warn anyone interested in buying this game, it doesn't seem to be exactly "complete" to me (as though the developers failed to properly test and design the game). If it were on PC, I'd expect it to be patched rather soon after it had been released. Since it's on a console, it can't be patched, and thus, it will ALWAYS be a game that is a bit lacking.

really hard

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: December 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

i have been an xmen fan for a long long time and i cant say that i really like this game.it is very fun to play but very very very hard and you have to unlock all the characters.for instence gambit is my favorite character and you have to unlock him on the third level and the levels are so long and hard,like the sewer level(third level) farther within the sewer level there will be so many enimies that you will find your self in a life or death run for it to the door to the next part of the level and when your doing this running for the exit with about 35 enimies on your tale theres a 30% chance you will make it.

and when your not on a mission you have to controll a girl mutant named alison(magma)

Is it really worth the time?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: July 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well, about a week ago I got this game and I gave up on it about a half hour into it. The graphics are good, the controls are easy, and the battle system is alright, but I played for a long time as wolverine only to die like three times at the hands of mystic (who, by the way, has guns to combat your claws, like that makes sense). Frankly, I'd suggest LOTR: The Third Age over this game. I dropped this one for it, anyway.

Graphics: 9/10 (It's an overhead view)
Characters/Plot: N/A (I can't rate that, I haven't gotten that far)
Battles: 8/10
Worth it? You decide. I disliked it though.

Not A Game For The Impatient Gamer

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

X-men Legends is a great game for X-men fans and hardcore RPG players. The game combines plenty of fighting combined with challenging puzzles and mysteries. The game features several highlight characters from the popular comic series. X-men legends also has an unique storyline explaining the conflicts between humans and mutants over several levels. The game is also centered around the character Allision who is also known as the mutant Magma. While fun, this game can also be frustrating. The game features levels which are like mazes. This leads one to get often lost in the level. There are also timed part of the games where you have to rescue civillians. For example, one of the most challenging levels was abord a Combat ship called the Arbiter. The character must rescue eight players within 20 minutes. I often got lost within the many corriders and barely passed the level with only 2 minutes remaining. Though frustrating, the game also is alot of fun. It is based on a popular level system. The character gains experience and levels up and you can choose different skills for the character to learn. On a point scale of 10, I would give this game an 8. Mainly because of the endless levels. Now for a price of 20 dollars, this game is a great buy!

One Flaw From Perfection

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It is time in inject a little reality about X-Men Legends :

They don't get the characters exactly right.

Sure, the game is fun to play. It is visually stunning, and the sound is as good as it gets in video games. If you buy this game you will not be horribly disappointed. I am disappointed to a small degree because the companies and people who crafted this game once again screwed up the characters.

Cluebat for programmers : Nowhere - in over thirty years of X-Men comic books - are mutant powers on a "fuel gage". That is the glaring flaw of this game and all others like it. Wolverine has to "progress" to earn his mutant healing ability? How screwed up is that? Cyclops can actually lose his optic blasts? Storm can't control the weather?

C'mon guys! Get it right for once - instead of limiting the ability of the hero, do what the comics have always done and give them a sufficiently powerful villian to fight. Don't put superpowers on a timer, or mutant abilities on a fuel gauge. Yeah, call me a purist, or fussy, or a nitpicker. I plead guilty to whatever you want to call it. Is it really too much to expect that an X-Men video game actually follow the comic on something so basic?

And that is why I can't give this game the full five stars. Yes, it is easy to learn, fun to play and marvelous to look at. This is a game by which others could and should be measured. Like a diamond, there are just some things that prevent if from being considered perfect.

If XML2 is anything like this...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

...I'll definitely buy that one also. I'm not much of a gamer because I find most games kind of boring, but this game kept my attention for good one or two-hour blocks. And I'm one who'll quit playing Halo at a friend's house after ten or so minutes into it.

Anyway, yeah, XML is a pretty fun game. The plot outline is good for the most part; it's the basic Magneto-plans-to-eliminate-humankind plot you're probably used to with the big-screen movies. Situated within the action play are little snippets of you controlling Alison Crestmere (later, Magma) and her journey to learn more about, and become part of, the team.

I think the best part of the game are its quiet parts. The voice talents involved here are excellent, as well as the use of one of the history of the team. But don't get me wrong, the smash-em-up parts of the game are also stimulating and/or dizzying and electric. Experimenting with different teams is also quite entertaining (for instance, some characters can throw Wolverine, which is kind of comical). The addition of the Danger Room is also nice, but it really serves no purpose outside of the main gameplay.

There are a couple of things that I hope the sequel addresses though. First, I hope that they make the enemies a bit (if not a lot) tougher. To my understanding, XML2 incorporates a difficulty setting which, in my opinion, is a (ahem...) monumental idea. I also wish that the characters are more balance the second time around because here, some characters are godlike while others, well, you just wonder what the hell they're doing here. But I guess that's where you can have your difficulty setting: just having Jubilee, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, and whoever else in your team is a freaking nightmare.

The graphics and controls are pretty straightforward. I'm not one to the complain about the cartoonish look of the action scenes (I think they look cool) and the FMV scenes look decent. It's during the mission briefing snippets where things fall apart. The cell-shading technique doesn't work here, which makes me wonder why the developers didn't just make these into FMV also. And don't get me started with the Astral Plane. I mean, what the hell...

Nevertheless, these are just a few little drawbacks that keep this game from excellence. An RPG-style game with unique elements of its own, I think it should be a definite buy for fans and non-fans of both the X-Men and Marvel universe.

Wait, where's Angel??

X-Men Legends is a good game for the Game Cube and one of the first games I bought for my Game Cube

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

X-Men Legends is not a spectacular game by any means, despite some of the cutscenes looking marvelous. However, X-Men Legends is a really good game. In fact, it is good enough in that it recently helped me to decide to purchase X-Men Legends II. The characters in the game are somewhat and lacking detail, but all the same okay. The size of the characters was enough to make one of my friends discouraged from playing the game along with me. The best part of the game is the sheer variety of the game and being able to choose from so many different X-Men to make up your team at times and battle so many different enemy bosses. At certain points in the game, however, the X-Men is selected for you. The fact that nearly everything is a combo of some sort is laughable yet quite enjoyable. The ability to level up is also quite exciting as you unlock more and more powerful attacks and abilities. The armor system is okay. The game even has an X-Men quiz during one of the RPG segments and a back in time battle. The game has not much to come back to once the story mode is done. All in all, X-Men Legends is good but far from great. It is a good buy for Game Cube but not for $50 way back when I bought it and first got a Game Cube and was not sure what games were cool or not. (...)

Everything that's not the use of the license falls apart

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Oddly I actually played Rise of Apocalypse first and honestly, it was quite a blast. Being able to teleport all over the place with Nightcrawler or do a big windup punch with Colossus brought out the inner geek. Only thing is that RoA is the 2nd Legends game so it makes sense to play the first one next, right? Well while it arguably has the better story, it's marred by a lot of gameplay problems that oddly makes the game more difficult than it should be.

Story: The story centers around Alison Crestmere, a young mutant who was about to be kidnapped by the Brotherhood. Luckily the X-Men rescue her and she's brought into the Mansion. The game switches back and forth between specific missions the X-Men go on as well as the development of Alison in learning to control her powers.

Graphics: On occasion they can get really ugly. After the awesome cinema quality of RoA I guess I got spoiled since not only do these look a bit underdeveloped but I actually noticed quite a bit of grain and pixels. The in-game graphics look kinda nice though although level design tends to be abnormally repetitive and kind of bland.

Sound/Music: Largely forgettable music and the voice acting's hit and miss. Xavier of course is spot-on as well as the girls such as Storm, Rogue and Alison but then you hear the way-too-gruff sounding Wolverine or Cyclops.

Gameplay: This is where it excels as well as falls apart. You have a team of 4 X-Men you can choose and pressing a direction on the D-pad switches to that character. Each has strong and weak punches as well as throwing and specific character-related skills. Gambit throws his explosive cards while Beast rolls into a cannonball which oddly he can't seem to aim well. Luckily the AI is quite nice since they don't just stumble off cliffs however they'll call out for aid even though you've established that they should heal themselves and you have the health packs to do it. Not to mention the packs don't necessarily fill your gauge so even if you did cure them which you tend to have to switch to them yourself manually, they end up getting pummelled further requiring more health packs.

The major issue for me was levelling up. Essentially you get lots of enemies to beat up and get EXP but not enough to keep your character levels equal with theirs so pretty soon you find yourself underlevelled and you find you're getting decimated incredibly easily. You can remedy this by going into the Danger Room and doing certain lessons over and over but in order to raise the enemy levels you have to find certain disks hidden in the level that correspond to a specific lesson. So you can see if you don't find these things then you can't train. Others though will probably find it incredibly easily but on occasion the game can be a real *****.

You get X-Men favorites to pick from such as Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Jubilee as well as unlockable characters. Each has a specific skill unique to them. Cyclops blasts enemies while Wolverine does a slashing move and Jubilee sends destructive fireworks(I'm not kidding). However, each use of it requires energy, not to be confused with health. So Wolverine can't use his healing, he has to learn it? Use Storm's lightning too much and now she doesn't have it? It makes sense on a game front but it just comes across as frustrating. Not to mention said health and energy packs have to be bought and you don't actually do that until a specific mission.

If it sounds like I'm complaining well I felt this game gave me a right to. Spider-Man 2 was a great use of the license and Superman Returns looks promising. They did so many things right here but then they completely drop the ball elsewhere.

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