Nightcrawler? I barely know ‘er!
- Reviewed for Xbox 360
- Also Available on PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, PC, DS, GBA
- Released 2006
- Developer – Z-Axis
- Publisher – Activision
Considering Insomniac’s Wolverine recently launched to a mixed critical reception, I thought I’d take a look back at some of the older X-Men games. In my mind, the X-Men are a property I’ve always associated with mediocrity, albeit interesting mediocrity. They’ve had plenty of videogames, but none of them I’d consider beyond ‘good’ and I’ve always thought the films were fine – good enough for what they are, but not amazing. I’m not a comics reader, so can’t comment on that.
This is a game I played back in the day (I’ve always had a fascination with film tie-in games) but I never finished it until this recent playthrough. Critical reception at the time of release was mixed, with most critics calling it repetitive and ugly. But how does it hold up 20 years later?
Triple Threat
Unlike the X-Men 2 game, Wolverine’s Revenge, X-Men: The Official Game doesn’t just focus on Logan, but also gives us Iceman and Nightcrawler to play as. Wolverine’s levels are exactly what you’d expect, you hack and slash away at various faceless goons, there’s light attacks, heavy attacks, a push to create a bit of distance from enemies. You’ve got Wolverine’s healing factor at your disposal, which in practice means you’ll be standing still a lot between fights trying to heal up. You’ve also got a rage meter which builds up as you deal and take damage, this then makes you stronger, faster, and heal quicker while it’s active. It’s essential to make good use of the Rage mechanic on the hardest difficulty.
Nightcrawler’s levels are similar to Wolverine’s but there’s some light platforming between fights. His levels tend to have a bit more going on than Logan’s. Rather than needing to kill x number of goons, you’ll be protecting another character, disarming bombs, blowing things up. Generally you need to use Nightcrawler’s athleticism and teleportation to keep moving around the levels, while also dishing out damage. He’s probably the most fun character to play as. His teleportation opens up the quite limited combat system. It’s a shame then that his levels are so frustrating. Strict time limits, frustrating platforming, and poor level design really let down what could have been some really good gameplay.
Finally there’s Iceman. Opinion seems to be divided on his levels, with some liking the change-up, and others thinking they’re irritating diversions. I think they’re pretty good, although underbaked (something you could say about the entire game.) Iceman’s levels fall into two categories: small open areas that you slide around (you’re essentially flying a-la Iron Man) usually trying to destroy enemies or protect buildings; and tunnels that you have to traverse under a time limit, destroying enemies and avoiding obstacles. The tunnel levels are definitely the better of the two varieties. Iceman’s only got two attacks, a concentrated beam, and a heavy projectile that he throws. Combat then boils down to, locking onto an enemy and spamming the attack of your choice until they’re dead.
Comic Book Accurate Short King
Levels are typically pretty short, with a couple of exceptions. Which is good because there’s no mid-mission checkpoints. If you have to kill 100 enemies in a level, and the last one kills you – right back to the start. Luckily the game is pretty easy even on the hardest difficulty. Infact the whole game is pretty short, there’s 27 missions which will probably take you around 8-10 hours to beat. It’s a good length to be honest, long enough that you get your money’s worth, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
There’s not a lot to stick around for once you’ve beaten the main story. Beating the story unlocks you some danger room missions, but there’s no unlockables for beating those missions, they’re just extra challenges. There’s 6 collectibles in each of the story missions, 5 ‘Sentinel Files’ and 1 ‘Weapon X File.’ Getting all of these for each character unlocks a couple of outfits – one inspired by the films, and one by the comics. The unlockable outfits are actually pretty cool, the issue being by the time you’ve unlocked them you’re basically done with the game.
There’s 3 difficulty levels. At the end of a level you unlock ‘mutations’ to upgrade your characters with. The higher the difficulty, the more mutations you get. Upgrades are all passive – more health, more damage, faster healing, etc. They’re nice to have, and a good incentive for playing on harder difficulties, but the lack of any new moves to unlock does make the game feel quite repetitive – you’ll be killing the same enemies in the same ways from the opening level all the way to the end.
Notes on Completion
I finished every level on the hardest difficulty, and collected every pickup. Achieved 1000/1000 Gamerscore. One of the easier games to 100%
Graphically Challenged
There’s no getting around the fact that XM:TOG is an ugly game. It looked bad back in 2006, it doesn’t look great now. I always think time is kind to games with poor graphics, when you’re playing something 20 years old you don’t consider these things as much, or at least I don’t. That doesn’t really excuse the fact that environments are bland, enemy designs are repetitive and uninteresting, and the colour palette is mostly greys and browns (typical of the era to be fair.)
Sound is similarly uninspired. The main menu has the film’s main theme playing over it, but other than that I didn’t note any music. The sound effects are strangely muted – you’ll notice it in Iceman’s levels most of all due to how much you have to spam his attacks. Nightcrawler’s teleportation sound effect just sounds wrong too – I remember it being such a punchy noise in the film, here it’s just wrong.
Okay, but is it any good?
I feel like I’ve been pretty negative in my writeup, but honestly, I didn’t hate the game. On paper it’s poor – the folks at Z-Axis clearly spread themselves too thin trying to create different mechanics for three different characters, and as a result, none of them are that interesting to play after a couple of missions. There’s no mechanical depth, no real combos to speak of, secrets are barely hidden, and the level design is some of the most uninspired I’ve seen in a while.
But, crucially, it’s not terrible to play. It’s decent, fairly mindless fun. Levels are short enough that it’s hard to get bored. You hack up some guys as Wolverine, do some platforming with Nightcrawler, then race through some tunnels as Iceman. The variety helps mask a lot of the issues. It also runs at a consistent frame-rate, I had no crashed or major glitches to speak of, and the story, while simple, is well told and does a decent job filling the gap between X2 and The Last Stand.
| Pros | Cons |
| Three characters gives a good variety | Graphically poor, no visual style |
| Short levels makes it easy to play in bursts | Gameplay is too simple |
| Playing as Nightcrawler is always cool | Lack of mid-mission checkpoints |
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