X-Men: The Official Game Preview

Now you might be thinking since this is the X-Men and the X-Men are a team, this may not feel like an X-Men game. Well that could possibly hold true, but it’s evident that Z-Axis is going for a single player experience here so you can really feel these characters. Each plays drastically different over the course of 28 missions and various bonus stages. One of the demonstrations happened to be Wolverine’s battles with the Hydra at Alkali Lake. Obviously Wolverine is a man bent on hack and slash destruction with lots of attitude behind it, and that is no different here. The combat plays out similarly to Wolverine’s Revenge released a few years ago, but without being able to throw. Sadly it’s not evident whether Wolverine’s heightened senses have any use in the game, but he packs a punch nevertheless. Being able to do some nice ‘pounce’ and ‘headbutting’ maneuvers is plenty to make any claw fan happy. If you remember from the first movie when Logan headbutted that guy in the steel cage, yeah, that would be painful to actually see used. Wolvie also has a progressive Rage meter at his disposal. When it’s fully powered, Logan is able to execute brand new and far stronger attacks.

Iceman happens to be the polar opposite (no pun intended) of how you control Wolverine. Wolverine is obviously a very up close and ‘in your face’ type of fighter who doesn’t take anyone’s crap. Iceman on the other hand travels with a constant ice slide while firing projectiles at his enemies. Thankfully Z-Axis so far has done a good job of making his ice trail look authentic, so those that are fans of cold boy will take a liking to that. Frighteningly though, is that you can supposedly reach speeds of up to 70 mph doing this with Iceman, so that makes this the fastest way to travel in the game. Unfortunately we don’t know much else about Icy outside of his battle with the fiery serpent trying to melt a nuclear plant.

Nightcrawler is without a doubt one of the most interesting X-Men characters in existence. His trademark ability of instantly disappearing in a blue haze and reappearing anywhere he wishes in the area makes him a favorite among many fans. While he’s transporting, he can attack his enemies how he pleases, which allows him great stealth. Why else was he able to single-handedly penetrate the Oval Office of the White House and almost assassinate the president in X2? In terms of play though, he has a Shadow meter similar to Wolverine’s Rage meter in the game. This allows disappearing boy to hide in the shadows while he’s healing. In Spider-Man’s likeness, he can also somewhat cling to walls to help him make it from one platform to another. To make him even cooler though, players will be able to do all his flips and jumps to their heart’s desire.

Unlike the previous Legends games, you won’t have to worry about unlocking every power available to these mutants. As a matter of fact, each will be fully powered from the get-go. So you will no longer have to worry about playing with extremely less than usually able characters. To make the experience rewarding though, three secret challenges are available in every level. If you’re successful in these, you are given the option to upgrade your mutants’ stats in terms of strength or defense, but their powers remain unaffected.

Like stated before, this is geared to be a single player experience, and that’s just what it is. Z-Axis has already confirmed there will be absolutely no multiplayer elements in this game. They claimed if they tried to do something like that, it would jeopardize the main focus. Players of this game won’t be able to swap between the three characters in mid-stage either like you could in the Legends games. You must complete your main objectives and progress further to be able to do so.

X-Men: The Official Game definitely has a lot of positive things going for it. Instead of trying to follow suit with the successful Legends games, Z-Axis is taking a risk by offering something brand new. It’s not a team game, and it focuses a ton on character development and story. Whether this will work in the end remains to be seen, but what we can see definitely looks promising. Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman are definitely of the coolest X-Men members, so being able to focus on them individually just sounds intriguing. May of this year brings not only the final battle to win mutant freedom in the theater, but it also brings the final X-Men game of the GameCube