X-Men Legends Review

But when the characters talk in the game’s various FMV sequences, their mouths move! Oh yes, X-Men Legends is probably one of the best games available on the GameCube when it comes to the right number of quality FMV sequences! There are probably around 15-20 of them total, with some lasting around ten seconds to the longest lasting around 45 seconds give or take. That is definitely a great thing Raven did because with the number of missions and how long they are in this game, the FMVs do absolutely nothing but make the experience even more enjoyable! They did a great job deciding when and where to put these sequences to give a nice graphical flair of a plot push to the game and they most certainly won’t disappoint! The best ones are probably near the end of the game, but each one has something unique to bring, and are enjoyable to watch!

When it comes to special effects, they are just as much eye candy as the characters and environments are! Whether it’s the very powers that your X-Men team members display on a certain mission to the various effects that you see from nature like fire, they all look superb! It would be a lie to say that it’s not great to see every time that Cyclops lets go one of his optic beams or Storm lets loose a nice lightning bolt or tornado. Even seeing the “color blur” effects of Wolverine’s claws or Magma’s fiery melee attacks will make you drool as an X-Men fan! The water, ice and fire effects in this game are truly impressive as well. Fire and water are two elements that you will encounter a lot during your adventure and the realistic yet comic book look of each are almost incomparable! X-Men Legends is definitely a game that satisfies the every day special effects junkie!

Finally, we have the best part of the game which is downright impressive on all levels, your environments! There are so many different unique areas in this game that it can truly blow your mind. X-Men Legends will take you from the very streets of New York City, to the infamous X Mansion to even one of the largest aircraft carriers available to the military!

The attention to detail in each environment is absolutely astounding. The name of game of X-Men Legends is interactive destruction! That’s right, every single environment you encounter in this game has countless things that you can destroy as you please! This can be anything from simple wooden crates to benches, trash cans, computer equipment and factory equipment! The possibilities are virtually endless, and that’s part of what makes this game so much fun! What makes it even better is that you’re encouraged to destroy your environment since you can find hidden pieces of equipment and regenerative items within the very things that you can destroy! So when you’re done going through this game for the first time, chances are you’ve destroyed millions if not billions of dollars worth of materials and equipment!

Now when it comes to what you can actually see in your various environments, the impressive level is still very much there. One of the areas that you will encounter quite a bit throughout your environment is the very headquarters of the X-Men, the X Mansion! The “worldly” name of this institute is the “Xavier Institute of Higher Learning” which makes it look like a prep school to the outside world, but the main purpose of the facility is to help any and all mutants realize the extent of their powers and how to control them! Professor Xavier (or Professor X as some call him) is the “unofficial leader” of the X-Men and a mentor to all the young mutants going through his program. But with that aside, the attention to every little detail in this place is jaw dropping. Outside you have your various gardens, an Olympic sized pool, a basketball court and a beautiful lawn! Inside you have various rooms like the kitchen, a dining room, a game room, a classroom and even Professor Xavier’s office! Upstairs are two hangout areas and the various dormitories that are designated to each member of the X-Men team! Then below you have the Subbasement which is incredibly impressive because it really mirrors that of the one in the movies and comics! You have a very authentic looking Cerebro, the X-Jet hanger (although the X-Jet in this game looks more like a stealth B-2 bomber), the laboratory that Beast loves the work out of, the War Room that starts all briefings and missions and even the very infirmary that Jean Grey uses to treat the X-Men for their various conditions!

Really the only thing that could be said disappointing about this game along with the characters’ mouth not moving to the dialogue is there could be more X-Men! Now there are actually 15 playable X-Men characters once you get to the final mission of the game, but in a universe that is as expansive as the X-Men’s and how cool each individual member is, there should be as many as possible! The more X-Men and their powers to look at the better! But in an overall sense, the graphics in this game simply couldn’t be more impressive. The attention to detail with all the environments and characters along with the “interactive destruction” that is featured with each environment is enough to satisfy any action RPG fan!

X-Men Legends is obviously an action packed RPG. The music was composed to deliver on that feeling. Virtually every mission that you’re involved in has very dramatic and upbeat music that will keep the pace of action going until you see the very words “Mission Complete” on the screen. Now while it’s all good and dandy that the music is indeed that way, the sad thing about it is a lot of it tends to be repeated. There really are only a few generic themes that were made for this game, and chances are after the first few missions, you will have heard them all. That is because each time you transition into the next newest area of a certain mission, the music tends to change. Now that is definitely a good thing since it gives you something different to listen to, but after a while you tend to just ignore it and focus on beating the living daylights out of the people trying to take you out!