X-Men: The Official Game
- Platform: PC, Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation 2, GameCube, Nintendo DS
- Published by: Activision
- Developed by: Z-Axis
- Release Date: May 16, 2006
- Genre: Action
- Multiplayer: No
- Online: No
X-Men: The Official Game Preview
-- April 17, 2006 by: Chris Remo
Activision has held the X-Men video game license for years now, publishing some unexpected gems such as Raven's two X-Men Legends games along with some rather less memorable fare. After so many prior titles, it seems slightly odd that the latest X-Men licensing effort, a tie in with the upcoming film X-Men: The Last Stand, has been granted the singular moniker X-Men: The Official Game. Could Activision and developer Z-Axis be sending a message to gamers, suggesting that this is the definitive X-Men experience, the stick by which other X-Men games (video, board, or otherwise) will be measured? Is there perhaps some kind of seedy unauthorized X-Men game production black market, and Activision is sending a stern reminder to these renegade developers that only this is the true official game? Were the marketers just out of ideas?
Anyway, I recently had the chance to get my hands on several levels of the game. X-Men: The Official Game takes a radically different direction than the Legends series. Where those games were cooperative action/RPGs, this is a single-player brawler, with some slight conceits to RPG-ish character leveling. In each level, you'll control one of three characters: Wolverine, Iceman, and Nightcrawler. Which character is used is dictated by the level, meaning the environments and objectives are specifically tailored to each character's abilities. While it's a bit frustrating to be locked into specific choices after the mutant-fest that is Legends, in the context of this particular game that restriction becomes something of a strength. The designers at Z-Axis clearly put a lot of thought into making the three characters play as differently as possible, in terms of combat but even in terms of movement as well. I played two levels with each character, generally one tutorial-like mission and one more substantial scenario.
Wolverine
Perennial favorite Wolverine is the most straightforward of the game's three protagonists. As one might expect, he pretty much stomps around on the ground and slashes things with his retractable adamantium claws. He's got light attacks, heavy attacks, and a block, which can be combined into a wide variety of more powerful moves by stringing them together. Resultant combos include things like 
roundhouse kicks and headbutts; the game has little hint boxes that explain how to perform each combo, but as is my tendency with these types of games, I mainly just pushed a lot of buttons. Wolvering still did a lot of destructive stuff and my enemies still died.
The first Wolverine level I played was essentially a dungeon crawl equivalent, beating up dozens of enemies on the path to the exit point. One rather minor element that deserves mention is the quality of the game's rag doll effects. As bodies fly through the air, they have a slightly slowed down quality about them completely independent of the realtime world, as if they are somewhere in between film-style slow-mo and reality. I don't know my experience was an intentional result on the part of the designers, but it made me want to kill everything as fast as possible, just so I'd get to see them all moving serenely through the air at vaguely the same time. On top of that, the game manages to avoid looking like all of its enemies died while practicing amateur contortionism. For whatever reason, I was struck enough by the overall effect of the ragdoll to bring it up to a Z-Axis developer, who confirmed that, yes, they actually spent a great deal of time getting the speed and mechanics correct. The game uses Havok for the ragdoll effects and environmental physics, so even destroyed crates and other random objects are affected by the slight tinge of slow-mo.
After hacking through a bunch of gun-toting peons, the end of that level had Wolverine fighting Sabretooth in a fairly straightforward boss battle. The next level pitted Wolvering up against an incredibly resilient Lady Deathstrike, while hurricanes swirled around the playing field. This is where Wolverine's Fury Meter really came in handy. By performing successive hits, Wolverine fills up a meter that, when full, can be used to unleash a powerful attack mode. For the duration of the mode, which lasts perhaps 10 seconds or so, health recharges faster and Wolverine's attacks become particularly vicious. For example, I would knock Deathstrike to the ground then repeatedly plunge Wolverine's claws into her chest. She actually managed to survive this about half a dozen times, which makes me wonder if Wolverine might want to get those things sharpened.
Iceman
Iceman plays significantly differently from Wolverine. Rather than walking, he travels by sliding along rails of ice that he is constantly forming in front of him. The practical result of this is that he basically gets to fly. Just controlling Iceman is actually pretty entertaining, since he has so much freedom of movement. The first Iceman mission I played consisted of a fairly expected but also not unwelcome "fly ski through the rings" type of thing, followed by a combat primer in which I had to take out a squadron of jetpack-equipped baddies. Iceman has two offensives moves, a guided missile attack called a Hailstorm, and a weaker straight shot called Ice Beam. He also has a defensive Frostshield, which protects him from most attacks for a few seconds.
The other Iceman level I played was a fairly challenging boss fight in which I had to destroy a huge lava serpent while simultaneously preventing the serpent's flying minions from destroying a reactor and causing nuclear meltdown. This required chasing down and locking on to the minions, while intermittently directing firepower towards the big fiery worm thing. It was a much more entertaining boss battle than the one with the practically immortal Lady Deathstrike, which lacked variety to make up for the prolonged length. Hopefully the rest of the game contains bosses of this caliber for each of the three charactesr.
Nightcrawler
As just about every X-Men movie fan knows at this point, the much beloved Nightcrawler, immortalized in the opening sequence of the previous X-Men film, will not be returning in the conclusion of the trilogy. How convenient for Z-Axis, then, that this game takes place in between the events of the second and third films. One has to wonder if that particular setting was deliberately engineered to let the developers have a crack at the blue-skinned acrobatic mutant. Nightcrawler trademark short ranged teleport, which onomatopoeia has demanded be called "Bampf," is used for both movement and combat, in a few different ways. Nightcrawler's first mission had me make my way through some kind of underground complex, taking out guards and navigating a sewer system. When moving with 
Nightcrawler, there are almost always small translucent blue flames which indicate potential teleportation targets; there are always plenty of these at any given time, and they are usually positioned on ledges, large objects, and son on, be they useful destinations or merely points that would make for a cool-looking path. Since each level is designed around a particular character, Nightcrawler's levels have many levels and structures of which he can take advantage. By pointing the right analog stick in the direction of the desired target and hitting the appropriate button, Nightcrawler will instantly teleport to the desired location, complete with those little wisps of blue smoke at the departure and arrival points. In general, at least in the early levels I played, it wasn't really necessary to worry too much about precision with this particular mechanic; the game seems built to let the player pull off impressive maneuvres without having to become a technical master.
In combat, Nightcrawler has a combo system similar to Wolverine's. He's got a punch and a kick, as well as a slew of combos that result from different combinations of those two basic moves. However, he's physically weaker than Wolverine, and he makes up for that by being able to teleport all around his enemies. There are multiple ways to do this. Much like the movement mechanics, you can be as precise as you like, if that's your thing. It's possible to select individual enemies and teleport behind them to deliver a blow, only to Bampf right off to another enemy. You can also make even shorter range teleports around a single enemy, hitting him from the side, then the rear, then the front. I have a suspicion that the reason the team dialed in that aforementioned slow-mo ragdoll was actually in a subtle attempt to allow players to sort of recreate Nightcrawler's famous film battle, in which secret service agents were constantly aloft, being juggled around by the mutant's antics. You can't quite pull that off--after all, it would look pretty silly to have true slow motion while the rest of the world is carrying on in real time--but after some practice zipping from enemy to enemy, you can produce some nice results.
The other Nightcrawler mission I played had him defusing bombs and and taking out enemies on a long suspension bridge. The cables and beams of the bridge made for an intentionally appropriate setting for teleporting around, and I probably would have spent a lot longer doing just that if the bombs weren't set to timers.
Though only those three characters are directly playable in the game, there are some instances when you'll be accompanied by AI-controlled partners. For example, on Nightcrawler's suspension bridge level, you can call in air support from Storm, who will unleash a lightning strike on nearby enemies. That particular team up is a bit underwhelming, since Storm herself never appears on screen and is only perceived indirectly by way of her "firepower," but the team revealed that the game contains plenty of other AI co-op scenarios, including one in which the player fights alongside Colossus.
X-Men: The Official Game is shipping on all the current home platforms: PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, and PC. It follows your standard console heirarchy in terms of graphical fidelity: Xbox 360 looks better than Xbox, which looks better than GameCube, which looks better than PS2. I didn't get a chance to see the PC version of the game. All in all, the game has a nice look to it, with nicely modeled characters that look the part. The environments aren't going to blow you away, but some--such as the site of the huge lava beast boss--are appropriately impressive.
Since the Xbox 360's launch, Activision's contributions to Microsoft's next-gen console have frequently been ports of multiplatform games also shipping on all three current-gen systems, which tends to prevent the 360 versions of the games from really exploiting the graphical capability of the system. That holds true here; the 360 build is undoubtedly the prettiest of the four console versions by a significant margin, but it's not going to be one of the games you use as a visual benchmark for your 
concave white box.
While this title doesn't have the full on stats management seen in the X-Men Legends franchise, it does offer at least one avenue to improve your characters. Completing missions will award you with mutations, and these mutations can be spent on various character abilities. For example, if you're a particularly aggressive fighter, you might be interested in upping Wolverine's melee skill without paying any heed to his blocking ability. If you have no interest in beefing up Nightcrawler's combat skills beyond his initial comparatively weak attacks, you can pump points into his teleportation ability to gain some extra distance. There are also hidden pickups in each level. Finding Weapon X Files will add the option to suit various characters up in their comic-derived costumes rather than the ones corresponding to the films. Collecting pieces of Sentinel Tech will allow you to clothe your mutants in their street garb.
The game is expected to be about eight hours long. It's spread over 28 levels, with three hidden unlockable levels thrown in for good measure. While the game doesn't feel particularly revolutionary in any way, the lengths to which the team went to differentiate the characters and ensure that there are a variety of different experiences shines through. It may not be the followup that X-Men Legends devotees are looking for, but for general X-Men fans it should serve as a fun, if brief, romp through the eyes of three popular characters, while providing a nice lead-in to the events of the upcoming film.
Z-Axis' X-Men: The Official Game will be released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, and PC on May 16. Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS versions will be released on the same day.
