X-Men: The Official Game

There was a time when side-scrolling games, with sprites leaping and fighting their way from one side of the screen to another, navigating platforms and vertical mazes, were all the rage.

Activision is reviving that genre with X-Men: The Official Game for the Game Boy Advance platform. The game follows the thread of the movies, bridging the gap between the second and third movies (the latter will release Friday), with some of the story arcs carried deftly between the various platforms this title was released on.

However, what you will not get in any other platform is the addition of Colossus as a playable character. The home consoles feature three characters. The Nintendo DS has Magneto as playable, but only the GBA features the powerful Colossus.

But that is getting ahead of the story. As you may recall from the second movie, it ended with the destruction of Colonel Stryker’s anti-mutant installation at Alkali Lake. A team of Brotherhood and X-Men brought down the plot to destroy all mutants, but the cost was the loss of Jean Grey. Of course, those close to her are devastated, or – as in the case of Wolverine – just plain angry and looking for anyone to take it out on.

The GBA game begins with (if you forego the tutorial) a battle with Sabretooth. This is as quick a tutorial to the game controls and tactical elements as you will find. Of course, playing as Wolverine, you would think just running straight into Sabretooth and firing off a series of attacks would be enough. Think again. Do that and Sabretooth will pound you. You will have to learn to duck, jump back, or over him, hit and move away before he can retaliate. Fail and you will be in that place for a while. The game won’t move forward until you succeed.

That leads to one of the problems in the game. Tapping on the B button is supposed to unleash attacks, but while button-mashing, Wolverine was not always firing off attacks. The controls were not as responsive as they should have been for this type of game.

The control scheme is simple – A button to jump, B button to attack, L to swap X-Men and R to activate a charge attack. There are also special attacks that use the B button and the directional pad. There is a responsiveness issue here that can cause a bit of frustration.

The four characters that are controllable are Wolverine, Colossus, Iceman and Nightcrawler. Colossus is actually one of the three primary characters with Nightcrawler adding in later after you unlock him. There are two meters that need to be paid attention to – the health meter and the charge meter. You cannot pull off a charge attack unless you have powered up the meter.

The game is very much a linear two-dimensional action/adventure title. You run from left to right (sometimes backing up as the fight dictates) through enemies, using the central character’s different skills to get to the end of the level. Usually there is a boss battle waiting for you.

The game’s graphics are average, with cut-in profiles of the characters during plot moments and dialogue. The cartoon cut-ins, though, bear little resemblance to the actors, which should have been the point since this game is the official game of the movie. The sound is alright, as far as the GBA is concerned, but nothing exceptional.

And that is, more or less, the standard for this game. It takes on the look of a side-scrolling title, and while everyone knows the GBA can’t compete with other handhelds, or consoles, it just feels like a slightly lesser version. X-Men: The Official Movie is decent on this platform, but X-Men fans might leave wishing for just a bit more from this platform entry. 

Gameplay: 6.5
The game has no difficulty settings, per se, and is a combination of button mashing and tactical combat. Even at the start, you will know that to blindly charge Sabretooth is to invite trouble. You need to understand the control scheme – which does not seem all that responsive – and use it well to advance the game.

Graphics: 6.8
The style is fine on the GBA, but the game harkens back to the sprite-based era a little too strongly.

Sound: 7.0
The musical score sounds very good here, but aside from a few generic combat sounds, that’s about all there is for this title.  

Difficulty: Medium
It is pretty much a button masher with some tactical elements thrown in occasionally.  

Concept: 6.7
The game gives players another character not available on other platforms, but tries to feature the same storyline, GBA style. It just does not work all that well, and ends up with this game being very average in design. And, as this is the official game of the movie, even the still portraits should have bore some semblance to the actors. Wolverine looks nothing like Hugh Jackman, who may have been the best movie casting of a superhero, ever.

Overall: 6.7
If you have played this game on the home consoles, playing this version will be a disappointment. However, taken in context of what is offered here, the game does a decent job of portraying the characters. The linear nature of the game, plus some control responsiveness issues drag it down just a bit.