"I'd hate to see what it was if it was UNofficial!"

Well, the third X-Men movie is about to hit theaters, so now we have the inevitable video game tie-in. The movie is supposedly good, many say the game is bad. I decided to see for myself if it was.
Yep, it's bad.

GRAPHICS: 6/10
I mean, the characters look pretty close to the real-life counter parts, but that's the only good thing going for it. The environments look recycled, the animations are limited, and the cut-scenes aren't even that impressive. They basically didn't do much with this one.

SOUND: 5/10
Also a bleh! The only four characters they got to reprise their roles are Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Shawn Ashmore (Iceman), and Patric Stewart (Professor Xavier). They do what they were supposed to do, churn out cheap line after cheap line. The music is OK, but it isn't that impressive either. All in all, this is more or less just an average job.

STORY: 8/10
Well, the tried-and-true Marvel touch saves this one. This game happens right in-between X-Men 2 and X-Men 3 (the movies). This story not only delves more into Wolverine and Iceman, but it also explains why the HELL Nightcrawler isn't in the third movie. That alone warrants a good score in my opinion.

GAMEPLAY: 4/10
And the fun stops there! You can only play as Wolvie, Nightcrawler, and Iceman (probably because they were the only ones they could get). Wolverine's levels are hack-and-slash. Not very fun hack-and-slash either. Iceman surfs around on an ice slide (which puts physics into question), and it feels like a 3d version of an old 2d shooter. Nightcrawler's levels are the only fun ones. The teleporting stealth action is very fun, and fighting with teleports is fun too. The boss fights you come up against are fun for every character, but it's a shame that they come up so late in the game. This game is also very frustrating. You might think this kind of game would be easy, but it isn't! All in all, this game really blows chunks. Except for Nightcrawler. He's cool.

OVERALL:
Anyone who really wants to risk it here, go for it. Otherwise I'd say avoid this game.
FINAL SCORE: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/06