"Like Playing a Comic Book"

Alright, I'm a huge comic book fan, so this game was an easy fit for me, and it's pretty good for newcomers to X-men as well.

For those that don't know, X-men are the good guys mutants, Brotherhood are the bad guy mutants. The game starts out with you as Wolverine (Guy with big metal claws) and you need to battle your way through Anti-Mutant squads and bad guy mutants.

Gameplay: 9

Here is the games jewel, the gameplay. You control a squad of up to 4 X-men who you can switch to on the fly by pressing a direction on the D-pad. Each X-men will have 4 different special powers which can only be upgraded by leveling up. The button system is easy to use, triangle is jump(Again to fly for some characters), square is grab, X is fast attack and circle is strong attack. You can also hold R2 to toggle the powers menu, then X becomes your special power mapped to X. Lastly, L2 will toggle your AI controlled allies to use their special powers on the badguy you're beating up.

Gameplay is smooth, though getting hectic at times it can be a real pain to find your character when there are 10 or so onscreen. Another good part is the co-op, you can have 2 players playing as the 4 X-men at one time, (If you have a multitap you can play 4). This makes the game extremely fun, as you and your friend can team up so one of you can throw the enemy and the other can kick him for extra combo points and such.

When you get level ups you are given 1 or 2 points for upgrading which can be used on ATK, DEF, Energy and Health. You also get 1 or 2 points to upgrade your special powers.

So gameplay, overall is great, next up, graphics.

Graphics: Game - 8
CG - 6

The game graphics are nice and cel-shaded, the explosions are nice, special powers are nice and levels are nice. My only real quirk here is that when talking, there are no mouths for the characters to move. And that sometimes you can mistake characters with closely matching uniforms.

The CG looks like something off of a PS1 and isn't anything that I'd think of on this gen of systems. It's not that it is horrible and blocky, it's just that it seems rushed and very glossy and sluggish in CG.

Story: 9

A good story, saying too much would be spoiling it, but it's a classic X-men vs Brotherhood with a few bad guys comic book readers will definitely recognize.

Enertainment: 9

This game is an extraordinary play with a friend, and even by yourself it can be loads of fun. Blowing up bad guys with special moves, throwing crates at enemies, blasting through walls and watching the story evolve is almost as fun as it gets. Again, sometimes you get mixxed up when the screen gets hectic, and your AI allies can be stupid and jump off cliffs to their death (SOMETIMES) this isn't a huge negative, but is still fairly bad because you need to pay a bit of money to revive them.

Overall: 8

Pros
- Great fun
- Nice Cel-Shaded graphics
- Awesome story
- Good Co-op
- Story progresses quickly
- Evolving your characters is fun
- Durability of game
- Comic book material (This IS what X-men fans are looking for)

Cons
- CG effects
- Hectic gameplay at times
- The mouths don't move!
- AI can be stupid

Buy or Rent: It's a long good game, so definitely buy, considering that you can get it for less than 20 dollars.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/19/06