"Horrible movie based game"

Obviously I'm a fairly big X-Men fan. Not so much the comics but the cartoon. There have been some bad X-Men games (X-Men for the NES), some decent ones (The Genesis titles) and some great ones (the Legends series). How does the official game to the third movie stack up? Not so well...

Story wise X3 doesn't follow the movie at all. This might be because the movie itself had so little action but that doesn't matter. The game ruins any continuality by bringing back dead characters and the plot is just crappy. This is perhaps one of the worst movie based games I've had the misfortune of playing.

Graphics are alright in this game. The levels are fairly bland and uninspired. Cut scenes are done by semi-still images and looks alright but the stuttering is complete crap and looks stupid. Character models are decent but enemy variety must have never been though of when they made this game, most enemies look the same.

I really can't comment much on the sound in this game. Music was okay but completely forgettable. Voice acting may feature some of the actors from the movie but I couldn't tell, some sounded wrong. Sound effects wise it seemed fairly solid with clattering of barrels on grounds, although if it was full of something it wouldn't sound empty, would it? Oh well....

Control in this game is kind of bad. The three characters play differently and kind of control differently. Iceman plays like a Tony Hawk game minus tricks. Kind of floaty and aim is terrible. Wolverines stuff is easy enough, easy to do moves. Nightclawer was fine until his later levels were he would teleport to so not where you were looking and the camera was slow to move and it just felt overly tedious.

X3 is laid out kind of like the third Lord of the Rings game. It's a giant branching path. Alternating characters here and there. However, unlike that great game, this one forces what to play next. This sucks because you might not be good at Iceman's stages so you could have focused on say Nightcrawlers. This would make the game feel less linear but I guess they didn't want that. Instead you're forced to play 5 Wolverine stages, 2 Nightcrawler stages, 2 Iceman stages and then even more Wolverine stages. It gets tedious....

Let's cover each character now, as they do all play differently. Iceman plays kind of like SSX but in the air. It's really kind of boring. Imagine a bland playing field and now imagine having to put out fires by using square and to attack these horrible fire starters by using your ice missiles or whatever. Targeting is terrible and I really don't think it ever worked right.

Nightcrawlers levels are perhaps the best in the game. If you bought the game on or near release their copies had an extra Nightcrawler level. Anyway, his are kind of but not really stealth oriented. Nightcrawler pretty much beats the crap out of everyone and his catch is the fact that he can teleport. Making his stages kind of feel like a platformer except boring.

Wolverine's stages are played the most. They consisted of him running through a level randomly beating guys up. Or he may be trapped in a room for 20 minutes beating guys up. It really doesn't vary past that. It is by far the most tedious bit in the game and the one with the most focus. Oh and the mindless AI and the fact that every playable character can regenerate health all the time makes the game feel even more pointless.

You can play on any difficulty per stage. The higher the setting, the more mutation genes you get. 1 gene unlocks an upgrade and you can pick them. Be it health, strength, rage, block or whatever. There is just enough to max everything out for everyone and you can only use them on the person who beat the level. There are also some purple cards in each level (5) and one blue card. Collecting those unlocks Cerebro missions and new costumes. So nothing really worth the effort. Actually, if you make it through the entire game on one setting I must congratulate you as it was by far the most boring thing I've done in a long while.

I only rented the game and still feel ripped off. And it was a free rental at that... Not worth buying or renting for fans of the comics, movies, or cartoon. If you really need to play it, then just rent it but it really isn't worth that either. X3 is truly one of the worst games I've played this year.

Story - 3/10
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 7/10
Game Play - 3/10
Replay Value - 4/10

Final Score - 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/31/06