"Unpolished Controls, Lackluster graphics....."

Graphics 3/10

wow. what went wrong here? I mean I was looking through the character select screen the other day and noticed that everyone apart from Magneto looks ridiculously silly. anyway enough about a minor detail on with the in-game graphics. wow, this is not ps2 quality graphics at all... the characters are little improved over the X-men Mutant Academy 2 ones and in some cases worse (ie beast).

while the characters look generally poor, the level graphics are pretty solid, especially since they are pretty interactive. They are probably the games best graphical standpoint, which by all means is not a good thing as they aren't close to being as good as VF4s, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance or Tekken 4s.

The projectiles aren't terrible but there nothing to write home about either.

Controls: 1/10

This is really what makes this game suffer. The controls are extremely unresponsive and will end up costing you in a key battle. I dont know how many times I have tried to input someones special (which are easy to input) only to have my guy do a 2 punch combo or kick or anything BUT the special even when my bar(s) are full. annoying...

which brings me to another point, while each character IS graphically different they all feel the same. all the moves for all characters are pulled off more or less the same, the main difference between each character is his / her specials and their move animations (what I mean is each character has back-roll+x as a move, know what I mean?)

Modes: 5/10

nothing spectacular but just the main modes that are write ins for fighters nowadays (arcade, survival, story) heres a brief run down of the modes:

arcade: run of the mill traditional mode, fight a bunch of random fighters until you reach a certain point where it just ends. I never knew why these games never put a main boss-type character at the end, I mean it would be alot nice than just ending.... anyway after you pass arcade mode you get the lame character select picture with some details about them & their powers etc with a voice over by Patrick Stewart (its very good actually)

story: a pretty good idea thats fairly fleshed out and is pretty entertaining until you get to a 50second match. I have absolutely no idea why these matches were put into story mode, they are nothing more than frustrating... other than that its pretty cool, with some pretty weak FMVs thrown in to explain the story.

survival: same as any fighter, beat as many opponents as you can on one life bar

replayability: 2/10

The modes are fairly dull due to the combat and you will probably never go through arcade mode again as it felt extremely monotonous (to me anyway). In general once you have unlocked all you can from the various modes the game ultimately loses its fun factor.

unlockables / extras: 9/10

the main thing this game has going for it is the sheer amount of unlockables, its incredible. a bunch of costumes for each character, a few characters and levels. while there is alot to unlock some of them have ridiculous goals to be reached, which means that if you dont like the game alot but want to see everything you will have to play it for a LONG time, otherwise you just wont see it (legitimately anyway)

Extra notes / gripes about the game:

- no arcade customization??
- projectile characters have a distinct advantage over non-projectile characters

-the arcade AI can be plain frustrating & annoying
-the voice work by Stewart is phenominal, some of the best voice work I've heard in ages

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/25/03, Updated 03/25/03