X-Men Destiny Review

HITS

• Replay Value
• Different Mutant Abilities

MISSES

• Everything Else

Last year Activision announced that Silicon Knights, the developer of classics such as Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness would be working on an RPG based in the X-Men universe. The previous SK title "Too Human" wasn't received well and people questioned the quality of SK's ability to make games for the 360 and PS3.

To curb the fans uncertainty it was announced that the game would be getting both star power and geek power. Scott Porter of Friday Night Lights is a purifier who's father educated him on an anti-mutant point of view, Milo Ventimiglia of Heroes is the stereotypical football jock, and Jamie Chung of Sucker Punch is a mutant who was smuggled out of Japan by her parents to give her a new/better life in America. While on the geek side you have one of the writers for the X-Men Legacy comic Mike Carey writing the story.

The game is set in San Francisco and starts at a peace rally honoring the late Professor X when all of a sudden there is an attack that jump starts your mutant story. For the most part of the game you are fighting Purifiers: a group that intends to wipe the mutie threat from the Earth. Once you're done with the tutorial you realize something that is going to make you mad. 1. You just spent $60 on a complete waste of time and money, and 2. You can only get $20-25 if you trade it in.

The combat which is the heart of the game is nothing more than a button masher that is extremely repetitive. Once you get through the first wave of enemies you meet up with Iceman and what should be a cool dialogue system turns out to be a sorry excuse for a dialogue system. Usually you have three options of what you can say and then a goodbye which moves along the story. It's as if the developers took the one dialogue template and copied it all over the place. What you'll soon realize is that the "dialogue system" is weaker than those seen in games like Grand Theft Auto in that they are completely and utterly useless and lead nowhere.

Keeping with the RPG "features" the choices that are thrown at you in previews and commercials are making the in game choices themselves out to be something you'd see in Mass Effect. But in reality it's a simple "do this" or "do that" which is a real let down. Similar to games like Star Wars TFU upgrading your abilities is just pouring experience points into the selected power. To be fair once you upgrade certain powers they can become fun but that doesn't last long.

As you read this you're probably thinking, "hey I know everything else is bad but the storyline has to be good right?". Like pretty much everything else about the game this isn't the case. Nothing against Mike Carey but the story is dull, uninteresting, and boring. In other superhero games like X-Men: Origins Wolverine and Captain America: Super Soldier you had fun gameplay to support either a lack of extra content or poor story. X Destiny has nothing going for it in the way of graphics, gameplay, story, and RPG elements.

If you get tired of doing mission after mission of fighting waves of enemies you can take a refresher in the challenge arenas. Here you must complete a certain goal within a certain time limit. In theory it's an interesting idea for an RPG but in reality it doesn't pan out so well. You are doing essentially the same thing each time: eliminating waves of enemies in under 1-3 minutes. Most of the time this won't be a problem with the button mashing gameplay but there's no real satisfaction here and you'll only be playing it to get the bonuses.

Said bonuses are X-Genes and X-Suits. As you can tell these are powers and costumes of certain mutants in the X-Men universe. In total there are three different types of abilities. Defensive, Offensive, and Utility. These are pretty cool and make replaying through the game with different loadouts mighty tempting. You'll have the option of using abilites from various mutants like Surge to Wolverine. Keep in mind though you can't magically shoot beams from your eyes or grow bone claws so you'll be sticking to your natural powers.

That being said, you can choose from three core powers at the start of the game. There's Density Control which gives the player a rocky exterior that protects them from multiple enemies, Energy Projection which gives you energy based attacks that can stun a group of enemies or decimate a highly shielded foe, and finally there's Shadow Matter which gives you indestructible air blades and agility.

 Overall, this is a game that had potential to be something more than the standard licensed game but the clear development problems prevent it from joining fellow superhero games Captain America and Wolverine. Normally I'd say if you're a fan of the source material you should check out the game but I fear that if you do you will end up hating said source material. When your doing your holiday bargain shopping there's a good chance that you'll see this for a ridiculously low price, whatever you do DON'T BUY THIS GAME!

Also for the first time only I'm breaking the GamerZitch Rule of Score and giving this game a score. I give this game a 1 out of 5.