X-Men Destiny

Is Homo Superior? X-Men: Destiny Review

When people ask me who my favorite comic book character is I get flummoxed, Colossus is sexy and sincere (and gigantic), Storm is classy kick-ass, Night Crawler is the gayest and bluest metaphor, Professor Xavier= awesome, Phoenix, damn! and then there are The New Mutants, so all I can say when they ask is The X-Men.   When they ask what powers I would want I burst into flames- wait, no I don’t want flames, DAMN IT!  X-Men Destiny allows players to choose one of three mutants and choose their powers, and they are all flippin’ cool.

I HAVE THE POWER

Destiny’s strength is its  fanboy’s wet dream of a power set.   Want to shoot ice, or tool around on iceslides, you can.  Want Emma’s diamond skin, Gambit’s pink kinetics, and Toad’s B.O.- they’re yours.  The powers are great and allow you to subtly change your core power which can be rock armor for the brawlers, shadow matter, a telekinetic blade-looking affair, or energy projectiles.  These powers have further permutations a player chooses as the game progresses and allows for a nice amount of customization.

Players also get to pick from three mutants Grant, a bland, but sexy looking all American football player, Aimi, an illegal Asian immigrant who is female and fashion forward, or Adrian, the surprisingly interesting former anti mutant militia man.  The militia man is well voiced, tormented by the memory of his anti-mutant father, and the most real of the three, he truly struggles with who he is now and who he wants to be. 

It is obvious the creators love the X-men, the character models are lovingly rendered, and for the most part, convincingly written, Emma Frost suffers again from being forced from being The Ice Queen to being a MILF, but Nightcrawler, Cyclops, and Collossus capture the earnesty of the X-Men’s cause, and Magneto’s strength , conviction and intelligence are obvious.  The X-Men and The Brotherhood (led by Magneto and Mystique) are facing the same foe and have different views on how to get things done, but it is not presented as a simple good/bad choice.  Magneto is willing to break a few eggs and heads and eggheads to make his omlette of mutant survival and the X-men want peaceful coexistence.

WITH GREAT POTENTIAL COMES…

The game has its problems.  While there are some beautiful touches, the opening comic, the flashy entrances and comic book style, exciting power effects, the settings couldn’t be more bland- everything is gray and broken down, and for some reason you’re in the sewers quite often.  There is very little variety and color palette is, in a word, blech.  The enemies are mostly the same with only slight variations in their costumes.  There is some platforming that could have been cool with a little more work.  I also wanted to be able to move quickly through or bypass cutscenes, but was forced to sit through them again and again.  Also, the game is five hours long.  You can replay chapters and challenges with all your upgrades and there is a new game plus where you can begin again with all you’ve found, and there are a huge amount of things to find that are set in specific places, but are chosen at random, so if you want to get them all you must replay.

X-Men Destiny is a good game for fanboys, especially those who are not big gamers or those who just want to take large groups of thugs out with their powers while fighting along side some of their favorite characters.  It is a game of contradictions, it has got such style and genuine affection for it’s characters and mythology; its RPG elements are fun and varied, but the settings and action is bland and repetitive.  It is a game that feels unfinished and rushed.  It is obvious they wanted to do more, but for whatever reason couldn’t.  $60 might be a little much, but I am sure it will be in the bargain bin soon and worth a good look.