X-Men Destiny

I'll get the oncoming flood of updates kicked off with X-Men Destiny while it is still fresh in my mind. X-Men Destiny is a brawler from Too Human developer Silicon Knights, which, after the infamous development cycle of Too Human, is probably only still in business because of federal funding from the Canadian government. Destiny shares some similarities with Too Human, but it isn't nearly as slow as Silicon' Knights earlier effort.

  

Iceman, Emma Frost, and stereotypical Japanese Harajuku schoolgirl to the rescue!

At the start of the game, you choose from 3 completely new characters, all of which are caricatures of their respective stereotypes, including a football jock, Japanese schoolgirl, and rough neck complete with a wife beater and tribal tattoos. The idea here is that you are taking the role of a character who has yet to have their mutant powers manifest, so that you control their "Destiny". You then choose from 3 different mutant power templates: earth control (fat melee), energy (ranged), or shadow (speedy melee). 

I chose the Japanese schoolgirl with Shadow powers and went on my way to saving the world (or maybe just San Francisco).

The story from here is your basic humans vs. mutants arch with the Purifiers acting as the main villains. Throughout the game, you are given choices as to whether or not to go with the X-Men or the Brotherhood, with a basic lineup of mutants on each side trying to pull you one way or the other. Your choices affect the availability of some side missions in the game, but ultimately you can choose one side or the other regardless of your previous choices.


The main story and side missions are your basic 3D brawler fare, with your selected character taking down nameless hordes of Purifiers and U-Men with the occasional boss or X-Men character thrown in. The game plays similar to Too Human and the X-Men Legends series of brawlers, with basic light/heavy attacks and mutant powers. To mix things up a bit, you also find "X-Genes" throughout the game, where you can augment your mutant powers with the abilities of other X-Men. For example, the Emma Frost Defensive Gene will give your character diamond skin as your mutant power meters fills, and the Toad Utility Gene will let you move faster by hopping around like Toad. You can also spend XP to upgrade these X-Genes along with your own mutant powers. Overall, the X-Gene system is kind of "neat" but doesn't really affect the gameplay all that much. Also, many genes that you find overlap with previous ones you have found, so you end up having a lot of junk you will never touch. Also, if you match each of the 3 gene types (Offensive, Defensive, Utility) of the same mutant, along with their suit, you unlock a super-powered "X-Mode" which can be used for a limited time. This would be cool, but the game is so short that I only amassed the complete set for 2 different mutants towards the very end of the game, and by this time I had already spent the XP to fully upgrade the specific genes I liked, so it was pretty much useless. I think (or hope) there might be a New Game+ option so you can start again with all of your compiled genes, but I didn't think to check before I sent the game back to Gamefly.


Let's talk a bit about the writing. It's terrible. Like, atrocious. The dialogue between the characters reads like they just put someone from the development team in a room for one afternoon to bang it out. Supposedly, Mike Carey, a writer for the X-Men Legacy book, supplied the story. I don't know if this means he wrote all the dialogue or just the overall story and others filled in the gaps. I hope that it is the latter, because it is just that bad. Perhaps it is just that comic-style writing doesn't really translate to a voice acted story, but who knows. To make things worse, the game contains bare minimum Bioware-esque dialogue trees that you CAN'T SKIP. I found myself just hitting "Goodbye" at ever opportunity, which is a shame, because as an X-Men fan, I was appreciating the fan service, but I just could not handle sitting through any more of the terrible writing.


Despite the repetitious combat and horrible writing, I enjoyed X-Men Destiny. At one point while playing, it actually felt like I was on an X-Men mission, which isn't something I can say for the X-Men Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, which always seem to be simply "kill everything in sight" and little else. Destiny was "kill everything in sight and occasionally scale a building to disable some sort of nefarious computer system". While a bit thin, I did appreciate the diversions to the skull bashing. I also liked the fact that at key points in the game, I had to choose between 2 different powers to further develop my mutant powerhouse. It made it feel like I really was a "New Mutant" on an important mission.

I didn't hate X-Men Destiny as much as other reviewers, but it certainly wasn't a great game, merely mediocre. I of course loved the X-Men fan service, even if it only contained the bare minimum of characters on either side of the eternal X-Men/Brotherhood struggle. I don't think I could see myself playing through the fairly short game again, as there are many other gaming experiences out there that are more fulfilling.

Magneto was right.