Genre: Action
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Z-Axis Games
Release Date: May 16, 2006

Summer is here, Anno Domini 2006, and right alongside it, we have the requisite glut of "Hollywood blockbusters." Hot on the heels of these formulaic special-effects extravaganzas are the PC game adaptations, the formulaic quick-cash console extravaganzas. At this point, virtually anyone who considers themselves a "gamer" has long since stopped looking to this tiny sub-genre of game for any sense of depth or even quality. Does that mean it's a lost cause? Not necessarily, as there are occasional moments of brilliance that catch us all off-guard. One such an example is the subject of today's article, X-Men: The Official Game. Released to ride the popularity wave of "X-Men 3," it is a surprisingly decent arcade-style action experience.

The quick breakdown is this: X-Men: The Official Game is a fully 3D, third-person perspective fighting game that places you in control of three characters from the cinematic franchise - Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman. Other X-mutants make appearances as well, but only as supplemental NPCs. (Storm likes to fly around and watch as Nightcrawler takes on a dozen heavily armed troops; Colossus needs Wolverine's protection (?), and so on.) The storyline of the game is somewhat of a prequel to the "X-Men 3" movie, in that it details the events immediately preceding the film and helps set the stage for what happens on the big screen. A good sub-title to this could have been "Return to Alkali Lake," as that's where you spend most of your time, digging through the rubble of Stryker's ruined and flooded base. I'll not curse this review with spoilers, so I won't go any further into specifics. Suffice to say, the ghosts of the past demand accountability for the actions of our intrepid heroes.

Like so many other movie-adaptation console games, X-Men: The Official Game uses some unpleasant tricks to elicit longer playtime. Forced level repetition has always left a very bad taste in my mouth, and sadly, this is something you'll have to endure if you want to see all that this title has to offer. There are a series of "Cerebro files" that you can unlock by exploring every nook and cranny in your search for the five "Sentinal Tech" items and the single Weapon X file. These are all usually hidden away, often in crates or barrels or other such destroyable containers, thus precipitating the need to repeat each mission searching for the Easter eggs. Collecting enough of these will open up new Danger Room levels for the three heroes and even new costumes for Wolverine and Iceman. You don't actually have to pursue these goals if you don't want to; they don't interfere with the storyline if you choose to ignore them. That, at least, is admirable; I've been strong-armed in the past by movie-adaptations that wouldn't actually let you proceed with the game until you had reached a certain degree of perfection in the previous level.

Each completed level also rewards you with increased mutations. Apparently, the X-Men are all somewhat like highly beneficial cancers, growing more "super" as their unstable cellular structure self-replicates to fantastical levels. Each mission begins with your decision regarding how difficult the level will be, and each extra layer of challenge adds more mutations to slot into the character. What I gather from this is that heavy physical abuse and trauma is what caused the X-Men to become powerful in the first place. After all, look at Professor X - he lost use of his legs, and now his cranial meats make him the life of every party! Get out your ball-peen hammers kids, four or five solid blows to the temple ought to make you just as awesome as anyone in the Marvel universe! Long story short, you can boost the mutant you're playing in different ways: increased healing factor for Wolverine, greater teleportation precision for Nightcrawler, and chillier ice beams for Iceman. These are just a few of the five different mutations each avatar can increase.

Designed primarily for the console market, I'm given the impression that X-Men: The Official Game is meant to be played using analogue sticks, although this PC port does a fairly admirable job of converting the controller inputs to the keyboard. The key mapping is perhaps less intuitive than the six button assembly of an X-box controller, but the combination of "W-A-S-D" for movement and "J-K-L-;" for actions isn't entirely cumbersome. It has taken me some time to get used to the almost complete lack of mouse-look functionality, but the only character that could really use it is Iceman so I've learned to cope. Considering how atrocious most console ports are when it comes to controller conversion, I'm left with no choice but to applaud Z-Axis for getting it right.

The graphics of this X-Men game are surprisingly elegant. The character models are extremely high-detail affairs with liquid motion-capture animations that glide across the screen in a spectacularly eye-pleasing display. This is especially true for Nightcrawler, whose acrobatic and articulate aerial antics accelerate adrenaline adroitly. Forgive my shameful turn of phrase, but sometimes, alliterative descriptions cannot be avoided. Beyond the avatars themselves, Z-Axis made sure to put just as much TLC into the environmental texture details and sparkly particle effects as they did the motion-capture. The entire Alkali Lake subterranean base has a rusted-out, abandoned look to it that balances a shadowy, creepy mood with visibility. Oftentimes, developers fall into the trap of "darkness = scary" and just turn all the lights out; not so with X-Men: The Official Game. It's exactly as shady as it needs to be, when it needs to be.

There is one aspect that is extremely disappointing however, and it's something I've seen before in movie tie-in games. The cut scenes are just layered still images with the occasional layer being moved to simulate some kind of activity. This was clearly a cost-cutting measure, but it's very much to the detriment of the overall experience. It's distracting and honestly just comes across as low-budget.

Is X-Men: The Official Game "worth playing?" Yes. It's a good-looking, smooth-playing title that captures some of the mystique (ha-ha) of the comics and movies. Where it fails is in the limitations placed upon it: still-image cut scenes, level repetition, and only three heroes to play. I firmly believe that if this game hadn't been slated as a tie-in to the movie, and if Z-Axis had been allowed to go the distance with their development cycle, this would be the definitive X-Men interactive experience. Even with these limitations, however, I still recommend this title to fans of the franchise.

Score: 8.0/10