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

Video games are not exactly art, and to say that they are is to do a great injustice to video games. Art is something that is to be hung in a gallery, to be looked at from a distance. No, games are more like a house than a sculpture in that they have an actual utility to them. Sure, they can be artistically done and even be as beautiful as great artworks, but they are ultimately to be enjoyed by entertaining the gamer. Art, on the other hand, is typically a word associated with wine and cheese tastings. Somehow, I can't quite grasp the image of rich socialites browsing galleries of Pac-Man games.

The point, however, is that games are created to be entertaining, not pretty. It's a shame, then, that X-Men: The Official Game, with the rare exception of looking good on the game box cover, fails on both counts. If you need an example, let's just say it's a particularly bad sign when the game gives you a loading screen solely to load up the developer and publisher logos.

X-Men is the ultimate movie tie-in; it doesn't encapsulate the plot of the new X-Men: The Last Stand movie, nor does it take place after, but instead bridges the finale of the second movie to the beginning of the third. It's not very easy to tell at first, though, as the introduction to the game is almost identical to the first 20 minutes of the movie. Jean Grey had met an untimely fate at Alkali Lake and left Scott Summers and Logan – more typically known as Cyclops and Wolverine, respectively – to brood and be generally whiny. Meanwhile, the American government has designed a brand new designer vaccination created for the sole intent of de-powering mutants. That's about where the game and movie share ground, however, as the game quickly breaks off into a bit of a prequel of sorts.

The story, sadly, is made glaringly obvious by the absolutely hideous way that Z-Axis did the cut scenes. Cut scenes are still images – rather attractive still images, but still images, mind you – with occasionally one tiny piece of the picture changing to denote movement while the characters speak magically without the slightest bit of movement. The first thought coming to mind when the cut scenes started was, "Is this some kind of X-Men III storyboard mode that I can turn off or something?" Truly the lazy man's way out, it's the first of several detractors from the game.

You start off in a Danger Room simulation disgustingly similar to the one that opens the third movie, which unsurprisingly serves as a tutorial level. From there, the story takes Wolverine, Iceman, Nightcrawler, and a few less-important NPCs – Colossus and Storm – deep into the recently ruined underground bunkers of Alkali Lake. Each of the three playable characters handles remarkably different, with Wolverine's levels being painfully bland, generic beat-'em-up fare; Iceman's levels working on an almost rail-shooter feel similar to a game like Panzer Dragoon, except replacing the lock-on awesomeness with annoyingly timed levels; and Nightcrawler controlling like a stealth-oriented action game vaguely akin to Metal Gear Solid.

Naturally, Nightcrawler's levels come across as the most fun, allowing one to bamf (well, poof – the comic-book sounds never translated well to aural form) from area to area, avoiding detection and beating the ever-loving snot out of anyone who does happen to detect you. Iceman and Wolverine don't last that well, the former having the aforementioned hideously pointless time limits to his levels and the latter playing like an extremely watered-down version of Wolverine's Revenge.

Like many of today's beat-'em-ups, X-Men allows the three heroes to boost their abilities after each level played. Different levels of difficulty provide different amounts of mutations (in-game slang for "ability points") with which to enhance subtle but vital attributes, like physical power and health regeneration. Most of it is just window dressing, as the boosts are small, and levels are short enough that it doesn't take long to gain a significant amount of what's available.

There's also a few unlockables to extend playtime, typically earned by collecting floating trinkets known as Sentinel Files and Weapon X data on each level. The unlockables range from alternate costumes to bonus Danger Zone levels for each character, typical fare for this genre. The true failing on that, however, is that even with the unlockables, the game is alarmingly short. Expect it to be beaten in a day, if not in one sitting. However, the playtime may be extended artificially by a few levels that are difficult for all the wrong reasons, particularly those starring Iceman. The game lacks any sort of true difficulty, but the timed levels are annoying and urge a gamer to allow his controller and television screen to meet more intimately.

All in all, the presentation is pretty lackluster: Graphics that are beautiful on other systems' renditions come across as underdone to fit with the PlayStation 2's technical specifications, the sounds are the typical "exactly average" fare that pretty much every game boasts nowadays, and the controls, while functional, are flawed. A noteworthy example would be the clumsiness of Wolverine's dodge maneuver, which requires him to block for exactly as long as it takes to get hit before allowing him to roll out of harm's way.

Games may not be art, but if they were, X-Men: The Official Game would be like one of those posters of a wizard and a dragon locked in a magical duel to the death. Sure, it might be cool to look at, and it might actually end up in your house, but there's nothing there that hasn't been done, repeated, and regurgitated a hundred times over. The short playtime is the only major flaw with X-Men, though the occasional noticeable-but-minor flaw brings it down a notch here and there, nickel-and-diming the game into the bargain bin with ease. Since X-Men lacks multiplayer, if you have the urge to rent something that you can enjoy on your own and don't want to bog yourself down with the long playtime of an RPG, X-Men is good for a rainy weekend. It's not worth much more than a rental, however.

Score: 6.9/10