X-Men: Destiny PS3 Review

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 10.17.2011

Choose your path wisely, will it be the peaceful co-existence sought by the X-Men or the war for mutant superiority of the Brotherhood. Find out in the latest digital trip into the X-Men-verse in X-Men: Destiny. Jeffrey Harris checks in with his review of the PS3 version of the game.



Title: X-Men: Destiny
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Silicon Knights
Genre: Action role-playing
Players: Single-player
Rated: T For Teen

With the advent of the Batman: Arkham City franchise, videogames of the comic book superhero variety will be under more scrutiny than ever before especially since games such as Arkham Asylum and by the looks of things, Arkham City, have set an incredibly high standard nigh impossible to match. On the X-Men/Marvel side of things, we had the X-Men: Legends games some years back and now Activision and Silicon Knights have brought about a new action/rpg style game in X-Men: Destiny. X-Men: Legends was set in the X-Men world with the Ultimate look. X-Men: Destiny is based on events from more recent adventures of the X-Men in the Marvel 616-verse (Classic Marvel) where Professor Xavier has died and the X-Men have relocated to San Francisco. Tensions between humans and mutants are running high. Magneto and the Brotherhood are still at large and seeming to wait their turn to wage war on humanity. The anti-mutant group, the Purifiers led by Cameron Hodge are militant and seem to be willing to cleanse the Earth of mutantkind by any means necessary. In San Francisco, the X-Men hold a peace rally alongside the Mutant Response Division to promote peaceful relations and co-existence with humans and mutants. The rally is quickly dissolved by a mysterious disaster and San Francisco appears to be on the verge of getting swallowed by equally mysterious earthquakes. But who is behind it all? Magneto and the Brotherhood or the equally sinister Purifiers? From the conflict emerge three new mutants whose powers have just formed: Aimi Yoshida (Jamie Chung), Adrian Luca (Scott Porter), and Grant Alexander (Milo Ventimiglia). All three have their own storyline and view on the mutant conflict and are thrust into the battle. You will play as any of the three, and throughout the game your decisions will influence what faction you side with, the X-Men or the Brotherhood.

X-Men: Destiny despite an intriguing original story and lots of potential ultimately misses greatly in execution and in gameplay. While not going in expecting something of Arkham Asylum caliber, it fails to live up to quality X-Men franchise games of the past such as the Legends series.



So you get three characters to choose from in the single-player campaign. Aimi is an impoverished immigrant and Japanese refugee as well as the daughter of mutant parents. Adrian is the son of a Purifier soldier and appears to be vehemently anti-mutant and borderline psychotic and schizophrenic. However, after realizing he's a mutant, Adrian is not happy about some of the Purifiers' more extreme methods. Grant is a college football player who lacked a major view on humans and mutants before his powers manifested. All the characters are new and original to the game, and you basically get to build them and their mutant powers from the ground up. The game gives you a choice of the characters' base powers such as energy projection or density control. As you progress, your character can unlock new powers, abilities, fight combos and techniques. Power customization is one of the cooler and more complex aspects of the game and how you are building your own type of X-Men/superhero character almost like DCU Online or City of Heroes.



Another neat feature throughout the game is picking up alternate costumes. Throughout your mission levels, you can stumble on challenge arenas or areas where you can pick up alternate costumes. The costumes can tweak your powers and attributes in certain ways. This is an interesting idea and a lot cooler than just giving your character an alternate skin that doesn't play any differently from the norm.

The rest of the gameplay is a mixed bag. The control scheme is simple enough. You have light and strong attacks, and you can also jump, block, and evade. Unfortunately the controls lack a certain preferred smoothness. The response time and delay on the strong attack leaves a lot to be desired. Combos and controls during the fight sequences sometimes comes off extremely rough, as well as jumping and climbing on ledges and metal girders. The action and combat often devolves into button, mashing brawling. The enemies all run very similar. Levels are often littered with life and X-gene power-ups, unfortunately there was one particular boss fight that was needlessly frustrating. The boss fight has three sequences where at the beginning of each one he gets a full health meter charge up and there is nowhere for your character to replenish his/her life meter.



Despite the RPG guise, the game is very linear. There is the aspect of choice and going down the path of light or dark with the X-Men or the Brotherhood. However, the levels remain linear. Also, you are given multiple choices and questions you can ask the various mutants and X-verse characters you encounter. However if say you accidentally ask the same question again, you are forced to watch the same cut scenes over and over, even if you die and have to play part of a level over again. Not having a cut scene skip feature was rather tedious and annoying and it reeks of an unfinished product.



Something else that points to how rushed the game was is that levels and video movement is at times very choppy and rough. The graphics and models are pretty good, but some of the characters just have these really awkward looking eyes and eye movements, like you are looking at eyeballs stuck into a skeleton. Animations are good if a little repetitive. Despite having three characters, the stories and game all move very quickly and the game is extremely short so there is little replay value to offer other than the other difficulty levels and hunting for collectible items and Purifier propaganda posters which add little value to overall game. The voice acting and writing by the supporting characters are good, as you have mainstays such as Steven Blum back as Wolverine, Kari Wahlgren once again playing Emma Frost, and Nolan North as Cyclops. Porter's voicework for Adrian Luca is incredibly stiff and rough and his storyline is incredibly contrived. Adrian was anti-mutant before his powers manifested and he hears the voice of his dead Purifier father constantly throughout the game. But his responses and views he expresses throughout the game are just like, "huh?"

Pros

-Good voice acting and intriguing storyline based off the contemporary X-verse comics.
-Customization of mutant powers and abilities.
-Alternate costumes.
-Some good alternate costume renders.

Cons

-Rushed, unfinished looking game overall.
-Choppy and rough levels and overall video movement.
-Extremely frustrating boss battles and brawling gameplay.
-Awkward storytelling and dialogue for the main characters.

The 411

X-Men: Destiny could intrigue some hardcore gamers and X-Men fanatics. But the game in execution doesn't really deliver something truly special. It doesn't quite follow in the foot steps of more superior Marvel comic games such as the X-Men: Legends or Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games or come close to surpassing the stronger Spider-Man games that were produced.

Graphics	6.0	Not bad, but the character models could clearly use some refinement and additional work. Video and levels are rough and choppy at times.
Gameplay	5.0	Controls are unbalanced and at times really rough and hard to execute.
Sound	7.5	The game features strong music and voice acting, though the main characters dialogue at times gets on your nerves.
Lasting Appeal	4.0	There is little in the way of extra bells and whistlers and the story mode is extremely short despite the guise of an RPG with multiple choices and paths.
Fun Factor	5.0	The game had a lot of potential that it does not live up to and is not quite a worthy successor of the X-Men: Legends franchise.
Overall	5.5   [ Not So Good ]

Screenshots
All 6 X-Men: Destiny Screenshots