X-Men: Destiny (Xbox 360) Review

The world stands on the brink of war.  Will you fulfill your destiny?

In the world of X-Men, none has ever been more highly revered than Professor Xavier.  X-Men: Destiny introduces us to that world shortly after Xavier’s demise.  A large rally is being held to try to promote good will between humans and mutants when things go horribly wrong.  It is then that our protagonist must begin the journey to fulfill their destiny – as either a member of the X-Men, led by Cyclops, or the Brotherhood, led by Magneto.

The three characters you can choose from: Adrian, Aimi, and Grant

Players will choose between one of three youngsters to bear their story:  Aimi, who has only recently been smuggled to America from Japan, Grant, a college freshman looking to make a name for himself on the gridiron at UC Berkeley, and Adrian, whose father is the leader of a militant anti-mutant group known as the “Purifiers.”  The only real differences in each character, apart from looks, is their back story and how that will be fleshed out over the course of the game.

At the beginning of the game, players choose not only their character of choice, but also their primary focus for abilities.  There are three main skill paths players can take.  The first is Density Control, which basically allows the user to coat parts of their body in stone.  The second skill is Energy Projection, which allows for the use of energy beams and the like, similar to Cyclops’ eye blast.  Finally, there is the Shadow Matter skill, which lets players materialize blades of energy around their body and teleport.

Beyond the primary sets of skills, players can also collect what are referred to as “X-Genes” over the course of the game.  You can pick up and equip offensive, defensive, and utility X-Genes and a corresponding suit.  Each set of X-Genes grants the character a different skill based on the skills of other mutants in the X-Men universe.  Several of these have some really interesting effects, like equipping Ice Man’s defensive ability to harden your defenses (and coat your body in a layer of ice).  Unfortunately, though, many of them feel like nothing more than another item to collect in the world, with no real practical application.

Gambit is one of the many popular mutants you'll encounter

Combat boils down to nothing more than button mashing out combos and collecting orbs from the scores of fallen foes.  These orbs can be used to upgrade your X-Genes and primary mutant power to make them more powerful.  Much to the detriment of the game, though, enemies don’t vary a lot over the course of the game.  You’ll always have groups that run straight at you to hit you, a few that hang back to blast you from a distance, and the occasional heavy-hitter you’ll have to work around.  Boss battles are a welcome encounter, however.  You will face some interesting bosses that require you to vary up your strategy from time to time.  It’s sad that figuring out a very basic pattern, though, will lead you to a quick victory.  It can also be a great exercise in patience leading up learning that pattern, as losing a battle will force you to re-watch and re-play through any cutscenes and dialog.

The game’s presentation is another sore point for X-Men: Destiny.  The game looks only slightly better than a Playstation 2 era game.  This is the least of the game’s worries, though.  It’s not uncommon for the framerate to drop to 10 or 15 frames a second when some of your moves are executed on screen.  This can be a big hassle given that you’re constantly fending off groups of more than 30 enemies at a time.  Cutscenes and dialog are also incredibly frustrating.  The game has no way to skip any cutscene or dialog scene, even if you’ve sat through it half a dozen times from losing boss battles over and over.  It’s also worth noting that the subtitles in the game often show discrepancies with the spoken dialog.

Content

X-Men: Destiny is rated T for Teen by the ESRB for Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence.  Apart from the somewhat revealing outfits of a couple feminine characters, there is really nothing in this game that wouldn’t be in a Saturday morning cartoon, save for the occasional use of profanity, which is common enough in daytime television.  I would be comfortable giving this game to a child, provided you sit down with the child and express your views on the language involved.

Conclusion

Given that the title has a mediocre story, a facade of choice that amounts to nothing more than binary choices, and a whole host of bugs, glitches, and other issues, it’s hard to recommend this title to anyone seriously considering dropping $60.  Factor in that the entire campaign can be consumed start to finish in around 6 hours, I would say that only the only real target audiences are children, who may find the game interested for its bright colors, straightforward combat, and easy-to-follow story, or the hardcore or curious X-Men fan.

Note:  This review was written based on the Xbox 360 version of the game.  The PS3 and Wii versions should, to the best of my knowledge, be comparable.