X-Men Legends… This is the name of the game that has been monopolizing the majority of my gaming time for the last week. While I must admit that I was initially turned off by what seemed to be a confusing interface and a Wolverine that started WITHOUT a healing factor, my cynicism quickly converted into elation when I discovered the greatness of the game’s multiplayer mode.
X-Men Legends seems to have been designed with multiplayer in mind. The experience system, inventory, and stats distribution are all integrated in a way that perfectly suits a large party of players. X-Men Legends supports up to 4 simultaneous players, each of which get to control their own X-Man on the screen. When you may only have 2 or 3 players, the game will automatically have the computer AI control the rest of the characters within the 4 player party. At the same time, the players share XP gains and inventory, which completely circumvents such arguments as: “hey, that was mine” or “stop stealing all the XP!” Such arguments are normally quite common in multiplayer roleplaying games, such as Diablo.
Perhaps the best part of X-Men Legends is the action. Simple but immersive, the fighting system flows wonderfully. Since I play mostly as Cyclops, I love letting loose a multitude of optic blasts at my foes while my friend takes on the front lines with Wolverine. This kind of character integration is absolutely necessary, as the action is very team oriented. Each character specializes in specific things, which makes it necessary to have a diverse and flexible team. In the end, however, the fun all comes down to tearing it up as a 4 man team of X-Men, taking down the Brotherhood, and ripping Sentinels to shreds. It truly is a thing of beauty.
My friends and I have been playing X-Men Legends almost exclusively. In fact, I just got done playing the Xbox version on a REALLY big, flat screen HDTV that one of my luckier friends has. The 720p resolution made this game look absolutely gorgeous! So, if you’re one of the lucky gamers that owns an HDTV and an Xbox, this game is a good chance to take advantage of your hardware.
X-Men Legends has really impressed me. It is perhaps the best X-Men game I’ve played. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the game’s developers, Raven Software. Raven has always been well known for taking a top name license and turning it into a blockbuster video game. If you want an example of their greatness, just look at Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. Raven has done such a great job with X-Men Legends, they even made everyone’s least favorite X-Man, Cyclops, an absolute BLAST to play – no pun intended. However, the most impressive aspect of the game is still the multiplayer. Playing with a few friends truly takes this game from good, to great. So, if a good, cooperative multiplayer game is what you crave, X-Men Legends is, without a doubt, the way to go.
