Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: X-men Legends ::
by William the Bloody
I have long been a fan of the X-men. Yes sir, my head contains roughly 20 years of X-men continuity (sad or admirable, you decide). I used to play an old arcade X-men video game whenever I could. That game pales in comparison to this PS2 game!
The game back story is your typical X-men fare: anti-mutant hysteria is gripping the nation. Certain government higher ups are doing some secret mutant testing and building mutant hunting/killing machines (yep the Sentinels). The game starts with a cinematic of a newly developed teen mutant, Alison Crestmere, being abducted by the Brotherhood (they ditched the "of Evil Mutants" bit from their name for PR reasons, I presume). Then Wolverine shows up and enter the first level. Like most games today, the first level acts as a sort of introduction to how the controls work, and is pretty darn simple to get through. After you fight Mystique, the first boss, Cyclops shows up, and then things get a little more complicated. You now have to control Wolverine and Cyclops to defeat Blob, the second boss, and get Alison to the X-Jet and safety. After you complete that, all your other away missions involve four X-men under your control, with a good sized list to choose from, which grows as you unlock more characters through gameplay.
The Good: I'm very familiar with the X-men and Legends took playing with them in a game to levels I would have never imagined. As your characters level up, you unlock the potential to use a plethora of abilities. A super bonus for a geek like me was that Colossus, Beast and Rogue all can pick up Wolverine and deliver a trademarked Fastball Special maneuver! The various abilities of this large roster of X-men stays very true to their comic book characteristics. The voice casting is pretty good, though I thought it was a bit funny to get Tony Jay to do the voice of Magneto. The camera angles were very contusive for productive playing, and you can move the camera manually with the right analogue stick if desired, though sometimes this is limited. The flashback levels were excellent, and again tickled my inner geek. The ability to skin my characters is lovely (I opted for a 70's style Phoenix, Cyclops and Wolverine whenever possible over their modernized outfits designed for the game). The layout and design of the X-Mansion and grounds was very well done. The optional map made certain levels easier to navigate, especially the USS Arbiter level. The graphics are pretty darn good, to boot.
The Bad: The Astral Plane levels were very confusing and seemed like rejected Castlevania: Symphony of the Night material. There were a few moments in the voice recordings that sounded of poor quality. I was disappointed that out of all the X-men included in this game, Kitty Pryde was not one of them. A few of the levels feel rather repetitive in both scenery and action (the Morlock tunnels and the HAARP facility especially). I was very irked to learn that this game had Marrow as leader of the Morlocks, particularly when the loading screen for the Morlock levels have three characters who look suspiciously like Callisto, Sunder and Leech, all whom were not included here. Why Marrow? Is she really that much cooler? Come on! What X-fanboy wouldn't be drooling over the prospect to recreate the Storm/Callisto knife fight?? I really didn't care for the parts of the game with the objective of "rescuing" people. That's probably just me on that. The end boss was way over the top. You have to fight a room full of Sentinels, then these quadruped Sentinels, THEN Mastermold shows up, and three other Sentinels. I was exhausted. This game allows for up to four players, but some levels only allow for one, which isn't very nice if your playing with a roomful of friends and you all have to stop and watch one guy for a while. The cinematics are fifty-fifty, graphics wise. Some of them you can tell they poured their hearts into, but the pre-mission briefing ones they hardly tried at all.
Overall, this had to be one of the most fun PS2 games I had played in a while. Unlocking more characters and mutant abilities made for some terrific and exciting play. Learning how to use each character for their special abilities and look after a group was not something I was used to in a game, but once I got the hang of it, I loved it. Definite re-play value.
A
