Countdown to MVC3: X-Men (Arcade Game)

X-Men (Arcade)

Before Fighting games became the rage Side scrollers ruled the arcades. In 1992 Marvel chose Konami to produce a game based on their increasingly popular team of Mutants, the X-Men. Yes, yes, Marvel pushed those X-Men in the late 80's and 90's to their extent.

However amongst their numerous video games for the X-Men this one stands out not because it was an arcade game, no, but because it was probably the only game to have 6 simultaneous players in a single cabinet. Previously Marve had partnered with Sega to crate Spider-Man the video game where 4 players could control the heroes at the same time in the same screen. X-Men increased that to 6. There were of course cabinet variations for 2 or 4 players. The one at my local arcade was the 6 player version.

The animation style was colorful and bright, being based of off an unsuccessful pilot in 1989 for an X-Men cartoon which was based on their 1980's general appearances in the comic book.

The Player can control one of 6 X-Men. The mighty leader of the X-Men: Cyclops, The savage Canadian Weapon X: Wolverine, The Russian powerhouse: Colossus, The weather witch: Storm, The agile and teleporting Nightcrawler, and the teenage singer, and light show producing Dazzler... Wait, who? Dazzler? Yes, yes, amongst the mighty X-Men a-list is the marketing ploy gone horribly wrong: Dazzler.

We interrupt this review to shed some light on Dazzler

In the late 1970's a Music Label exec had the bright idea of creating a singer with a comic book persona as a superhero. Think KISS only backwards. (They got a comic book after being a successful band, not the otherway around). The music label approached Marvel to create a female singing hero. So off they went, and as soon as they were ready to launch the comic book, the music label backed out. So now Marvel has a fully developed heroine, with an almost completed comic book ready to debut, what do they do? They run with it. They modified her a bit and launched Dazzler in her own book for while. She joined several Marvel teams, but seemed to stick with the X-Men the most. So for he rest of the 80's and early 90's they tried to market Dazzler as much as possible. Which included a starring role in this X-Men game.

For more on Dazzler, hit up Wikipedia's entry on Dazzler, or Marvel.com's own entry on her.

We now return to our regularly scheduled video game review

After picking a hero the adventure begins. Each hero starts with 3 power pellets which allow them to perform their X ability once per pellet. Cyclops shoots his optic blasts, Wolverine slashes with his claws producing an energy wave, Colossus... well he just seems to expel his energy in the shape of a bubble damaging foes nearby, and momentarily returning to his human form. Not something Colossus has ever done but what are you going to do. Moving on, Night Crawler teleports several times slashing at enemies, Storm lets loose a tornado, and Dazzler produces several light orbs which damage enemies.

With your team assembled you run out to save the world from Magneto and his evil Brotherhood of Mutants. At first you battle Sentinels attacking the city, but eventually Magneto kidnaps Charles Xavier and you are then forced to rescue him.

Mechanics are fairly standard. You can move your character up and down as well as left and right. Controls are simple as well, with 3 buttons, one for attacks, one for jumping and the last one used to perform the X-ability.

Locales are nondescript, including a city street, some sort of manufacturing center, a jungle, and underground cave system and Asteroid M's exterior and interior.

The enemies are varied, featuring sentinels in different colors and increasing resistances as you go along and large rifle totting armored enemies as the basic attackers found everywhere. There are also lizard men and walking mutant flowers in the jungle area. Interiors offer welding machines that attack you with small laser blasts, and some goons grafted to tank treads from the waist down. There's also some mechanical bats and bees tossed in for good measure as well as some mole like creatures that pop up from the ground only down to their waist, and slash at you. .

The White Queen

The White Queen has one of the creepiest laughs in the game, it sounds almost male, and she breaks into it when she's getting up after being blasted with an X-ability

Level bosses offer some of the more recognizable bad guys in the X-Men comic books. The fire manipulating Pyro, the savage beast Wendigo, The immovable Blob, The alluring White Queen a.k.a Emma Frost, the unstoppable Juggernaut, the super advanced sentinel Nimrod, Mystique and the Master of Magnetism himself.

Gameplay is pretty straight forward, though there are some interesting bits here and there. Most noticeable are the crevices or chasms. Most games of this nature have breaks in the floor that force you to jump across. X-Men does this quite differently by adding he chasms at the top or bottom of the screens in certain areas. Get too close and you fall, and loose a life in the progress. It adds some challenge to the game, as you can get distracted when fighting the swarms of sentinels and be pushed into one.

As expected, as you advance through areas you must fight off Bosses before continuing on your way. Every so Often Professor X will chime in with instructions on where to find himself and Magneto.

If you take too long to move forward after clearing an area of enemies the game will drop bombs on your characters pushing them forward and causing damage. If you still won't move it will repeat the dose until you move, or all the characters are dead and the game can return to the demo screen. I guess its a security feature in case anybody leaves the game with credits still in, it will use them up and end the game on its own.

Once you reach the inside of Asteroid M, you'll have to fight all the bosses you had previously defeated in a continuous barrage as you advance through the large hallway. Fortunately they are weakened at this point so its easier to take them down. However if you move too far forward while fighting one of the bosses a second one may join in and then a third one etc. making things quite difficult indeed.

After defeating all the bosses, you reach Professor X and Magneto shows up. You need to battle him. Once defeated you discover it was merely Mystique posing as Magneto. Professor X then points you to the room in front of you and urges you to take down Magneto.

Magneto has several attacks, including his Shield, slash, and a Magnetic Barrage.
If you have power pellets now is the time to use them. Let him feel the full power of the X-Men. Like with other bosses he'll start flashing as you diminish his health, which is your only indication you are actually damaging him, as there is no health bar for him or any of the bosses.

Once he's down, the Game switches to a view from space of Asteroid M exploding and the X-Jet flying off. A small ending tells you Magneto was defeated and Charles Xavier saved, but thew threat is never ending. At the bottom the game makes note that its not over yet. After the credits role, the game starts again with however many lives you had and the character you were controlling. You are in the first area of the game again, and are offered the chance to play it again. Its a never ending game loop as long as you have credits when you defeat Magneto.


Overall the game is a lot of fun, not too long so you can probably finish it in under an hour. Duly recommended. Fortunately unlike some of my previous reviews, this game is readily available thorugh X-Box Live Market Place, and Playstation Network. So go and download it, and enjoy a little while of X-Men adventure.

That's it for now. See you in another review of something in entertainment.