Review

Of all the trends in gaming at the moment, one of the most annoying is the way publishers seem intent on ruining our trips to the cinema. Release dates for the “game of the film” more often than not seems to fall seven days (or more) before we get our chance to see the film. This last year alone we’ve seen Batman Begins, Star Wars, King Kong and Narnia all fall foul of this quirk. When the filmmakers have gone to great lengths to make sure any major plot developments are kept under wraps this is just plain silly and has to stop.

Which brings me nicely onto X3: The Official Game (the spine of the box tells me it’s actually X-Men: The Official Game but the logo on the title screen seems to display otherwise) once again hitting the shops the week before the film. However, in this case it turns out to be a minor problem as, just like Wolverine’s Revenge was to X2, the events depicted here are a prelude to those in the film. Thankfully this is the only similarity it shares with Wolverine’s Revenge!

Essentially what you get here is three games in one as you flick between three different X-Men from level to level as you play. Playing as Wolverine offers the least surprising element of the game as you fight your way through the levels using your claws and rage attacks. Iceman delivers airborne thrills as you ride a carpet of ice and blast enemies from the sky. By far the most enjoyable levels, however, are the ones where you control Nightcrawler whose teleportation ability allows for some quick movement around the rooms and behind enemies. All the characters have self-healing so there’s no need to scatter health crates around the levels either.

A lot of time and effort has clearly gone into the presentation with some great cut-scenes that look like a living comic book crossed with the films. Unfortunately it seems like the only cast member to provide a voice as well is Patrick Stewart and the actors roped in for the rest of the team sound nothing like you’d expect. Also the in-game characters are superbly animated and resemble their celluloid counterparts.

The levels themselves are all instantly recognisable as locations from the first two films (Liberty Island, Alkali Lake, etc.) but suffer from a lack of variety early on where you trudge down endless, identical corridors fighting endless, identical foes. There’s also a distinct lack of checkpoints so where you die you have to trawl through massive chunks of the level again just to get back to where you were.

If you’re after the definitive X-Men game then you should look elsewhere at Raven’s excellent X-Men Legends titles, but as a companion piece to the film it just about works within the limited range of its grasp, but is let down by repetitive gameplay and a general lack of fun.

About the Review

Platform

Sony Playstation 2

Developer

Z-Axis

Publisher

Activision

Released

19th May 2006