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| X-Men: Mutant Academy,
PlayStation |
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| Games,
Richard Young,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F3
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For fans of the comic and/or the recent smash movie, pounding the X button on your Playstation pad will have extra significance with Activision's X-Men: Mutant Academy. As far as movie or television related game titles go, one would be hard pushed to find one that wasn’t simply a rather hurried cash in. With perhaps the exception of Goldeneye for the N64 and The Phantom Menace on Playstation, most big movie tie-ins are pants pure and simple. Thankfully X-Men: Mutant Academy stands up reasonably well amongst it’s beat ‘em up shelfmates. It ain’t no Tekken, but it ain’t no turkey.
Boasting slickly animated polygonal characters and huge, over the top super moves, X-Men has enough eye candy to warrant a trip to the eye dentist (?) and at least is faithful to both the movie and comic in many ways. All the major characters are selectable, including Gambit, the only X-man absent from the film, and they all have the usual array of punches, kicks and special moves. An innovative addition to the typical power bar feature is the ability to toggle your built-up energy between different power bars, thus unleashing your choice of super move as and when you see fit. This keeps you on your toes as you find yourself having to keep one eye on the action and one eye on your power bar status. Play through it a few times and you will start to unlock some nice little extras: for example, a collection of FMV cut scenes.
Aside from these features, there is little else that makes this game stand out from the crowd. It is possible to win rounds just by pounding away like a loon, which is a trait of some beat ‘em ups, and can make for an unrewarding experience (especially when you manage to beat your mate who has spent hours studying every special move and combo). The sounds are nothing more than reasonable, and the music is adequate but needs the volume increasing somewhat for it to add excitement to the overall experience. X-Men: Mutant Academy gets its bottom kicked by the big boys of the beat ‘em up camp, i.e. the Tekkens, Street Fighters and the recent and awesome Dead or Alive 2, but if you’re into the X-Men and a beat ‘em up fan, you wont be disappointed.
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