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EGM Review: Marvel Heroes

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June 24, 2013

Dr. Doomed from the start

Right next to having superpowers of their own and fighting alongside their favorite characters, the next best thing for most comic-book fans would be actually assuming the role of their most beloved superheroes. Personally, I’d probably like to be one of the X-Men. Wolverine, Iceman, or Colossus, if possible—I’m not picky.

The guys and gals at Gazillion Entertainment zero in on this concept with their free-to-play PC game, Marvel Heroes. Driven by Diablo-style action-RPG mechanics, the game sees players starting off by choosing one of five heroes who most comic fans would consider B-list: Hawkeye, Storm, Scarlet Witch, Daredevil, and the Thing. By beating the game—or spending some cold, hard cash—you can unlock other heroes or purchase a variety of costumes for these characters.

Unfortunately, if you’re like me and get tempted into picking up the ’90s X-Men cartoon version of Cyclops or Wolverine after a few story chapters, you’ll soon realize that the starter characters represent core classes—and no matter what hero you choose, the powersets are basically the same, just with different animations.

Considering the differences between the heroes in the Marvel universe, this was frustrating as a fan. After all, I was willing to shell out the cash—only to find out there’s no need beyond cosmetic preferences. To add insult to injury, each purchased character starts at level 1, so if you want to immediately use them, the game recommends that you start the entire adventure over again, no matter what point you’re currently at.

A couple of saving graces here, however, are the story and comic-book-still cutscenes. Written by Marvel super-scribe Brian Michael Bendis, the tale incorporates some of Marvel’s most famous story arcs from all their major comic lines into one tidy package. The basics, though, boil down to this: Dr. Doom has a Cosmic Cube, and he feels like messing with reality, because that’s what megalomaniacal bad guys do. I’ve also got to compliment the top-notch voice acting in the cutscenes, including instantly recognizable pros like Nolan North as Deadpool, Steve Blum as Wolverine, and Keith David as Nick Fury.

After choosing your characters, it’s time to actually play the game. And by the time I got a third of the way through the campaign, I’d already grown bored. Instead of offering any kind of variety or difficulty, the game simply threw more and more enemies at me—or gave them an insane amount of health—in the hopes of slowing me down. But it’s not like I was actually doing anything. I played as Hawkeye for most of the game after wasting my money, so all I had to do was get a decent distance away, hold the Shift key in order to ground my hero, and then hold another button to attack. Sometimes two. If I played as the Hulk or Thing, the only thing that changed was my distance relative to the target. The enemy spawn times are also horribly balanced, and I’d regularly clear an area of Hand ninjas or HYDRA goons, only to have them reappear nanoseconds later.

One decent aspect of the gameplay, however, comes in the dungeons. If you turn on auto-grouping, you can enter any dungeon without the fear of being completely overwhelmed. Unlike a lot of other MMOs, when you enter a dungeon around the same time as other players, you can be automatically placed on a team with them. Of course, this can lead to the confusing dilemma of having six Hawkeyes on the same team (which happened to me a lot) and getting your particular avatar lost in the chaos, but if you’re a more introverted gamer, you don’t have to worry about pulling up an awkward chat window, begging for assistance, and dealing with complete strangers.

Normally, this is about where I’d wrap up my review, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the most disappointing aspect of my time playing Marvel Heroes: the technical side. I purposely waited as long as I did to put up my review because I was waiting to see how the game performed after some patches. While the game has seen several small patches and one major fix in the two weeks since the game went live, I’m still experiencing many gameplay-balance problems, as well as numerous technical issues.

Every 20 to 30 minutes, my game crashes or freezes for no apparent reason, and while I’ve reported this error on the technical forums, it remains unfixed after performing the recommended actions from the support staff. I’ve made sure my drivers are up to date, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the game launcher, and I’ve even turned down the specs to the lowest possible setting (my PC isn’t the highest-end gaming rig, but it should handle the minimum requirements no problem).

This left the support staff confounded—and me increasingly frustrated. So, I want to warn people before they play Marvel Heroes: In my experience, it just doesn’t work as well as it should. And after perusing the forums, I found that the error I encountered is actually pretty common. Then again, you get what you pay for—and the core of the game is free, after all.

So, if the game works for you perfectly, that’s great, but at the end of the day, fewer crashes still won’t make Marvel Heroes the most worthwhile of experiences unless you fall in love with its price tag.

Developer: Gazillion Entertainment • Publisher: Gazillion Entertainment • ESRB: N/A • Release Date: 06.04.13
4.0
While Marvel Heroes does some nice things, the Marvel license isn’t enough to cover up glaring technical and design flaws. As much as I wanted to like this game, I can’t recommend something that is, at its core, broken. In the end, you get what you pay for (or less, if you actually invested in this).
The Good Story that expertly reimagines some of Marvel’s greatest moments.
The Bad Constant crashing and glitches; uninspired gameplay.
The Ugly Expecting to get something for nothing—and then being surprised when what you get just isn’t that good.
Marvel Heroes is a PC exclusive. 
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Hands-On: Marvel Heroes

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April 7, 2013

Make Mine Marvel

I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t want to be a superhero. Whether it was wielding the Hulk’s impossible strength, firing lasers from my eyes like Cyclops, or cutting things to ribbons with Wolverine’s claws, superpowers have always been at the forefront of my imagination. So, I’ll admit that I relished being able to go hands-on with Gazillion Entertainment’s upcoming free-to-play MMORPG Marvel Heroes.

The story starts off with vintage Marvel bad guy Dr. Doom getting his hands on a Cosmic Cube—and the chaos he intends to bring down upon the citizenry of the world will be significant. Therefore, Marvel’s mightiest heroes from across all major lines must come together to root out Doom and his allies. Being as obsessed with comics as I am, this story may look like it’s been done before—on the surface, anyway. But the game’s writer, Brian Michael Bendis (best known for his long run on The Avengers), is clear that it’s difficult to write for a game like this.

“The challenge was to come up with a story that hits as much architecture and landscape in the Marvel Universe as possible without it feeling too much like a knee-jerk thing,” he says. “What’s interesting about the Marvel Universe is that there are just as many interesting things going on at the street level—let’s say the Daredevil level, the Spider-Man level—as there are at the cosmic level, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Silver Surfer, the Galactus level. The cool thing—and the interesting idea for us—was to actually start the story at the ground level and kind of roll like a snowball downhill. As you discover more and more about the actual story and play through the game, you get to travel up toward the cosmic level of the Marvel universe, all the while not getting newcomers lost or confused. I looked at it like this grand opportunity to create almost like a Marvel event comic unlike anything you’d actually seen in publishing. And at the same time, create like a Marvel lifestyle product, if that makes sense. Then, there are some fans who live and breathe these characters—and are going to live and breathe this game. This is going to be, if done well, the next step of the worldwide community of comic-book fans and Marvel fans and just fans of games. To create something that really lives and breathes like the Marvel Universe for them all to live in is a real treat—and a real challenge.”

If you should live and breathe these characters, as Mr. Bendis so aptly puts it, then you’ll probably be as excited as I was to see what he was talking about. I was fortunate enough to play through three of the story’s dozen chapters; in that time, I went from Mutant Town in New York City to the Kingpin’s penthouse to the Morlock sewers to the Savage Land—hopping through some of Marvel’s most iconic locations in a way that makes sense to the story. I also took on iconic baddies like Sentinels, Mutates, A.I.M., and the Purifiers, not to mention individual supervillains like Green Goblin, Tombstone, Sauron, Bullseye, and Lady Deathstrike.

But including characters that we expect to see in a game like this isn’t going to be enough—the gameplay needs to be there, too. Fortunately, Gazillion president and COO David Brevik has a bit of experience in making games like this really shine (he created Diablo I and II, if you didn’t recognize the name).

Steering away from fully customizable avatars, Marvel Heroes wants to make you feel like those great characters we all grew up loving, so you only play as established characters from the Marvel Universe. If you want to smash with the Hulk, you can do it. If Ms. Marvel is more your thing, then no one will stop you. Or maybe purple really does it for you, so Hawkeye’s your man. If they’re a hero in the Marvel Universe, you can unlock them and play with them at some point. And if you don’t like their standard look, you’ve got a bevy of alternate costumes you can unlock—like, if you’d rather your Captain America have that 1940s helmet instead of his modern mask.

And playing with these characters feels as great as you’d expect. Setting hotkeys for special powers or just left- and right-clicking makes it so you can fire a variety of beams with Cyclops or set the world on fire however you wish with the Human Torch. It couldn’t be easier to start mowing down Mole People or putting the screws to Pyro than that.

As Brevik explains, though, you can’t just go it alone if you really want to get through the story and the inevitable expansions down the road. At times, you’ll have to team up, and Gazillion’s trying some different ways to make some of those feel more spur-of-the-moment than camping out in front of a dungeon entrance looking for help.

“We had an idea about the way that we’d like to get invites going and get people together,” he says. “We have events that are more traditional encounters, making sure that there are opportunities for people to socially get together and group up. You hang out in town, and people are like, ‘I need help with the Kingpin fight!’ or ‘Oh, I’m on that, too,’ and group up and go to this thing together. That’s something we wanted from the very beginning as part of the design. Then, we have optional grouping, which is this loose grouping out in the public combat zones. Green Goblin suddenly pops up, and then everybody can get together dynamically and work together, and everybody gets rewarded. So, there isn’t an official formalization of the grouping there. There’ll be other ways to group and other ways to do things, especially in the endgame, that I think will also play right into the kind of MMO hands that people are used to.”

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the crafting system. Going to certain characters like Forge at the X-Mansion or Hank Pym at Avengers Tower will allow players the chance to upgrade their equipment or add buffs to items like Cyclops’ visor or Deadpool’s katanas. This just gives you an even deeper connection to the experience; it hearkens back to Diablo while still featuring the Marvel flair players expect.

Marvel Heroes is shaping up as one of the more special free-to-play MMO experiences. With the power of the Marvel license, writers like Brian Michael Bendis, and David Brevik’s Diablo background, every Marvelite will likely be shouting “Excelsior!” when this game’s finally open to everyone—hopefully sometime later this year.

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The Pullbox – Issue #6.2

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July 27, 2012

An absolutely massive week made this Pullbox a little harder than normal as it seemed comics were coming from everywhere! Marvel, DC, and a cavalcade of indie stuff was successfully sifted through though and now we have this week’s Pullbox!

IDW – Ghostbusters #11 – The Ghostbusters continue their tour across America, battling pesky poltergeists all over the country, and this time they end up in Roswell, New Mexico on behalf of that state’s governor to take on a whole slew of alien ghosts!

Still probably my favorite monthly book that I’m picking up, Ghostsbusters does a brilliant job of coming up with new and interesting foes for the Ghostbusters to face while maintaining the humor that made the movies such classics. I literally can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud at a comic book before this monthly started almost a year ago. The best part of each book though is they are so easy to just jump right into because if you’re reading this book, you likely already know all the major players and what is going to be involved. I honestly hope writer Erik Burnham can continue the hysterical momentum he has going with this book as I continue to look forward to it each and every month.

DC – Batman: The Dark Knight #11 – Commissioner Gordon has been abducted by the Scarecrow and Batman is hot on his trail after finding traces of a variant to the Scarecrow’s infamous ‘Fear Toxin’. The Dark Knight though stumbles right into a trap laid out by the villain and ends up with a dose of this new toxin himself!

While reading this book, I was a little worried that, like with Mr. Freeze, they might be twisting The Scarecrow’s origin as well, and unfortunately I was right as it seems Jonathan Crane had a father who liked fear more than the boy ever did. At the very least, he is still the villain he always seems to have been, just crazier and with ‘Fear Toxin’ being in the BatComputer database, we at least know Batman should be more than aware of this new look Dr. Crane’s potential. Seeing where this rather generic, at least up to this point, Scarecrow story goes from here though should be interesting as this book tried to pull itself from the doldrums towards the end.

DC – Green Lantern #11 – After saving Sinestro from the Indigo Tribe and reformatting his ring, Hal Jordan wants to start enacting a plan to save the Guardians of the Universe…from themselves. Sinestro though points out that in Jordan’s haste to save him, he let Black Hand escape and in his mind, that is a far greater threat at the moment. So the unlikely duo travel to Sinestro’s secret layer where he hides the Book of Black in the hopes it will give them insight to both their problems.

I admit that I’m starting to tire of the world’s worst buddy movie pairing in Sinestro and Hal Jordan and long for this ‘Third Army’ arc that clearly looms on the horizon. Where exactly the relationship between Hal and Sinestro is heading, I have no idea, but I sure hope it gets there soon as I’m a little sick of it. At the very least, the re-introduction of Black Hand as a villain and his ability to re-animate the dead should prove a worthy adversary for the Green Lanterns for the time being and is the only thing keeping me interested in this book at the moment.

Marvel – Secret Avengers #29 – Max Fury, the evil clone of Nick Fury, has succeeded in putting together a hive of scum and villainy that would make Mos Eisley cower away. With many of the Marvel’s major and B-list villains congregated in one place, the Secret Avengers have their work cut out for them, especially as whatever it is this new Masters of Evil is planning could spell doom for the world as we know it.

It’s nice to see Secret Avengers get away from the AvX event and get back to the story that was being told before all that nonsense started. Unfortunately, it was such a convoluted storyline to begin with that if you’re like me, you can barely remember what happened a few months ago and how everyone is connected. All we really need to know though is the world is in trouble, Ant-Man is a traitor, and Venom and Taskmaster are gearing up for a battle of epic proportions next issue. And honestly, Venom seems to be the only interesting character in this bunch now as Cap and Beast are still dealing with AvX so the more he is featured the better. His little ‘disguise’ was absolutely brilliant as well and made a relatively boring book somewhat interesting as a whole.

Marvel – X-Treme X-Men #1 – After returning home from a parallel dimension where X-Men were sacrificed to keep the planet powered, Cyclops was looking for a way back to help those he left behind. Meanwhile, three alternate universe X-Men in the forms of a youthful Nightcrawler and Emma Frost, and a grizzled Wolverine, serve as leaders for this new world and use the psychic abilities of severed Charles Xavier heads to teleport their world into a new dimension with an uninhabited Earth. Teleporting six billion people between dimensions is a little difficult though and it seems they’ve awaken almost a dozen new threats to the multiverse. Now joined by our Earth’s Dazzler and one of the Xavier heads, this odd grouping of multiverse X-Men must save us all!

If you couldn’t tell from the description, this book is out there. Like way out there. There’s even an octopus Charles Xavier. And some of that deals with the fact this feels very much like Exiles did for some time. I don’t know how long this book will last, as these multiverse adventures start to get a little confusing and drive folks away after a while, but it definitely seems to be a lot more fun and upbeat than any other X-book out there right now, even if with entire universes collapsing in one each other. The weird dynamic between characters is entertaining beyond words and with plenty of action promised for future issues, this is a new monthly that, at least through the first issue, has pleasantly surprised me.

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The Pullbox – Issue #21

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February 14, 2012

DC’s New 52 is really starting to stall and this week wasn’t much better. In fact, there is only one title from DC I felt was worthy to talk about and since there was a very strong Indie push this week, we’re spotlighting two Indies and one DC title. Marvel maintained the course and was solid, but not spectacular in many ways this week. So, without further ado, here is this week’s pullbox!

1) IDW – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #6: A mysterious French parkour ninja is hunted down by the Foot Clan as the Turtles continue to recon this threat. Meanwhile, Baxter Stockman begins to pull out all the stops to help Old Hob catch the Turtles and Splinter and reveals a redesigned blast from the past that should make all TMNT fans jump for joy.

A lot of pieces begin to fall into place for the future of this monthly as the Foot Clan finally reveals itself to the Turtles, Casey Jones and April O’Neil meet for the first time, and Baxter Stockman unveils a new generation of Mousers that look to no longer be the jokes they once were for the Mean, Green, Fighting Machines. If you haven’t been picking up this monthly, now is the perfect time to jump on board because business looks like it is about to pick up.  Kevin Eastman continues to remind us what made the original Turtles great with this series as it balances great humor with superb action on a consistent basis.

2) Comix Tribe – SCAM #1 (of 5): A group of conmen with some extraordinary powers are set up in what was meant to be the heist of their lives. Forced to scatter to the winds after being betrayed by one of their own, they come back together for one more gig in the hopes of sticking it to the man who stuck it to them and still get that legendary heist they were all waiting for.

This comic has everything you want from a first issue and the premise feels like Ocean’s Eleven meets the X-Men as you have a bevy of con-artists with superpowers in Las Vegas. Great art tempered with action, thrills, and a brilliant set-up makes this everything you’d want for $3.99. And amazingly enough, it all comes from one man as Joe Mulvey makes his big debut in comics with a splash. If the rest of this series is anywhere as good as this first issue, Mulvey is going to be a writer/artist to watch in the future in the comics industry for sure.

3) DC – Green Lantern: New Guardians #5: Kyle Rayner and the rest of the lantern color spectrum representatives finally begin to explore the traveling solar system that has revealed itself and are shocked at what they find. Even more surprising though is the reaction the lanterns receive and a new enemy who looks to rise up and make his presence felt by the lantern representatives.

With all the power being wielded between these new lanterns you need a threat that is worthy of them, and a hostile, traveling star system, and its crazy guardian that lives within its sun is a good way to start, so I’m all for a new villain in this case. The big question now though is what will DC actually do with him. This could be when this series really starts to ramp up its action and we finally start to get some answers, but if DC really starts to drag this out, it could get stale fast. One thing is for sure though, this issue is definitely good enough to warrant picking up this month and next month at least to see what happens.

4) Marvel – X-Men Legacy #261: An old foe returns to harass Wolverine and his new school in Westchester as it seems the school has the biggest target in the universe painted on it as they can’t go a week without being threatened with their untimely demise. After harrowing another threat though, Wolverine realizes he may have accidentally shifted that target to Cyclops and Utopia and so now the school has its first official road trip to help out their former teammates.

So as you can tell by the cover, the old foe is of course Exodus and his tremendous psychic abilities always make him an Omega level threat to whomever he should target. The unexpected humor of this issue though was a pleasant surprise as finally after talking Exodus down from his attempted mind wipe of the entire school to force them to unite with Utopia, they then have to follow Exodus as he flies off towards San Francisco to attack Cyclops and his X-Men instead. My only problem with that is that it seems to be bringing the two teams together a bit too soon after they separated so this is a tenuous situation that Marvel needs to handle properly so as not to undo everything that has been done in recent months.

5) Marvel – Astonishing X-Men #46: Cyclops takes on the mantle of leader once again as he and his multi-verse team finally learn that the Savior is his universe’s Charles Xavier. With some interesting drama between Cyclops and the multi-verse Wolverine, all out action then breaks out as they begin their attack on Savior’s tower in the hopes of escaping back to their own realities. 

The action is really the highlight of this issue as it builds to an interesting conclusion as Savior uses the services of Storm and a few other X-Men that he employs in his service to try to hold Cyclops, Wolverine, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat back to continue to power his universe’s bio-force. If you haven’t been reading this comic, now might not be the time to jump in as it’s the middle of a very deep story arc, but this continues a great run that Astonishing X-Men has been on since its inception (minus a random gap between issues about a year ago).

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Pullbox #8 – 10/5/11

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October 14, 2011

With the first month of DC’s universal re-launch behind us, Marvel has decided to start re-launching some more characters of their own in response. Along with Hulk coming out later this month, we see this week the conclusion of the Schism story line in the X-Men to pave way for several new X-Men monthlies featuring two different teams. So, what series are worth continuing in the DC re-launch and what can Marvel do to draw your attention away from it? And there’s a surprisingly good indie that came out this week as well that deserves you attention so without further ado, check out the Pullbox below!

1) Marvel – X-Men: Schism #5 (of 5): As a giant Sentinel came bearing down onto Utopia, Wolverine and Cyclops’ 30-year rivalry has finally come to a head with the two of them duking it out like never before. Meanwhile, while they try to work out their differences with Wolverine stabbing Cyclops several times and Cyclops blasting off Wolverine’s face, it is the young X-Men and Hope’s new recruits who come in and save the day. With a clear moral divide now present on the island, Wolverine decides to leave for good and several various members of the X-Men decide to join him. You need to see this just to see who breaks rank with Cyclops and to set up what looks to be an awesome foreseeable future for the two new X-Men teams. The best part about this mini-series is that it shows everyone how a re-launch should really take place. Marvel has been infamous in the past for screwing them up, but this coupled with the Hulk’s re-launch, both look promising depending on how they come out of the gate with their new respective series. DC has been pretty awful as well including this new universal re-launch. Some characters stayed the same while others were completely re-written or retconned and just had me scratching my head in many cases. It should be interesting to see where the X-Men go from here, but if I were you, start here and get ready for one wild ride.

2) Marvel – Deadpool #44: Moving away from the almost somber tone that the dividing of the X-Men brings, we look to the greatest comic relief character in comics, Deadpool. Still in England, Deadpool is hot on the trail of his would be psychiatrist/stalker when he goes into her apartment and finds a frozen version of…himself. Leaving it for the time being, Deadpool , having grown a small conscience and realizing that it is his fault that his shrink is about to commit murder, for once actually saves someone he dislikes. But in the end, the doc bites the big one and that frozen version of Deadpool? It looks like it’s going to be EVIL DOPPELGANGER time next issue! Yee-haw! Sorry. I, too, begin developing extra voices in my head after reading too much Deadpool. Anyway, Deadpool is always hysterical to read and sees him in the most over-the-top, off-the-wall situations in comics. With everyone else saving the world, Deadpool can barely even save himself most of the time, relying on his healing factor even more than Wolverine does, and it is always entertaining. Again, this issue wraps up a story arc and sets up the next nicely so it would be a solid point to jump in at and the laughs you’ll get from it makes this an easy choice this week.

3) Image – Last of the Greats #1: Earth is under attack and after not heeding the warnings from beings of tremendous power, they must now go to the last one and beg for his help against an invading alien force. Simple in it’s description, but so deep in its writing and art, that this is the most pleasant shock I’ve had in a while from an indie comic. I actually had a chance to speak to the author of this book, Joshua Hale Fialkov and we both agreed that the thing that should first draw people in is the cover, especially this alternate version you see to the left. Beautiful in its simplicity while harking back to a classic in the Watchmen with the smiley face with a drop of blood on it, Last of the Greats could become something that could rival Spawn for Image’s top monthly comic in my opinion because this first issue was just that damn good. It was dark in a way you rarely see in comics and in just the first issue had enough twists and turns that it made your jaw drop and that’s saying something considering these are characters we have no history with. I’m thrilled to hear this is a monthly and that the next three issues are ready for print (again via Fialkov) because I think this is going to be something really special and cannot wait to pick up issue #2.

4) DC – Swamp Thing #2: I admit that my first experiences with Swamp Thing growing up was the movies and later a short-lived cartoon. I never read the comics and so I had a very limited knowledge of the character until later in life and thought that its return at the end of the Brightest Day was one of the worst things DC had done in recent history. But maybe it is that poor rebirth penned by Geoff Johns and my cheesy childhood memories that had limited my expectations for this comic and led to my pleasant surprise that it has been pretty good. We learn more of the history of the Swamp Thing and it almost sounded a bit like the history of Spawn to be honest, but revolving around plant life. Still, Alec Holland having to face this global threat, unknown forces working against him, and the tremendous pressure for him to take back up the mantle of Swamp Thing, makes him a surprisingly deep character only two issues in to this new series. Whether you’re like me and don’t have the history with Swamp Thing or read everything Len Wein and Alan Moore wrote for the character, I think you’d be pleased with how this is going and should definitely pick this up.

5) DC – Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #1 (of 5): With Batman: Arkham City right around the corner and since The Penguin is a main villain in the game, I particularly enjoyed this comic because it gives rare insight into the character of the Penguin himself if you are unfamiliar with Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot’s rough upbringing. The ruthlessness the Penguin portrays as we see his psychological profile through the brilliant art of the book is really something Batman fans old and new will enjoy and it is nice to see this classic villain is another character mainly untouched by DC’s universal re-launch. It’s also a good comic because it is clearly a set-up for a much larger story as no Penguin story would be complete without interference from the Dark Knight. What new scheme is the Penguin working on or what is he covering up that will draw the Caped Crusader’s interest? I think this is an easy pick-up for all the Batman fans out there as true Batman fans know how underrated the Penguin can be at times as a villain and this arc looks like it might help put the Penguin back into the spotlight for a time. Proof positive to never underestimate even the runts in a litter as rotten as that of the Cobblepots.

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EGM Review: X-Men: Destiny

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A new child of the atom

I think it’s every geek’s dream to develop superpowers in some way. And so like moths to flame we are drawn to games where we can not only play as our favorite heroes but can craft our own personal character in the universes we have come to enjoy through various forms of media. So as a diehard X-Men fan, I was particularly stoked about the release of ­­X-Men Destiny.

Based in the X-Men universe, this is an original story line inspired by, but having no direct tie-in to, the ongoing monthly comics from Marvel. You play as one of three new mutants attending a peace rally in San Francisco as the relationship between human and mutant grows more strained by the day. After an apparent attack on the crowd by Magneto causes panic to spread amongst the crowd, your powers manifest as you attempt to defend yourself. As you learn about your newfound abilities, you’ll uncover a conspiracy that will shake the mutant world to its very core, all the while you make and break alliances with both the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The anticipation I had for this game’s release was soon replaced by disappointment. The best way I could describe how X-Men Destiny was that it felt incomplete. The game is riddled with glitches, has an inconsistent checkpoint save system that sometimes places saves right on top of one another or places them at opposite ends of levels and makes you replay the whole thing over if you die, and the plot, quite simply, is just too damn short for a proper X-Men game, no matter how well written it may be. I beat the entire thing, on the hardest difficulty, in less than eight hours.

I was also displeased with the three character stories and power choices we were forced into. Instead of letting the player truly craft a character they could relate to, you are forced into one of three outlandish protagonists and follow their story as it unfolds. Since many action/adventure games actually do this, it’s not the concept that bothers me, its the fact that the game tries to sell itself as an RPG that gives you a lot of choice and this is simply not the case. And to make matters worse, the few choices you are given are so spread out throughout the game that you never reach your full potential until the very final level of the game. And again, this goes back to the length of the game. Just when you seem to start hitting your stride with whatever powers you were pigeonholed into, it ends.

Mind you, there are some positives to X-Men Destiny. The plot, written by X-Men: Legacy writer Mike Carey, is worthy of the X-Men universe and features cameos or the chance to fight alongside many of your favorite characters while taking on classic X-Men threats. Whether you choose to be good and trade quips with Iceman against the Purifiers or be bad and burn stuff to the ground with Pyro in a U-Men bunker, when the game has you working with your favorite characters on the missions, you actually feel, albeit briefly most of the time, like an X-Man.

The audio was also very good as the music helped set a mood worthy of an action game and the voice acting was superb. Nolan North, better known as Deadpool in most other X-Media, came on to do Cyclops and surprised me as the stoic and steadfast leader of the X-Men. Include other voice over royalty like Phil LaMarr as Gambit and Forge, Yuri Lowenthal as Nightcrawler, Jason Marsden as Iceman, Fred Tatasciore as Juggernaut, and Steve Blum returning to reprise Wolverine and the voice over work in this game is as good as any other cast of X-characters represented in animation or other games.

Still, as good as it felt to fight alongside some of my favorite comic book heroes in this game, there are just too many shortcomings to make X-Men Destiny as special as many of the characters it features. My recommendation is that the game is worth a rental, but is only worthy of purchase by the most diehard of X-Men fans who will play through it several times, despite the glitches, and try to collect the several dozen collectibles featured in the game.

SUMMARY: Short, glitch-riddled, and lacking the choices of a true RPG, X-Men Destiny falls short of the high expectations of most X-Men fans and should only be checked out by the most forgiving of souls.

  • THE GOOD: Fighting alongside many of your favorite heroes from the comics
  • THE BAD: A surprising lack of choice given to the player for an RPG
  • THE UGLY: A lack of polish shows up often considering how short the game is

SCORE: 6.0

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Uncanny X-Men #537 Review

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May 25, 2011

Originally Published: May 25, 2011, on Comicvine.com

Kruun’s plans for revenge begin to come to light and he has made sure that most of the X-Men are powerless to stop him. Can Kitty Pryde find a way to warn the others in time or will Kruun’s suicide mission be the end of the X-Men and Utopia?

The Good

It looks like we might finally start to get some resolution to the entire Kitty Pryde intangibility issue and thank goodness because I can’t take it anymore. Along with this, Kruun’s plans are finally fully revealed to us and the action begins to amp as we being moving to a climax and resolution in this story arc that sees the Breakworlders visiting Utopia.

The Bad

I had some problems with a lot of the things that took place in the pages of this comic. The most notable had to be with Wolverine. There is a systematic telling of how Kruun planned for every mutant who could interfere with him…except he conveniently forgot about Wolverine. If there is one mutant on Utopia who you should try to plan for, I think it would be Wolverine.

Not to mention, there is this huge build-up for a fight between Kruun and Wolverine in the next issue, but honestly if that fight lasts more than two or three pages I’ll be disappointed. It’s Wolverine versus a one-armed humanoid alien that he’s already kicked the snot out of before, and that was when the alien had the home turf advantage and both his arms. This issue seemed more like an attempt at just showing how formidable Kruun still is, but in reality he shouldn’t be and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense except as page filler.

The Verdict

If you’ve been reading this Uncanny storyline, then you’re going to want to see where it ends up, but I’m tempted to tell you to pass on this comic due to blatant page filler moments and the unnecessary build up of a character that just doesn’t need all this attention. Not to mention I still can’t stand the intangible Kitty Pryde thing, even if it does look to be coming to a head soon.

Also, if you’re looking to get into Uncanny X-Men, this is definitely not the issue to do so and I would wait until this arc at least finishes up before adding this to my weekly pull box.

2.5/5 Stars

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Astonishing X-Men #37 Review

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May 14, 2011

Originally Published: May 11, 2011, on Comicvine.com

Armor continues to mourn her personal losses while Cyclops, Wolverine, and Emma Frost look for a way to calm down Fin Fang Foom before their recent trip to Japan becomes too much more like a bad Godzilla movie.

The Good

There is a lot of action in this comic as Cyclops, Wolverine, and Emma try desperately to figure out how to take down Fin Fang Foom and figure out why exactly he is attacking Tokyo right then and there.

It was also very good to see some strong, much needed, character development for Armor, which is sprinkled in at solid moments to break up the chaos with the other X-Men. In fact, it was great to see Armor at all as I think this is a character that needs to be more heavily featured in the other X-Men monthlies.

The Bad

The worst part about this comic is trying to remember what happened in the last issue since the release of this has been so sporadic in the past two years. Never have I read a comic that needed its “Previously In” page more than this.

I also don’t like the fact that Mentallo is the bad guy here pulling off this crazy extortion plot against Roxxon. It just doesn’t seem to fit with the threats the X-Men are always facing in their other monthlies and unless he is working for someone bigger and badder behind the scenes, which would be more his M.O., it just doesn’t work for me.

The final part about this comic that irked me the wrong way was how it portrayed Wolverine. Maybe its because he’s in Japan or maybe he can relate to something being mind-controller, but normally he would not show as much concern as he did for something like Fin Fang Foom like he did once he realized someone else was pulling the strings.

The Verdict

There was some solid action going on in this issue along with some much needed character development for Armor, which I really enjoyed. I have a problem though with Mentallo getting this much attention and Wolverine acting out of character a bit.

In the end, if you weren’t picking up Astonishing X-Men before or can’t remember what happened in the last issue because of such a long delay between releases, then you are probably better for it. Unless you’re a diehard fan of this series, you can give it a pass this go around until it starts being released regularly again.

2/5 Stars

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Generation Hope #6 Review

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April 20, 2011

Originally Published: April 20, 2011, on Comicvine.com

While continuing to have her group of Five Lights trained and tested by Doctor Nemesis, Wolverine, and others on Utopia, a new light has been detected by Cerebra in Germany and it is up to Hope and her lights to bring the situation under control.

The Good

The adventures and action derived from discovering new mutants is exciting as each situation is so different from the last one. Now, with a psychic on their hands, Hope and the Lights (they sound like a cheesy 80s band) must put their limited training and teamwork to the test like never before.

Include a whole new team dynamic as Kitty Pryde has taken over as the team liaison for Rogue and not only does Hope have one less ally, she has one less person to rely on incase things awry as Kitty is still stuck in her bubble boy outfit since she can’t unphase yet.

The Bad

The new mutant is an unborn baby. WHAT?! I understand that things are different now and Hope proved this by having her powers manifest as an infant, but for an unborn baby to have the kind of psychic potential it is showing at this stage is unbelievable (even for X-Men standards). And if Hope does bring it under control, will it be left in a weird mental or physical state like Teon’s feral mentality or Kenji’s odd-shape shifting form? Although interesting to consider, with all the threats the X-Men face on a daily basis, having a baby taken to Utopia is the last thing needed right now and could provide for a very weird dynamic in future issues.

The Verdict

Although a weird situation, it is just weird enough to have piqued my curiosity and not turned me off. An unborn psychic mutant is definitely the off the wall kind of adventure we should probably get used to with Generation Hope. This is another well-written comic by Kieron Gillen as you clearly see the dynamic personalities of all the individual members of the team whenever they speak, and it has now been mixed up even more with the straight-laced Kitty Pryde as liaison. This is a comic I look forward to every month and can’t wait for the next issue just to see how Hope will work her way out of every crazy situation thrown into the path of her and her lights.

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Uncanny X-Men #535 Review

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April 14, 2011

Originally Published: April 13, 2011, on Comicvine.com

All seems well at the moment on Utopia until Cyclops gets a message from Abigail Brand, agent of SWORD, that a Breakworld armada flagship has appeared on the edges of the solar system. Considering their previous dealings with the people of Breakworld and that Colossus is technically their Powerlord still, she figured they would be best suited to see exactly what that ship is up to.

The Good

I could read Kieron Gillen written X-Men comics all day. The subtle humor inserted into each scene was a joy to read. Whether it was Namor and Colossus, Doctor Nemesis and Magneto, or Cyclops and Wolverine, the banter back and forth was a thing of beauty.

And since this is the first issue of a new arc, Gillen made sure to make it action heavy in the front in order to use the rest of the comic to build up the plot of why exactly there is a Breakworld ship heading for Earth. Not to mention it is nice to see the Abigail Brand and the Breakworlders come back after a decent length hiatus as this is shaping up to be a pretty interesting story centering on Colossus.

The Bad

Kitty Pryde is still intangible. We get it. Her and Colossus can’t hold each other. Fine. Either fix her already or put her back on the damn giant bullet. I’m tired of every issue of X-Men comics I read that isn’t taking place in an alternate universe having to devote 2-4 pages to “How do we fix Kitty?”

Also, I get that it is his catch phrase, but can we put a hold on the “Imperius Rex” stuff with Namor. It just comes off as cheesy for the king of the seas to have a catch phrase that doesn’t have any meaning. You want him to come off as regal and elite? Get rid of the catch phrase. The Thing and Wolverine have catch phrases. Namor doesn’t need one especially when it wastes several panels per comic usually where we get a close up of his smug face exclaiming it.

The Verdict

This is looking like the launching point for a great story arc revolving around Colossus and it is good to see the Breakworlders returning to the comics. The dialogue is very well written and helps keep the comic light and enjoyable even though here go the X-Men saving the Earth from an unimaginable threat once again.

I wish they would wrap up the entire Kitty Pryde intangibility problem though because it is just becoming redundant at this point. Aside from this, Uncanny X-Men #535 is a great read with a perfect balance of action and plot development. Add in this is the start of a new arc and it is a good time to get back into things if you’ve fallen off the X-wagon recently.

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