X-Men: The Official Game

 PlayStation 2
User Score
7.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 22 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 22
  3. Negative: 5 out of 22
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  1. hiltong55
    Mar 22, 2017
    3
    You know your playing a bad game when after each mission you find yourself hoping that it is the last (but you know its not because the mission menu tells you exactly how many more you have). That is how I felt for the several weeks and short segments of game play it took to finish this unimaginative bore of a game. The story takes place between the X2 and X3 movies and your mission is toYou know your playing a bad game when after each mission you find yourself hoping that it is the last (but you know its not because the mission menu tells you exactly how many more you have). That is how I felt for the several weeks and short segments of game play it took to finish this unimaginative bore of a game. The story takes place between the X2 and X3 movies and your mission is to stop HYDRA from releasing sentinels that are capable of destroying humanity or something along those lines. The biggest problem with the story is that they try to present in comic book form in conjunction with very dull sounding voice overs. It really did not get me into the story therefor I found myself playing through mission without really knowing or caring why. You get to play with 3 of the X-Men (Wolverine, Ice Man and Nightcrawler) all with individual linear missions. To the games credit all 3 characters mechanics and move sets are fairly accurate and distinct to their respective character but suffer from balancing issues in terms of level of enjoyment. Wolverine is pretty much what you would expect. A lot of button mashing close combat attacks with a rage mode special that makes you heal and attack faster with more power. Other than a fairly challenging final mission his story is not very memorable. Ice Man surfs on Ice to move around and throws Ice Beams as an attack. I found the Ice Man missions to be the most difficult mostly due to frustrating controls and confusing mission objectives. I was happy to be done with him. The one saving grace of the game is the Nightcrawler missions which are made somewhat fun due to his controls and abilities. Nightcrawler's transporting ability allows you to move quickly from enemy to enemy and place to place fairly easily and accurately. You can hop on the backs of enemies and beat them down so quickly that the IA has difficulty responding at times. This makes the Nightcrawler mission fun and have fairly authentic feeling to them but are by far the easiest. The in game music is entirely forgettable.

    There is nothing more to say about this game other than it is a prime example to me of a movie game cash in. The whole game just felt really lazy but not so bad that to the point of unplayable. The few good things I can say about the game is at least a portion of the game was somewhat challenging, but not much and not always for good reasons. The game also answered one of questions I had in the X-Men movie series. What the hell happened to Nightcrawler?    … Expand
  2. G.NeedsaBlog
    May 20, 2006
    4
    GOOD: Successfully gives each character a different style and feel; story cleans up well after movie, and even finds room for a few cameos BAD: Loose, poorly assigned controls; weak level design and cutscenes; dark, washed-out colors dominate; why the hell is that chick still alive? [This is my first time writing on Metacritic, so if it clumps all of my text into one paragraph I will be GOOD: Successfully gives each character a different style and feel; story cleans up well after movie, and even finds room for a few cameos BAD: Loose, poorly assigned controls; weak level design and cutscenes; dark, washed-out colors dominate; why the hell is that chick still alive? [This is my first time writing on Metacritic, so if it clumps all of my text into one paragraph I will be sad.] There are times in this game where Wolverine will be nearly dead, but you do just enough combos to charge up his Fury mode and bounce back from the brink of death. These moments, where you're using every button and power in concert, are the high point of X-Men: TOG and just about any action game. Unfortunately for X-fans and Z-Axis Games, these moments are few and far between in X-Men: The Official Game. The Official Game pits Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman against legions of commandos and Sentinel robots as they follow loose ends from X2: X-Men United. The original story (penned by X-Men writers) is OKAY, I will say it is actually a little thin but FINE for this light an action game. Each character grinds through levels which are custom-tailored to their unique powers: Wolverine cuts enemies at close range until he's mad enough to cut them at double time; Nightcrawler fights melee but negotiates enemies and platforms by teleporting; Iceman races forward on his trademark ice-chute, shooting out hazards and avoiding obstacles. The controls are fair but not completely comfortable. You will need to accelerate and shoot at the same time as Iceman, but the triggers are not on the shoulder buttons so it is difficult to do both at once. Even Nightcrawler's teleporting only seems to respond to half of your button presses, and the auto-aiming feature for all three mutants leads to unwieldy results. The levels have good set-ups but get lost in repetitive, frustrating situations. Even the Iceman stages are weighed down by time limits, proximity bombs and unclear objectives. You will often have to restart a whole stage because you turned a corner into a bomb or didn't attend to an unassuming part of the scenery. Completing a level lets you invest points into improving a character's abilities. I felt that this RPG element added some great playability to the game, I found myself even replaying missions to get more points before tackling harder stages. The system is graceful but maxing out one or two powers will quickly make a character a bit too powerful. The collage-style cutscenes look like they come out of We Heart Katamari. They immediately threw me out of the story and made a joke out of the dramatic moments. (One where Bobby "Iceman" Drake tracks Sentinels, however, is short and priceless.) The cutscenes are colorful (and the characters are painted fine, just creepy in motion), but the game looks a little bland. I wonder if the 360 version looks as clean as the production stills, but everything looked a little grainy on my PS2. Plus the color palettes (especially for the interior tech levels) are too dull for anyone's good. You will rejoice at the odd Iceman or Nightcrawler stage that brings some bold new colors into the mix. Tighter controls would benefit this game greatly, while the levels and storytelling feel rushed to Fox's Memorial Day deadline, but occasionally you will feel those great moments when all guns are blazing, all buttons are on fire and you are whipping some sod in a ski mask. Kudos to Z-Axis for making a game that really feels like you're steering the movie X-Men around, and jeers that they were bound to a release date. I rented this one and was glad I did it; if you want to get your X-Men on a week early too, I might give the game a try. And seriously (SPOILER), why the hell is Yuriko still alive? She should be heavier than Lady Liberty after X2, and missing her organs.… Expand
  3. SlappyR.
    May 24, 2006
    3
    It is bad, really bad, please don
  4. CoreyO.
    May 27, 2006
    3
    I hated this game. You barley got any powers at all. The only good player was Nightcrawler but ever then I thought it was kind of bad. I am an X-men fan, but this game was horrible. Although the movie was great. I would give the movie a 10. Please don't waste your money on this game!

Awards & Rankings

84
#84 Most Discussed PS2 Game of 2006

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
52

Mixed or average reviews - based on 44 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 44
  2. Mixed: 27 out of 44
  3. Negative: 14 out of 44
  1. GamePro
    45
    Thanks to some horribly generic gameplay and uninspired combat, it ends up continuing the disappointing trend of movie license video games.
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  2. PGNx Media
    93
    The three main characters are very detailed and authentic to their film counterparts. Wolverine is bigger than the others; Ice Man retains that young look, while Nightcrawler looks as weird as usual. The animation is solid, as well.
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  3. IGN
    59
    The combat and stage design are substandard in every way, enemy AI is ordinary coin-op fare, and the presentational elements are nowhere near the level we've come to expect from Marvel or Activision.
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