No big surprise that X-Men: The Official Game was released in conjunction with the feature film X-Men: The Last Stand. After all, this is how movie tie-ins work. But what is surprising is how different the design is compared to the usual movie-based game we get on our favorite handheld. Did X-Men: The Official Game make a lasting impression, or is this ultimately a forgettable adventure?

X-Men: The Official Game is here courtesy of Activision, and Amaze. The story sits somewhere in between the second and the third feature films with crisscrossing story arcs. This is a nice backdrop to create a game that isn’t necessarily scene specific with any one film.

For anyone who has been playing handheld games long enough, you know that most, and I said most, movie tie-in games are not that well put together. The reason why are as long as the movie’s credits themselves. But mostly the likely culprits are a tight development cycle, and a vast amount of the production costs going straight to the licensing of the franchise on which the game is based.

So what you usually get with a movie tie-in game is a hastily put together, at best average game. X-men: The Official Game is not a generic game where all the developers did was put new bitmap graphics over an existing engine. This game actually uses the touch screen for its main input, not just for mini-games, or level specific puzzles like other DS games have done in the past.

Don’t get too excited yet, the game isn’t all wine and roses, but it is a much better game than I expected. You assume the roles of various characters from the X-men universe. You can play as heroes like Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman. Not to mention you can even inhabit the merciless Magneto.

X-treme Control
As stated earlier, control is handled primarily with the touch screen, with the plus pad handling the movement commands. The shoulder buttons are used to switch between characters during battles. The control method is completely dependant on who your character is. The master of magnetism, Magneto for example, can hurl objects in the playfield when players tap on an object, and then drag it to the specific area on the screen. If you are controlling Wolverine, just tapping on an enemy will send Logan into a rage attacking that particular foe. This is how most of the characters are controlled in X-Men: The Official Game. You can also activate specific powers for each mutant by tapping on the character themselves. For example, Nightcrawler will perform his trademark warp.

As you may have guessed the majority of this game is team based. So you will be switching control of characters depending on the situation in each level. Wolverine is the typical up close fighter, but he has problems dealing with air attacks and projectiles. So you may have to switch to Iceman to use his sub-zero ice blasts to take out certain enemies. But certain enemies have weapons that are resistant to cold attacks, and so on. You get the general idea, and this also explains why each character is so vastly different from each other. Nightcrawler missions are usually solo ramps, heavily stealth based. These seemed to be added to vary the overall experience.

Where the graphics and audio are concerned, the game is a mixed bag. You have the good, crisp visual style, but the actual characters are really small, and lack any real detail. The perspective is from an overhead view, and doesn’t push the Nintendo DS hardware whatsoever. Locals are terribly generic, and overall forgettable. The audio is crisp and effective at times, but a good bulk of the soundtrack becomes repetitive far too quickly.

There used to be a rule of thumb that games that have a few levels, are more difficult than ones that have many levels. For what it is worth, this rule rings true regarding X-Men: The Official Game. The difficulty is almost non-existent, so to make the experience last they included 40 levels spanning the two feature films X-Men: United, and The Last Stand. Plus X-Men: The Official Game contains all new events and enemies exclusive to the game itself.

A Last Stand?
X-Men: The Official Game is bogged down with what seems like endless repetition. At first I was entranced by the game’s design, and its novel approach to control. However, after the first couple of missions what fun I was having quickly felt more like a chore. The lack of depth and the overall design just seemed to fall apart under the weight of multiple plays.

Does X Mark the Spot?
Marvel’s X-Men license has spanned games from the original Nintendo Entertainment System all the way to our current platforms. Titles based on the X-Men franchise have run the gambit (no pun intended), from decent to dreadful. Which ones you prefer depends entirely on what side of the equation you find yourself on. Are you a fan of the X-men, or are you more of a fan of video games? If you count yourself among the latter group, I would say to be prepared for a decent, but ultimately average adventure in X-Men: The Official Game. While X-fans may find more good than bad in X-Men: The Official Game, no one will argue that this game isn’t a must have.

-- Stephen Smith