X-Men The official game is supposed to be a story bridge, joining the events of the films all the way from X-Men, to X2: X-men United and even the new film X-Men 3 the last stand.  It's a bridge filled with pot holes and hazards that make you wonder why you even bothered to go the route in the first place. Following the characters Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler through some 28 missions battling some villains here and there and the organization known as Hydra. I'll refrain from my impressions until I give you fine readers a run down of the features of the game. Then I will state my thoughts and try not to be overly critical. Koff. Koff.

Features include character-specific level geometry specific to certain characters super-powers, voice-overs from select members of the motion picture cast (Which I hate to say is perhaps the best thing about the game.), and an original narrative written by Chris Claremont and Zak Penn.

Credits go to,
. Developer: Z-Axis
. Publisher: Activision Inc.
. Distributor: Ingram Entertainment

At this time the game is available for Xbox, PlayStation2, Game Cube, the PC, and the Xbox 360.  In the graphics department all of the game platform versions look about the same, the Xbox version comes out on top by just a hair. As for the Xbox 360 version, 360 owners are pretty much getting wallet raped here since the 360 versions does not bring much to the table other than what looks like a port from its little brother the Xbox version. So that extra ten to fifteen bucks is just not justified. 360 owners seem to be paying for the pleasure of having the game with the 360 logo on the box only. No extra bells or whistles. While most all of the versions seemed to run pretty well I had the worst time with the PC version. Installing the game went fine but when it came time to play, the game would keep looking for a game controller and I just could not go any further. It is unknown at this time as to if this is isolated or others are having this problem as well. Either way I would strongly suggest a platform version and not the PC version.

X-Men The Official game is yet another no brain movie license romp on the quest for fast cash from the unsuspecting consumer.  While there is plenty of straight forward fight your way through the throngs of enemies, there is nothing here that constitutes more than one play through. Even hard core fans.(I admit I am one) may have a hard time justifying keeping this one on their collection shelf. Although I must further admit that playing NightCrawler and using the teleport ability is a real blast, perhaps a slight shimmer in an other wise lack luster game.

Be afraid be very freaking afraid because the Crap movie license machine has churned out another slap in the face of gaming fans every where.

The hack job shows a rush mentality to cash in on Movie hype and ride the wave of free advertising from the film. The game play missions are so ho hum, they are the run of the mill yawn fest. The levels are character specific, in other words for NightCrawler there are levels with things to climb and jump and dodge and of course teleport which makes it a bit more fun, like mazes of pipes and high platforms. Wolverine gets the least interesting levels with wave on wave of enemies, which has the player deciding on juggling between fighting and healing at the right moments or even Wolverine is overcome and defeated. Iceman has a lot of wide open levels with which he can skate along on an ice bridge created from his own powers and he can also fire ice blasts. Iceman levels do tend to be a bit more interesting since there are a few more pitfalls and dangers to contend with. I think if I had to make a solid choice, NightCrawler and Iceman Missions make the game enough to merit a rental of this game.  The easy to please fans will enjoy the romp with these X-Men, but the harder to please crowd will wish there was something more here. The levels tend to not make any sense in the plot or so called story that's taking place.

Sound and music is passable and pretty darn good at times. Voice over when done by actual cast members is very good, but things get pretty bad when they send in someone else for voice over or sound alikes for the rest of the cast of characters.

Cut scenes are done in some comic book style that just misses the mark entirely. The style is best represented with a perfect bulls eye if you take a look at Ultimate Spiderman.  Ultimate Spiderman is a really good example of cut scenes done very well using a comic book panel effect, living in the comic book so to speak. In the X-Men game it's just a spectacular mess that is just more annoying than anything else. 

The X-Men over all the years have went face to face with incredibly powerful villains and have come out on top so many times. This time the villain came up and blind sided them and caused an almost unbearable defeat for everyone's favorite mutants. Someone in the game industry decided lets make a fast buck, and X-men the Official Game is the victim. The game designers and artists did a great job at doing what they do, the visuals are enough to please and everything put together comes out with a limp after the battle of creativity. But in the end X-Men The Official Game just cannot deliver the juice. I have to pass on this one. Rent it, try it, cry.. move on.

Have fun, play games.
Edwin Millheim