X-Men Destiny Reviews

Going by the very first reviews we’ve rounded up for X-Men Destiny the reception for Silicon Knights’ action-RPG Marvel superheroes tie-in is fairly disappointing, with a general lack of polish, a lacking presentation and repetitive, unappealing combat cited as some of the negatives.

Joystiq calls it unfinished and seems to find very few redeeming things going for it, while also noting that there are actually very few consequences for your choices, 1.5/5.

Choosing an evil or good mutant to side with in a scenario occasionally means you’ll get one of two different missions, but since your mission is really just “punch some guys in the face,” even the “good or evil” choice lacks consequence.

You also get “faction” for these choices, but if there’s any effect of that whatsoever, I didn’t notice. Most big conflicts against the Purifiers include good and evil mutants, so the writers didn’t have to create two versions of the scene. In fact, toward the end, you’ll actually just choose a side, thereby nullifying whatever course you’d previously charted.

A lot of the dialogue is repeated regardless of which protagonist you chose, so don’t expect much story fluctuation there either. Then again, at one point, I was prompted to do a ground pound on some weak concrete by Emma Frost, who said “It’s an easy smash through for you!” Maybe we don’t want to stretch this writing team much thinner.

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X-Men Destiny is five hours long because someone wanted a line item in a fall release schedule and didn’t want to wait to finish it. It’s a careless, cynical, opportunistic mess that Silicon Knights and Activision should be ashamed to release. In fact, its concision almost comes back around to being a virtue, because at least you can quickly move onto something more pleasurable, like selling X-Men Destiny to a stupid friend you hate, or burying a beloved family pet.

In years past, Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack has railed against critics writing “previews” that feel more like reviews of what’s still a half-finished product. How ironic that his company and Activision have just forced me to do exactly that.

Games Radar is slightly and just slightly more positive, awarding the title a 5/10.

All of the abilities have direct connections to the game’s combat which, while not entirely complex, gets the job done. It plays like a scaled-back God of War, with combo-based attacks and multiple powers that made us feel extraordinarily powerful. By the end of the campaign we felt right at home fighting beside popular characters from the X-Men comics, which is something that many other games have failed to accomplish.

Power doesn’t mean much if we don’t have anything to do with it, though, and that’s where X-Men: Destiny begins to stumble. With the exception of a few interesting boss battles later in the game, most of the encounters are dull. Gaining a new ability enhances the next few fights, but a majority of the battles take place in sectioned-off arenas and had us fighting the same handful of foes from beginning to end. Even with our power growing and new abilities being learned we still handled combat exactly the same throughout. New mechanics arrive rapidly in the first half of the six-hour campaign, but after that it’s just the same battles over and over again.

Even if encounters had been consistently fun, X-Men: Destiny would still simply feel unfinished. The presentation varies between passable and intolerable. It often looks like an HD remake of a last-gen game some characters, like Cyclops and Magneto look good, with strong character models and impressive voice acting, but others, like Mystique and Emma Frost, look absolutely offensive, with character models that look like they were brought over from a GameCube game. It’s like they had time to go through and finish some of the character models and not others, and it’s quite distracting.

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We’re not too sure that a few months of polish could have turned X-Men: Destiny into a great game, but it definitely would have propelled it from a mediocre game to a good one. Some boss battles are absolutely thrilling, and the plot, while somewhat convoluted, definitely feels like a proper X-Men story, but the dull, monotonous battles and lack of polish hamstring the game. It’s a shame, too, because most of the ingredients are here for a fun experience. The characters are different enough that we would have loved to go back and replay the game, and the combat itself isn’t all that bad. It’s just that all of the good ideas are mixed in with dull ones, and the finished product is half-baked, making this an experience worth skipping for all but the most diehard of X-Men fans.

Atomic Gamer, 4/10.

X-Men Destiny tries to provide a unique look at a universe full of mutants, but it falls flat in many ways and only barely manages to stay afloat otherwise. The new characters are no substitutes for being able to control the “real” thing, and the costumes only make these new mutants wanna-be impostors at best. This game should not have made it past the concept stages, not for a property so well-loved like Marvel, since there’s no execution that could have fixed this, either. Usually this is the point in a review like this where I suggest that serious fans might give X-Men Destiny a shot, and I guess that’s the case here – but I’d recommend you save your money and grab it from Gamefly or Redbox instead of plunking down the full purchase price. Even then, I still recommend that you pass on this game unless you’re just desperate for a new superhero title, and even then you might be better off with Infamous 2, Wolverine, or another run-through of Prototype. Hell, busting out some classic X-Men Arcade on a smartphone or tablet might scratch your mutant-bashing itch better than this game.

GameInformer is the only review that reads as positive, although they too note the game’s problems, 7.00/10.

Add in some middling environment and character visuals on top of the lackluster gameplay, and X-Men Destiny has some big problems. Five years ago, I would have a lot more positive things to share about the game, but action titles have advanced in that time, and Destiny doesn’t keep pace. Even so, as an X-Men fan, I got a kick out of all the character cameos, not to mention the extensive customization features. Take the game at face value as an opportunity to be an overpowered superhero for a few hours and you could enjoy the ride.