Topic: X-Men Destiny Impressions

[Penguin_Of_Thyme]

X-Men is my density, I mean my destiny. Also, video of the game's first 40 minutes. 

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressions/27952

Other than a multiplayer session or two of X-Men Legends, the last time I played an X-Men game was on the Sega Genesis. On a recent visit to my local Redbox kiosk, I saw that the Wii version of X-Men Destiny was available and decided to give it a spin.

The game starts off with a animated comic-like sequence that set ups the story. A pro-mutant rally is being held in San Francisco. The city wishes to integrate the human and mutant communities. Suddenly, in the middle of the rally an explosion goes off and chaos envelops the area of the city. Te game lets you choose from three new characters to play as, who each develop their mutant powers during the attack. I chose the football player, Grant, whose powers manifested because he was taking mutant-based steroids. The game also lets you choose their mutant ability. I decided to go with the shadow master ability which lets him manipulate a dark matter that surrounds him. For example, when punching, shadowy blades would help him knock out the foes.

The game is controlled using a combination of the Nunchuk and Wii Remote (Classic Controller is not supported). The A button is for your normal attack while the B button lets you jump. For the vast majority of my playtime, I mostly just mashed on the A button to do different combo attacks. Players can earn and use special abilities, but a lot of time they either just enhanced Grant’s main punch attack or were too slow to be effective. The levels I played threw a whole lot of enemies at me and overall will be very familiar to beat ‘em up fans.

To break up the fighting, the game throws in the occasional platforming section. These basically consisted of jumping over to different ledges. Along with the fighting and jumping, the levels also had you meeting up with a number of famous X-Men including Cyclops, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, and Gambit. When encountering the characters you often will talk with them and have the choice of different topics to discuss such as learning more about the current mission. The voice acting is quite good and the story so far has kept my interest.  

Graphically, X-Men Destiny is a mixed bag. Some of the character models are very nice, but the environments certainly look like they are downgraded versions of what is found on PlayStation and Xbox. There were also some major framerate issues especially during battles with multiple enemies. At one point Magneto shows up with rubble flying around him and instead of looking impressive it just looked silly.

One graphical and gameplay highlight was a boss battle with Sublime. I actually first saw this boss fight done on the Xbox 360 version when I was at E3. It was impressive looking then and still looks great on Wii. Sublime is a massive hulk of a humanoid creative who wishes to knock you out. As the fight progress, he actually sucks the energy out of a reactor and grows to a giant size. To defeat him, players must wait until the reactor he stands near temporarily loses its electrification, climb on top of it, and then repeatedly melee attack. It’s a fun fight and was the highlight of my play session (video of the fight exists below).

I honestly wasn’t having much fun with the game until the boss fight with Sublime. I think the boss fight has earned the game one more night of rental, but I don’t know about after that. 

[broodwars]

Well, it looks like we can now collectively stop expecting Silicon Knights to turn out above-average products anymore.  This game has looked mediocre since it was announced, has had almost no advertising that I've seen, and now that reviewers can finally talk about it the impressions are pretty negative on it.  It's a pity, because I've been waiting for a good X-Men game since the first X-Men Legends (which , upon reflection, wasn't that good of a game either), and aspects of this game looked like they could be interesting.

And it's not like we can blame the comic license on this one, not when the Batman: Arkham Asylum series has turned out as well as it has and even Beenox turned out the generally-good Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions last year.

[Mop it up]

I still need to add a game that starts with X to my collection, but I don't think it will be this one.

[broodwars]

I still need to add a game that starts with X to my collection, but I don't think it will be this one.

Just make it Xenoblade Chronicles and be done with it.  Sure, you'll have to import the game, but at least you'll have your "X" game.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Well, it looks like we can now collectively stop expecting Silicon Knights to turn out above-average products anymore.  This game has looked mediocre since it was announced, has had almost no advertising that I've seen, and now that reviewers can finally talk about it the impressions are pretty negative on it.  It's a pity, because I've been waiting for a good X-Men game since the first X-Men Legends (which , upon reflection, wasn't that good of a game either), and aspects of this game looked like they could be interesting.

And it's not like we can blame the comic license on this one, not when the Batman: Arkham Asylum series has turned out as well as it has and even Beenox turned out the generally-good Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions last year.

I think Silicon Knights needs someone to guide them like Nintendo or Konami. They are talented, but they would be best suited as a 2nd or 1st party development house for a company that knows how to bring the best out of them, like Eternal Darkness or Twin Snakes.

[TJ Spyke]

I still need to add a game that starts with X to my collection, but I don't think it will be this one.

Just make it Xenoblade Chronicles and be done with it.  Sure, you'll have to import the game, but at least you'll have your "X" game.

Either that or X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Only 4 Wii games start with X (the fourth was a video game based on The X Factor).

The game has an interesting idea and I was intrigued at first, but the recent gameplay videos killed interest in it for me.

[Mop it up]

I'm still banking on Nintendo releasing XenoBlade in the US, however unlikely it may be. Since I think the Wii U will be launching in November 2012, I would think that Nintendo would want to fill that gap with something. They don't believe that Zelda will be enough to hold over for one year, do they?

...Do they?

[broodwars]

I'm still banking on Nintendo releasing XenoBlade in the US, however unlikely it may be. Since I think the Wii U will be launching in November 2012, I would think that Nintendo would want to fill that gap with something. They don't believe that Zelda will be enough to hold over for one year, do they?

...Do they?

It's NoA.  They're not releasing Virtual Console games on Wii anymore, are barely releasing WiiWare titles, and they're barely releasing Wii retail titles anymore.  What do you think?  Aside from Zelda (and Kirby, I guess), NoA's given up on the Wii.  It's all 3DS now.  I wouldn't bank on them doing anything sensible until the Wii U arrives, and even that's sketchy.  It's not like Nintendo's a stranger to having years with no game releases on a console while its successor is preparing for release.

[Adrock]

To be fair, any company can put out a good game if Nintendo foots the bill and holds their hand through the development process. At that point, they're just soldiers following orders. I don't think that necessarily makes that company talented. I like Denis Dyack's philosophy of video games, but Silicon Knights has yet to develop a game on their own that is amazing. If you look at a game like Too Human, there are a ton of questionable design choices that Miyamoto never would have okayed.

[GoldenPhoenix]

To be fair, any company can put out a good game if Nintendo foots the bill and holds their hand through the development process. At that point, they're just soldiers following orders. I don't think that necessarily makes that company talented. I like Denis Dyack's philosophy of video games, but Silicon Knights has yet to develop a game on their own that is amazing. If you look at a game like Too Human, there are a ton of questionable design choices that Miyamoto never would have okayed.

I have to disagree, I think they are a talented company, at least when it comes to good ideas, it is just that the execution needs some work. They are a company that is far better suited to being a 1st or 2nd party company. They need a filter for their ideas, that is all. No doubt many companies Nintendo has as 1st parties require the same, where they have the talent and the ideas, but need a filter to implement them into a quality product. Dyack needs a Miyamoto to tap him on the shoulder and tell him "no" when something isn't quit coming together. It wasn't just NIntendo or Miyamoto that made Eternal Darkness great, it was also Dyack, the lead designer, and the Silicon Knights team as well.


Eternal Darkness is a game Nintendo would have never dreamed of making without Silicon Knights. There are other games out there with NIntendo's helping hand that turned out to be average at best as well, including Geist. So it is unfair to not give Silicon Knights a sizable chunk of the credit as well.  I think Dyack tends to have Peter molyneux syndrome and tends to take on tasks way too big for him and his team to handle, so the whole product suffers. They need someone to tell him "No" where appropriate.

[Adrock]

Silicon Knights hasn't made a good game on their own. They make average games. Nintendo's input on Eternal Darkness made it a good game. I don't mean to say Silicon Knights is without talent entirely but I hesitate to call the company as a whole talented because despite having some good ideas, they lack the ability to toss out broken ideas or the skill to make them better.

[Luigi Dude]

I'm still banking on Nintendo releasing XenoBlade in the US, however unlikely it may be. Since I think the Wii U will be launching in November 2012, I would think that Nintendo would want to fill that gap with something. They don't believe that Zelda will be enough to hold over for one year, do they?

...Do they?

Actually Xenoblade should have a decent chance of coming to North America now since it's actually been successful in Europe.  People have to remember that NOA will bring over games they think can sell.  Since the American and European markets are very similar in terms of games that are successful to Nintendo, having Xenoblade actually sell well in Europe, especially with a lot of that success coming from good word of mouth, makes it a lot more likely to come over here.

Right now, all the Nintendo games that have come out in Europe but not North America, bombed in Europe.  Xenoblade is now the first Nintendo game to come out in Europe but not North America to actually sell well.  So I wouldn't rule out Xenoblades chances just yet.

Plus in 2012, NOA still has Rhythm Heaven and Mario Party 9 scheduled for release, with Mario Party 9 being a huge title which shows the Wii still has some life left in it next year, so releasing another Wii game like Xenoblade isn't that hard to believe.