X-Men: The Official Game Hands-On

X-Men: The Official Game is the upcoming title from Activision based on what is rumored to be the last entry in the X-Men movie series, X-Men: The Last Stand. The game is being developed by Northern California-based Z-Axis, and it lets you play as one of three X-Men--Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman--in an adventure positioned to be a bridge between the second movie and the upcoming The Last Stand. We got our first look at the title in February and found it to have some promise. At a recent press event, we finally had the opportunity to try out a work-in-progress version of the game running on the Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and the GameCube.

The games on display at the event offered a total of six playable levels to try. The levels were broken down into two per character. Three of the playable levels amounted to each character's tutorial level from the beginning of the game, and the other three levels offered a taste of the action you can expect from later on in the game.

Wolverine's tutorial consisted of a multipart fight against Sabretooth that went through Liberty Island. You'll start out with some trash-talking and a brief brawl, followed by your nemesis escaping and you giving chase. As you race to try to stop the villain, you'll engage soldiers who'll need to be taken out with some good old-fashioned butt-kicking. The series of encounters acquaints you with Wolverine's combat moves and special mutant abilities to heal himself and fly into a deadly berserker rage. You'll eventually wind up in a final battle with Sabretooth, where you'll need to make use of all the abilities you've been taught.

All of the aforementioned abilities also came into play during the second playable Wolverine level, which involves a fight against Lady Deathstrike (yes, we know she died in X2, but we reckon there's a plot point that explains what's up). The battle is a good deal more challenging than the Sabretooth fight due to Deathstrike's aggressive artificial intelligence, which is great at blocking haphazard attacks. In order to defeat her, you'll have to fight smart and make use of the raging electrical storm going on around you as you fight--it appears Storm is in a bit of mood and you need to help her out.

The next pair of levels we tried was Nightcrawler's, which took place in the Alkali base seen at the end of X2, at the bridge outside of New York. The tutorial eased us into his acrobatic play style as well as his stealth-oriented skills and, of course, his teleportation. The main focus of the level involved us sneaking around the base and taking out guards. Thankfully, in the wake of the events from X2, the base had taken a great deal of damage, which made the areas we navigated a mass of jutting pipes and rubble that were tailor-made for a German acrobat who can teleport. Though sneaking played a large part of the level, we also found several Tomb Raider-esque segments that found our blue hero swinging about and clinging to ledges.

The latter part of the level found us engaging in combat with soldiers, and it posed a different challenge than the melee battling we did with Wolverine. Fortunately, though, Nightcrawler lacks Wolverine's claws, and his teleportation proved to be a handy way to deal with foes, as you'll be able to 'port out of harm's way or surprise your enemies and whale on them until they drop. In between fights we had the chance to test out Nightcrawler's special ability to heal himself by blending into shadows, which has the handy side bonus of making him hard for enemies to spot. The only catch to the ability is that you need to stay rooted to the spot you initiated it in while you heal.

The second Nightcrawler level had us racing around the length of a massive bridge, defusing bombs planted by Multiple Man, or Jamie Madrox to comic fans, who seems pretty intent on blowing it up. You'll have some aid, thanks to Storm, who's floating nearby, but you'll have to take out the bomb-planting mutant and his many multiples. As you defuse bombs within set time limits, other bombs will appear with invariably shorter time constraints. The nice touch to the level is that you can make the most out of Nightcrawler's teleporting by sticking to the top of the bridge rigging to get to the areas noted on your radar. Once you find the spot where the bomb is you'll drop down and kick some butt to get to it and do your defusing.

The final set of levels we tried belonged to Iceman, where we learned to use his abilities around the Statue of Liberty and faced off against Pyro at a nuclear plant. As we noted in our last look, the Iceman levels offer a decidedly different style of gameplay, as you'll be riding his ice slide around levels. The tutorial introduces you to the major mechanics of his powers, including ice blasts, ice shields, lock-on targeting, and controlling the direction of your slide. You'll hone your skills by flinging through rings, extinguishing fires with your ice blasts, and taking out flying foes.

The second Iceman level was actually the one we saw during our initial demo in February, and it has the young X-Man facing off against his former classmate, Pyro, who has opted to go all evil. The level requires you to defend a volatile canister containing nuclear material from Pyro's flame creations. The centerpiece of the level is an enormous flaming serpent that's spitting out fire birds.

Control in the game is responsive and laid out intuitively for all three characters. Though there are some power-specific variances between the schemes for each of the three characters, their layouts are very easy to pick up. The combo system for Wolverine and Nightcrawler is modest but gets the job done. The addition of Nightcrawler's teleporting and Wolverine's rage attacks helps flesh things out and keeps things engaging. Iceman's a tougher sell when it comes to keeping things fresh, but the level was pretty short and action packed, so there wasn't much time to get bored.

The visuals in the game are shaping up nicely across the board. The three main characters are brought to life by detailed character models, with Nightcrawler arguably looking the best of the trio. Wolverine and Iceman feature straightforward designs that are anchored by the black leather X uniform. Nightcrawler, on the other hand, features a more eclectic outfit that's spruced up some by the movement of his prehensile tail. The secondary characters we saw can be broken down into two groups: grunts and mutants. The grunts are the expected fodder types you'll be facing off against by the bucketful and don't necessarily pop off the screen due to modest detail. The mutants, on the other hand, are more-detailed characters who've had more work put into them in order to match their comic and movie counterparts. As a result, Lady Deathstrike and Multiple Man are almost as good looking as the main playable characters.

The game's environments are a varied assortment of locales that mix set pieces from the films with some original locations. What stood out the most was their scale. We were pleased to see how much space we had to run, teleport, and ice-slide around. With the exception of Wolverine's fight with Deathstrike, which was obviously set in a more confined area, the levels we saw were roomy and featured a reasonable amount of detail. In terms of performance, the game ran smoothly on all the platforms we tried it out on. The biggest difference was, of course, the specific platforms. The Xbox 360 version of the game obviously stomped on the current-gen boxes, thanks to crisp visuals and a speedy frame rate. We should note, though, that the game still had a current-gen look to it. The old-school Xbox came in at a close second, with the PlayStation 2 and GameCube vying for the third-place spot due to the usual performance of the platforms.

The audio is a strong collection of voice, effects, and music that aims to be as authentic as possible. Though we couldn't quite make out all the voices we heard, at the very least the principal cast sounded like its movie counterparts. The sound effects, especially those associated with Wolverine's claws and Nightcrawler's teleporting, are true to their movie origins. The ambient noise, like the crackling electrical storm in the Wolverine and Deathstrike fight, does a good job of setting the scene. The music we heard borrows some tracks from the previous films, such as the main theme, and supplements it with original pieces in the same vein.

Based on what we played, X-Men: The Official Game hits most of the right notes for a game starring the mighty mutants. Wolverine's melee-intensive gameplay feels right, and the way his powers are represented meshes well with the action in his levels. The same holds true for Nightcrawler, whose handling almost nails the mutant's unique abilities and fighting techniques. Purists will undoubtedly be a little bummed at some of his fighting moves and the lack of tail usage, but his gameplay works. Iceman is the weakest of the three, and a character whose levels we're not entirely sold on. Though the constant motion in his levels is interesting and the representation of his powers is pretty faithful (with some dramatic license taken for good use), we're still not totally enamored by it. On the whole, though, the game is turning out to be a solid enough experience that should please most comic and movie fans and offer an accessible mutant fix. X-Men: The Official Game is currently slated to ship this May. Look for more on the game in the coming weeks.