Review X-Men: Destiny (Xbox 360)

X-Men Destiny is developed by Silicon Knights.  The last game that Silicon Knights had developed prior to their newest game, X-Men Destiny was Too Human.  Too Human was dominated with mixed reviews; many saying they didn’t like it due to some faulty gameplay and controls, while some saying they absolutely loved it.  So, X-Men Destiny seemed to give many gamers speculation as to whether or not this game would be worthwhile.

Story

In the start menu, there is a cut scene to give you a backstory to why the story starts the way it does.  It starts off with Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto fighting together against a high tech Sentinel A.I. from the future.  After a long battle Professor X falls to his death, while Magneto finishes the battle against the Sentinel.

The game starts off with a peace rally for uniting mutants and humans around the world in Professor Xavier’s memory.  On the stage, Luis Reyes, (ho is the man in charge of creating the Mutant Response Division, which is essentially a police force to protect mutants and take down dangerous ones) gives a speech about how mutants and humans should befriend one another. Shortly after this heart felt speech, he then goes to unveil a statue in honor of Professor Charles Xavier’s ideals. However, in the midst of unveiling the statue an unknown force attacks the rally, destroying the statue and is right away assumed to be a deed done by Magneto.

From there you get to choose one of three playable mutant characters and three different power options that have been created specifically for this game. After your decision on which of the characters to play, your mutant abilities awaken and start with you saving civilians and fighting against an anti-mutant extremist organization called the Purifiers.

As you play through the game, you’ll bump into well-known X-Men and Brotherhood members such as Cyclops and Magento, along with many others.  While talking to these characters, you get to interact with them to find out more about what is going on throughout the game, or you can just say goodbye and be on your way.  But if you do talk to them, you’re sometimes given options to help the Brotherhood or the X-Men in a mission-style format that typically consists of you fighting a large group of Purifiers while destroying/protecting an objective, which earns you points as to which side your character leans toward in the end; X-Men or Brotherhood.

Gameplay

The main format of this game is considered to be an action role-playing game.  It is seen to be similar to games such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age, where your choices are what dictates your character’s destiny.

Along the way your character gets to collect, what are essentially power-ups, called X-Genes, which gives your character more enhanced abilities in three categories: defensive, offensive, and utility. X-Genes can be mixed and matched with other found/earned X-Genes to give your character that unique style.  Aside from X-Genes, you get to collect yellow orbs from your defeated enemies which are essentially experience points that you can use in the Start Menu to improve your character’s powers and abilities.

According to an official press release “the all-new original video game casts players as new mutant recruits in a rich, branching storyline that features a deep element of choice and gives players ultimate control of their destiny.” It brings me sadness, as that is truly not the case. The choices you make throughout the game really do not affect which side you choose to join.  The only choices that do matter in the game are the character you choose, what power they have, and the very end, which team you ultimately decide to join; X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants.

So, choosing between what missions you want to accept through the game is not going to dictate which team you feel you would rather be a part of in the end. Because doing the missions are essentially a way to gain free experience points to level up your character’s abilities.

Combat

The combat system is very much a button mashing combo style that is very much repetitive and uninspired.  There are no real consequences as to what button combinations you choose; as you play as long as you mash them, you’ll more than likely beat the bad guys.

The style is a third person action role play.  But the difference is that you cannot choose who you’re aiming at, you just kind of have to hope your character is facing the right way to attack.  Otherwise, your attacks will go into a wall.

The Purifiers, one of the main groups of bad guys that are in large quantities are also very much uninspired, like the combat.  They are your very typical thugs that run around with cattle prods, their fists, or once in a while, a gun that they use to try to take you down.

Conclusion

For me, this game is that it was definitely a miss.  The characters, like the Purifiers, are very much unoriginal and lack any sense of uniqueness.  One character is an angsty teen that hates her family for “abandoning” her because she can’t see that they did it to protect her. Another is a very typical jock-like college student who is careless and uninteresting. The third is just as uninspired as the rest, as he was raised to hate mutants, only to discover that he is one himself and has to fight an unforgiving “ghost” of a father.

Even the character models are all the same. Between Iceman, Quicksilver, Pyro and others, there is almost no difference. Emma and Mystique also appear to share the same character model. The combat lacks the ability to focus your powers on whom you’re fighting, and has virtually no qualities about it that are interesting.  And the battles you get in are short, with a cutscene almost every five to ten minutes of gameplay.   The story itself does not really have any variable change in the end as to which side you choose to be on. Finally, there isn’t even an interesting plot line as a whole to keep this game worthwhile for a replay.