Wanna go again, mon ami?
I played through X-Men Destiny this weekend. (I chose Adrian and the Shadow Matter power and played goody-two-shoes for the X-Men faction the whole time). I had seen the negative reviews — Metacritic’s average for the 360 version is an unflattering 48 right now, and I doubt it will go up — and I will neither deny nor try to disprove them. Reviews are opinions based on experience, so there’s no “disproving” them anyway, and at the end of the day, your $60 is still your $60. And while I’m not going to make a habit of defending every game that the critics pan, I noticed a few things in my playthrough that impressed me, and wanted to bring them up for the sake of discussion. To quote another geek franchise, there is good in X-Men Destiny. I have felt it.
You get to be your favorite X-Men character, but better.
As you go through the game, you will collect X-Genes — bits and pieces of the powers of X-Men and Brotherhood characters — which you can upgrade with experience points. You can mix and match X-Genes from different characters at the same time (combining, say, Emma Frost’s psi attacks with Toad’s poison ability) or you can equip all the elements from one hero for a bundled bonus. So if you really like Colossus, you can collect all his bits, put them all on at once, and basically be Colossus — yet you also retain all the powers of your original character. And that original character is one you choose to begin with — one of three people with one of three power sets. So as I went through I never felt like I was trapped into playing Cyclops: The Game, but I had the freedom to play Cyclops: The Game whenever I felt like it. And at the same time, I had some familiarity of gameplay throughout, thanks to my core power set. In a Catch-22 situation where half the fans would say “Why can’t I play this guy” and the other half would say “Why do I have to play this guy,” I thought it was a clever and effective way to add flexibility.
You can shift X-Men powers on the fly.
This means “when you are frustrated by the boss battle, swap around your X-Genes until you find something that works.” This was exactly what I did during my battle with Juggernaut — I kept having my ass handed to me, and on the third go-round, I realized, I don’t have to just hit my head against a brick wall. I switched from Iceman garb to Wolverine elements, adding healing and damage-over-time effects, and that matched my strategy better. Based on what I’d learned the first two times, the battle was over in one, smart shot. That felt awesome, and it’s a feature most games don’t offer for the obvious design challenge it represents. This license and concept had a context for it baked right in, and I’m glad the developers went for the opportunity.
The words that fly across the screen are real.
That is, the titles for characters or challenges are 3D objects in the world, and they can be destroyed. In fact, there’s an Achievement/Trophy for smashing a set number of them. A minor thing, but distinctive and fun. I liked that presentation in Zombieland, and I like it interactively here.
Uh...same caption as the first screenshot, really.
The game does not penalize you for replaying it.
After the credits rolled, I selected “Continue” from the main menu to see what it would do. This is what it said: “Welcome to a new playthrough! For this playthrough, your Faction has been reset but your X-Genes and XP invested have not. Go forth and forge a new mutant!” Thank you — that first go-round should be worth something beyond mere Achievements, and playing round two on a tougher skill level would at least keep things interesting. I know this is not the first game to do this, but since the game was designed to be replayed, I’m certainly glad to see it was implemented.
At the same time, I’m not blind; I saw the issues reviewers saw. But I also saw the aforementioned cool stuff, which made the game more fun for me to play, and I’m only a casual X-Men fan (sorry, Marvel maniacs, I had no idea who Caliban or Pixie were before this game). I just wasn’t prepared for any of the positive stuff that ultimately factored into my core enjoyment with the game. Lots of people were articulate in what they did not like, but I didn’t really expect the parts of this game that were, you know, good.
I think that’s the key word there — “expect.” We all go into games with expectations. But basing my expectations on the reviews, I thought this game would be a nightmare, and it actually turned out to be quite enjoyable. Your mileage may vary — the other issues may still not make it worth your time and attention, but the elements I mentioned above wound up making it worth mine.
