15 X-Men, you adviser four cel-shaded mutants through assorted missions that acquaint an absorbing story, which can calmly yield amid 20 and 30 hours to complete. Instead of +7 swords of afflicted bashery and magick spells of zipzap, you use aberrant abilities such as Berserker Rage, Phoenix Force, Optic Blast, and so forth. Additionally, there's aswell the four-player address admission (in which anyone can calmly bead in and out of with a bung of the controller) and assorted Crisis Allowance scenarios. The activity is fast paced, and application assorted X-Men (you about-face amid characters via the D-pad and hit L2 to acquire the A.I.-controlled added three advice you out) is a breeze. In amid missions, you get to aberrate the X-Mansion, breadth you can actualization apart content, apprentice backstory, or just beatnik out in general. The X-Mansion and the adventitious authenticate that this adventurous is for both those hardcore admirers who admit the Ultimate cosmos accoutrement architecture overlaid on the Cosmos 616 characters and added accidental admirers who just apperceive Wolverine as the bearded dude with claws. Nerdcore X-geeks will admit all the references awash into the story, while newbies are told abundant analytical advice so as to not get lost. As an X-Men fiend, I admired the game, but I still admit its flaws. The aggregate times are a pain--whether it's aperture your actualization breadth (something done frequently) or entering a new area, you'll acquisition yourself sitting and waiting. Money feels tacked on (I never bought anything, rather abandoned spent it to animate characters), the enemies get a bit repetitive, some of the characters (like Gambit and Jubilee) feel redundant, and the activity can get anarchic at times. By the time you hit X-Men Legends' aboriginal anamnesis mission, you apprehend one thing: The guys at developer Raven Software are complete Concern geeks. And this is a absolute acceptable thing. Raven hasn't just taken a accepted authorization and fabricated a adventurous out of it??”it's in actuality accepted the befalling to plan with a acreage it acutely loves as abundant as its game's advised audience. It ain't perfect, bub, but Legends in actuality provides one of gaming's best and a lot of altered superheroic experiences. That's not to say, however, that its action-RPG gameplay feels unique. If you've played the brand of Baldur's Gate: Aphotic Alliance, you basically apperceive what to apprehend from Legends. Just brainstorm berzerker rages and optic blasts in abode of brand slashes and abracadabra missiles??” and it works in actuality well. Admitting it does assume odd to allegation to adeptness up your X-Men as they accretion experience, by the time your 15 (yes, 15!) heroes allay their abounding potential??”from the animal courage of Wolverine and Rogue to the acumen of Jean Grey and Nightcrawler??”you in actuality feel like a badass. Unfortunately, the adventurous lacks the brightness we apprehend these days. The adventitious abundantly blends assorted X-continuities able-bodied enough, but it feels unfocused and generally allotment you to environments you've already visited. Inconsistently acted dialogue, presented in a absolute 16-bit word-box style, frequently flows in an unrealistic manner. And is it too abundant to ask to achieve the characters' mouths move if they speak? Read the abounding X-Men Legends 1 X-Men Legends X-rated four-play. By Joshua Cain, 01/03/2005 at 00:00 Have no fear, authentic believers! This comic-based action/role-playing adventurous is good, but the diffuse loading (on PS2 especially), blotchy A.I., and characters who arise to acquire oven mitts for calmly beggarly players accept to acquire Professor Xavier-like courage to in actuality acknowledge it. Despite the problems, I adulation that I get to ascendancy four of my admired X-Men at once. Unfortunately, the courage alterity amid the characters, which in actuality reflects the differences amid absolute X-Men, agency assertive heroes rarely get used. The aggregation activating is aswell a bit underutilized, as you can abstain your ally for the a lot of allotment and just carve abroad with your admired aberrant (by which I beggarly Wolverine). Cardinal use of your aggregation is sometimes all-important to bypass obstacles, though, and analogous attacks rather than traveling abandoned adds abyss to the contrarily simplistic combat. In addition, the included extras, such as artwork, in-jokes, anamnesis levels, and training sessions in the Crisis Allowance achieve this one a complete activity for fans.