# X-Men Destiny disappointment



## Arkhandus (Sep 30, 2011)

Ugh, what a ripoff.  I pre-ordered the game and can't believe I paid 60 bucks for this thing.  I finished my first play-through in about 8-10 hours, over the course of Tuesday night and Wednesday night (was busy during the day).  Sure I could replay it on the other two difficulty settings, but there's not much point.

I guess X-Men Legends 2 and Ultimate Marvel spoiled me with their long campaigns and wide variety of characters with cool powers to use.......but X-Men Destiny doesn't even come close.  Even its story and writing are bland and awkward.

Also, the instruction manual is painfully short and not much help; I still have no idea what "XP-Mutator" X-Gene rewards do, for example, even though several Challenges and such grant those instead of regular equippable X-Genes.  I can only assume that they give bonus XP or somesuch thing.

The game starts with a rough, minimal introduction of the game's backdrop (the game's premise/story makes little sense unless you happen to have read some X-Men comics that featured villains like Bastion, and since I haven't read the comics in several years, I only had a vague grasp of the plot).  You choose one of 3 young mutants to play as, each of whom just realizes his or her mutant powers at the start of the game.  The character choice only really affects some dialogue and a bit of the intro as far as I can tell.

The gameplay is extremely linear and simple, though you do have to wander around a little bit to find some of the Challenges (but they tend to have a 2 or 3 minute timer so they're very short and, like the rest of the game, simply involve fighting waves of enemies and sometimes destroying a few shiny objects in the vicinity).

You also choose one of 3 mutant power-trees as the peace rally is attacked; either Energy Projection (blasting), Shadow Matter (agility and brief dark-matter constructs/weapons), or Density Control (super-strength and toughness).  This determines your initial mutant power and what ones you'll gain later on; near the end of every 1-2 Missions you'll receive a new power choice, between 2 different powers within the same power-tree, and near the end of the game you'll receive a specific Ultra power determined by your power-tree.

I started with Energy Control, which provides the Ion Blast starting power.  Despite the description in the game, it's actually just a short-ranged attack, nothing long-ranged about it.  You hurl small energy bolts a pitifully-short distance ahead when attacking with square or triangle (I got the PS3 version).  The heavy-attack button for Ion Blast just makes a small explosion a short distance ahead of you.  The attacks aren't very strong, though, and it takes several shots to defeat even just an average human Purifier, let alone the tougher enemies later in the game.  Ion Blast has some decent short-ranged combos when upgraded by spending XP from defeated enemies/completed challenges/tearing down Purifier propaganda posters, but it's not that great.  The level-2 Ion Blast combo has better range but only releases a narrow beam.

The first new power you'll gain in the Energy Control tree is either Force Field or Meteor Dive, and I went with Force Field which turned out to be a disappointing misnomer; it just creates a stationary Aura that slightly damages foes and slightly heals you before disappearing.  Later power choices I made were Ever Source (Passive effect that absorbs a bit of damage when your M-Power meter is high, and deals minor damage to nearby foes when you attack) and Giga Beam (Focus ability that releases a long-ranged beam that you can turn left or right about 45 degrees, lasts 15+ seconds, hard to aim properly though).  Ever Source was disappointing and I'm not sure it really helped at all, like Force Field (though at least Force Field allowed me to heal a bit over time).  The Ultra Power for Energy Projection is Critical Mass, a mobile area-attack of sorts, but was little help in the last 2 boss fights (you only gain it around the time of the final Mission or shortly before that).

However, the Mutant Powers don't seem to matter very much since you'll more than likely just make regular combo attacks with your basic power (Ion Blast in my case).  Other powers (except Passive ones) drain your M-Power meter and you need to do regular combo attacks to replenish it (or smash blue-jar crates), and the other powers don't seem to be any more effective, even when upgraded (which is more expensive than upgrading your basic power anyway).

You collect X-Genes and Suits throughout the game, which simply give you minor benefits when equipped.  You can have 1 offensive, 1 defensive, and 1 utility X-Gene equipped, and 1 Suit worn.  Using a full set of 4 that belong to the same mutant (like equipping all of Wolverine's stuff) allows you to use the X-Mode for that Suit (through the L-1 button on PS3), which is just a brief boost to your offense, defense, and/or speed depending on the Suit (and it costs 4 or 5 bars from your M-Power meter).  I found Wolverine's Defensive X-Gene to be most useful (since it gives you a slow Healing Factor to recover health, though it takes 2-5 minutes to recover each bar of health).  Suits do nothing but change your appearance unless you have a full matching set equipped.  Some X-Genes do provide a useful side-effect for your attacks, like Northstar's Offensive X-Gene to stun enemies.

However, the X-Genes usually aren't much help and don't really provide much variety to the gameplay.  X-Mode is too brief and costs too much energy to be very helpful (and it takes too long to acquire a full set of X-Genes with a matching Suit).  It seems that my next playthroughs with Shadow Matter and Density Control will likely be as boring and unexciting and uncool as Energy Control was (and Adrian wasn't a very interesting character, nor did it make much sense for him to join either the X-Men or the Brotherhood).  There's no variety in the Missions or Challenges, and the meager nod to platforming games is pathetic.

Beating the game just lets you restart with the same character while retaining the X-Genes and Suits and Mutant Powers and such that you already had, though you can choose different Powers at the 3 measely points where you get a pair of choices (your initial power choice, Energy Control for instance, doesn't change unless you start a whole new campaign with a different save-file).

I miss X-Men Legends 2..........and I'll probably just go back to playing Infamous 1/2 after this.  X-Men Destiny is a disappointing game that's only worth a rental, and I wasted my money buying it.  I don't think I'm gonna bother with pre-orders anymore.


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