Don't play it. 3/10. That was our original review. Despite the fact that it’s to the point, has more thought and creativity in three words than X-Men: The Official Movie Game has in three hours and is infinitely more entertaining than said game, there are word counts to be satisfied. Sigh. So what follows is a slightly more expansive way of saying the same thing.

Deep down, buried somewhere inside your heart of hearts, you must have had a sneaking, gnawing suspicion that this was going to be ever-so-slightly ass (and before you ask, no, ass isn’t normally an adjective but it will be for the purpose of this review). Even the title of the game screams ass. X-Men: The Official Movie Game. If the words ‘Official’ and ‘Movie’ don’t send your Bad Game Detector spinning into overdrive, then it needs replacing. And Christ, if the opening assault of Dreamcast-style graphics, generic gameplay and “press A to attack” training levels don’t warn you of the dangers that lie ahead, then we can only hope that you never cross 2006 FIFA World Cup’s path either.

You won’t be surprised to learn that you play as Wolverine (run around and hit things), Iceman (fly around and hit things) and Nightcrawler (teleport around and hit things). You frequently switch between the characters because the developers probably think this makes things interesting. It doesn’t. Whoever you play as, each level can be completed by holding the analogue stick towards enemies and hammering A until Mission Complete appears. That’s not fun. There are also secret icons to collect to unlock secret things such as extra costumes. That’s not fun either. If developers were forced to follow a rule that stated don’tmake- a-game-that-involves-hittingthe- A-button-1,000-times-per-level, then ‘Official Movie’ games would probably be a thousand times better for it. You know things are bad when you can guess how bad the game is just by flicking through the instruction manual. Videogame law dictates that weak attack plus heavy attack equals unsatisfying combo system and X-Men does nothing to break that trend. As it is, the only thing X-Men breaks is your will to live.

Further complaints – the levels are far too small and unimaginative, often consisting of a series of linked rooms with those Magical Videogame Doors™ that only open when all the enemies in the area are defeated. You’ll have seen cardboard boxes bigger than the levels here, even the ones with tramps living inside. Some levels are no more than four walls, your character and lots of enemies to fight. Hilariously, the developers have still tried to hide the ‘secret’ icons in these levels too by placing them in the corners. Sometimes, they’ll be placed behind plant pots in the room. Those little rascals! You honestly won’t know whether to laugh or cry. If you actually bought the game, probably the latter. Then again, if you bought the game, you thoroughly deserve it. Didn’t you read the first line of this review?

Even more complaints – the cutscenes! Good Lord, the cut-scenes. Cardboard cut-outs of characters sliding around like a cheap puppet show, which are presumably supposed to convey the ‘action’ and ‘emotion’ of X-Men. We’re not sure why this happened rather than proper cut-scenes with proper moving people. It could be a convoluted licensing agreement, it could be because the game was rushed to meet the film’s release, it could be a deliberate artistic decision. Sadly, we’re here to criticise, not sympathise and the cut-scenes look like ass, which is still the most suitable adjective. Admittedly, Lady Deathstrike is quite hot, so that makes some cutscenes worth watching but then again, if you’re that interested, run a Google image search for Kelly Hu instead.

The final insult is the length of the game. Even when playing on Superhero difficulty setting for the achievements, X-Men couldn’t manage to eke out its nonsense for longer than six hours. Six hours! Still, we were quite thankful. Six hours of mindless button-bashing buffoonery is infinitely preferable to 20 hours of mindless button-bashing buffoonery, especially as X-Men is destined to be another title for score whores to top up their GamerPoints bank balance with. So what X-Men boils down to is the same thing we said before the Bad Game Detector, before the cardboard boxes, before the Kelly Hu image search and before the preamble. Don’t play it.

Ryan King