X-Men: The Official Game [PS2]

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Making a great X-Men game ought to be easy. All the ingredients are there for you -- iconic characters with awesome superpowers, evil villains, reluctant heroes, giant robots. It's scarcely possible to think of a license that's better suited to video game usage than this. So why is this just another in a long line of disappointing licensed games? Official it might be, but this game will still prove a letdown to X-Men addicts and gamers alike.

What's so bad about it? On its face, it's not too obvious: X-Men is a generic third-person combat game, much like many others. But play it, and you'll soon understand. It's not so much that it's a bad game -- it just doesn't display any kind of spark or inspiration that lifts it above every other movie-licensed cash-in you've played.

The objectives are repetitive: chop through hundreds of identical guards, put out endless identical fires, and activate innumerable anonymous computer panels. The levels are predictable and staid. The plot is dull and inconsequential. This is the video game equivalent of tapioca: bland, flavorless, and in need of a few extra condiments to be edible.

X-Men's story slots in between the second and to-be-released third movies. It's mainly told through cutscenes in between missions, in a series of still or rudimentarily animated hand-drawn scenes. They're not drawn in comic-book style, as might have been an obvious choice, but in a much more realistic fashion that just doesn't work.

The plot's not worth much, either. The X-Men universe is crammed with stimulating material and possibilities for gripping storylines -- which this game completely fails to take advantage of. Maybe the makers were constrained by the need to fit into the movie timeline, but this was the best they could muster?

Although you'll be fighting around and alongside plenty of your favorite X-Men, only three are actually playable: Wolverine, Iceman, and Nightcrawler. To its credit, each one is voiced by their corresponding movie actors and Patrick Steward plays Charles Xavier to great effect, as usual.