Gaming Target - GameCube: X-Men: Next Dimension

Written by Tim McGrew on February 20, 2003

Full Review: BERZERKER BULLCRAP!

There have been a ton of games based on the X-Men License. Up until the 32-bit era, they were mostly side scrolling action games that capitalized on the characters and the franchise in a number of different ways that resulted in surprising outcomes that were both good and bad in their own way. The X-men franchise, and Marvel Comics in general, have branched off into a number of different areas including, but not limited to, the fighting genre. Lately, it is here that they are most known for in the videogame world. With quite a few offerings from the 2D fighting masters at Capcom and some 3D offerings from Paradox Development, the next installment in the franchise's videogame legacy, X-Men: Next Dimension, has finally been released to consumers with, much like its predecessors, surprising results.

The premise of the game revolves around the evil Bastion trying to eradicate mutant kind with his vast army of Sentinels and it's your job, as the X-Men, to stop him. Along the way, several plot twists enable you to play as many of the X-Men's classic enemies including Magneto, Juggernaut and Mystique. The story mode unfolds through 3D rendered cut scenes that happen after every few fights. Also before each fight, players are given the opportunity to choose between several mutants to use for the battle, making the game much more diverse since it doesn't limit you to one single character for the entire game. The developers achieved hat particular aspect nicely since anyone who reads the comics understands that the X-Men are a team and operate as such.

There are several modes of play in the game including Arcade, Practice, Survival, Versus,, Time Attack and of course, the aforementioned Story mode. Practice allows you to experiment with the different moves of each character with unlimited time as well as the different combos which are incredibly easy to pull off. Survival pits you against one enemy after another, but you are only given a single health bar and it's your job to move through as many enemies as you can before you perish. Time Attack is new to the Gamecube version of the game and allows players to move through as many enemies as possible as quickly as possible. Most of these modes are present in just about any other fighting game so the game is rather typical in that sense. The exception is the story mode, which actually has multiple endings depending on your performance in the game.

X-Men: Next Dimension plays similar in some aspects to a 2D fighter where you basically just have to rush in and pummel the other character into the ground before losing. The core of X-Men, gameplay wise, centers on doing hand to hand combos to deal heavy amounts of damage. The combos themselves are very basic requiring just a couple of button taps to pull off. Most of them can be learned after a couple of two round matches with each of the 24 characters.

Much like the Street Fighter Alpha games, players also have the ability to do special moves. These moves typically utilize each mutants power such as Cyclops' optic blasts or Storm's weather altering abilities and each character can do super moves which are basically huge combos chained with an outpour of strength using your special mutant powers. The moves themselves are the most basic forms from the comic book so don't expect anything too creative in that regard. A lot of the moves actually look to be ripped straight from the Capcom X-Men fighting games including Wolverine's Berzerker Barrage attack and Cyclops' mega optic blast. Each super move depends on what particular super energy bars you have filled and each corresponds to a different super move. Filling up your entire meter before using a single one is probably the best bet since the level 4 supers are far more devastating than the level 1 supers. It's an interesting idea, but it's nothing particularly original.

Characters can also perform un-blockable throws which usually just stun the character as opposed to causing significant damage. They're generally good for damaging crouching enemies who love to block often. Players can also perform counter moves much like that of Alpha Counters where the character will grab an incoming physical attack and knock them down with a reverse punch or throw of their own. Each reversal and throw is different for each character and, like the supers, are interesting after the first use, but later lose their luster. Regardless, the counters and throws are two very good attacks that tend to slow the action and shift the outcome of the battle. There's nothing like a good counter that completely messes up your opponent's rhythm.

In addition to all these moves, players can also juggle enemies in the air by vaulting them up with a strong upward hit and then leaping into the air and dealing out a few more hits of damage before they can recover. There is a slow motion effect that takes place when the character jumps into the air so these air combos can become very annoying if you are tagged with them a time or two during a match.

Although it seems like all these options and moves are exciting, in practice, they are actually very clunky and work only in certain instances. The controls themselves play a big part in this since they are unresponsive and slow. The character animations also hamper the experience since they are very awkward from move to move and there are plenty of cases when you'll end up behind your enemy facing the opposite direction taking a big 10-hit combo to the back. There are plenty of balance issues as well that need to be addressed and this is prevalent with certain matches between two skilled players. One person controlling Wolverine and another controlling Juggernaut is probably one of the biggest mismatches in the game since Juggernaut is incredibly powerful, knocking Wolverine to the ground after almost every hit, causing severe damage.

Also, each character that you control just feels unresponsive and slow despite their flexible and speedy nature. Wolverine himself feels much faster than other characters, but since a lot of the moves that you are trying to pull off happen by accident rather then on purpose, there's no satisfaction in destroying your enemy with some massive combo. Part of this falls on the controls and animation, but some of the blame can also fall on the physics engine which seems right with some characters, but far too lenient with others. The Sentinels and Juggernaut for example jump clear to the moon and over just about anything you can throw at them on the ground, but besides that, they can also move very fast and with so much strength behind their attacks, they become the cheapest characters in the game. There's just no excuse for such unbalanced aspects when fighters themselves are built around perfecting such simple principles in their fighting engines.

The look of the game isn't anything to brag about either since the animations are awkward and detract from the backgrounds. Much like DOA3, the fights also take place on large multi tiered arenas, a very good thing when it comes to visual variety. The backgrounds are also slightly interactive since the physics engine was done well enough to take into account what would happen if a character were blasted into a stone wall and how their body would react to the blow. The long falls from certain platforms and the pain from being smashed into certain objects also take off from your energy a bit, so falling into a corner between a couple of walls is definitely not a good idea.

The sound is incredibly bad from start to finish. The music is absolutely horrid despite how quiet it may be, but what are far worse are the sound effects. Each character has different sound effects for their super moves, but each land with the same boring thud as when you punch or kick an enemy. Gambit's staff doesn't have any particular sound when it connects with an enemy and neither does Wolverine's claws when he impales someone. Even the blocks have the same lame thud as the supers, kicks, and punches and it's just surprisingly bad to see something like this done in this day and age when Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS and 5.1 sound are becoming industry standards. One positive note about the audio is the voice of Patrick Stewart who lent his talents to the cast of characters as Professor Xavier, but even that is overshadowed by the rest of the audio package as soon as the pre-rendered cut scenes are done with.