XBox 360 Review: X-MEN: DESTINY

It's never good news when a video game is released without much fanfare, or a particularly strong marketing campaign (same goes for films of course), so I never had any kind of elevated expectations for X-Men: Destiny. In some ways that was a good thing, because it allowed the successful features of the game to really work, but then they were few and far between in a finished product that completely lacks the refined touch of a developer who really cares about what it has released. There is something to be said of the game's plot and premise: it pits one of three brand new mutant characters against a sinister force (presumed to be the work of long-term villain Magneto) which is threatening to destabilize the known world and the peace that has been brokered between mankind and homo superior. The three playable characters, whose mutant powers are revealed just as everything kicks off at a peace rally (when will they learn?!) are Aimi Yoshida, Grant Alexander, and Adrian Luca, whose father is a famous anti-mutant figure. Whichever choice you make, you end up battling a shady anti-mutant organisation who have been rounding up mutants and harvesting their powers for sinister reasons which will all become clearer later on. Who you choose only really affects your interactions with other characters within the story, and overall the base experience of playing as any of the trio is exactly the same. After that initial choice, and the revelation of your mutant powers, you are next charged with selecting one of the three starting abilities - Density Control (heavy hitting), Shadow Matter (speedy), and Energy Projection (equally as it sounds). Again, the choice wont affect the story other than in interactions and dialogue. As I said, the premise is solid, and the story is well conceived, but the game falls down in execution, for an unfortunate lack of polish that makes the better elements fall flat. Destiny feels unfinished, the shell of a good - though not great - game, which is criminally short at five hours of game time, and woefully underdeveloped. Perhaps Silicon Knights were wary of being sucked into another near-decade long development hell, like they were with the ultimately disappointing Too Human, but you have to strike a happy medium, especially when the opposite end of the scale looks so threadbare. The most criminal short-coming is the fact that the thing that the game attempts to trade on most - the element of choice (I was somewhat duped into thinking Destiny would be like Fable only with choices and acquisitions informing my power set development) is completely underdone, so that there isn't much in terms of effect from any of the choices you make. I know this because I have now played the game with every character, and consciously made different choices with the same characters as well - the results, and the missions remain mostly the same, even when you spend most of your time working for the Brotherhood. Instead of being outcast as a baddy, everyone seems to just tolerate you with a mild sense of annoyance that you keep siding with their mortal enemies. The story format comes by way of some very badly repetitive levels, which require attrition and endurance more than actual skill. There is only so much horde style attacking of enemy footsoldiers you can take before it all gets nauseatingly boring. This is helped in no way by an overly simplistic combat set-up that rewards button mashing rather than a more tactical approach, and which ends up feeling extremely limited as well. Throughout the five hours of game time (which took me several days of returning, because I couldn't muster the passion to put it back in my 360 tray), you can't help but feel under-awed. It's just so difficult to care about anything that looks like it was put together with such a lack of love and imagination after the first idea was settled on. There is no art here, no subtletly, and what results is a mindless, button mashing actioner that will leave your memory almost as soon as you've turned it off. Another problem for Destiny is that it is an X-Men game that consciously chooses not to be fully enfranchised. We are presented with a near-future dystopia, after the death of Charles Xavier, with a small selection of playable characters who have been created specifically for the game. So there is no opportunity to play as your favourites - to Snikt your way through Magneto's evil forces as Wolverine, or optically blast away Sentinels as Cyclops - though the favourites do appear around you as interactive characters. While you can admire the intention of offering something entirely new, and exclusive to this game, the poor execution of the game simply means you cast envious eyes around at the superior mutants, and wish you could have just been allowed to play with them instead. At the final summation, X-Men: Destiny is utterly forgettable, the player choice system, poor missions and uninspiring combat mechanics make it a regrettably poor addition to the X-Men franchise, and one with absolutely no legacy, unless you count the potentially destructive effect it might have on Silicon Knights. That's two strikes for the former developer darling, and no-one really wants to see them go, provided they can up their game next time out.

X-Men Destiny is available to buy on XBox 360 and PS3 now.