Quick Look: X-Men - Destiny
The X-Men franchise has managed to be very successful in the comic book medium, has seen a revival in the movie space with the recent First Class and, now, aims for a second chance at taking the world of video games by storm via X-Men: Destiny, from publisher Activision and developer Silicon Knights (of Too Human fame).
This game will not make X-Men lived by players because it lacks a solid concept, engaging gameplay or the polish required.
Players can choose from among a number of unknown characters or create their own hero in order to then tackle the limited challenge of battling a list of standard enemies, with an emphasis on humans and assorted robotic enemies, while meeting quite a few other X-Men who tend to talk a little and then move along on their own pre-determined path.
Playing something like this new X-Men game makes a gamer really appreciate the care that the Sony Santa Monica studios put into the God of War series, to make every encounter interesting and the brawling as smooth and exiting as possible.
In Destiny the characters feel very solid and bulky regardless of how they actually look on screen and everyone seems to be made out of the same maleable plastic, which allows for hits to be absorbed and shrugged off and makes combat pretty ludicrous.
The other big problem with X-Men: Destiny is how it looks on the PlayStation 3 and on the Xbox 360, like a game taken out of 2005 and teleported into the hands of 2011 gamers.
The textures are rather blocky and I have not yet seen a face that looks even vaguely close to the comic book incarnation.
Movements are also either too quick, with characters scaling obstacles like Sonic during his glory days, or too slow, mainly when it comes to changing facing during combat.
Take a look at how X-Men: Destiny plays below:
