Dear Journal,

Today I took a trip down a rather serious path of bigotry and hatred towards others, a social commentary on race and the other superficial divisions we as a people create between each other.

Just kidding, I actually just played X-Men: Destiny for about five hours and kind of hated it.

The concept of the game is that you play as one of three original mutants, created just for the game.  At a mutant friendly peace rally a terrorist attack by a group of anti-mutant militants known as The Purifiers draws out your characters (till then) unknown abilities.   In the chaos that follows you help save civilians and unravel a deep conspiracy to ultimately save the city, if not the world.  Along the way you must make choices that will either land you on the side of the X-Men or joining the ranks of The Brotherhood.

Don’t let the game’s concept fool you into thinking it might be good. Outside of the general idea for the game, there isn’t much good to talk about.  Beyond the concept, the best part of the game is undoubtedly the fact that several mutants that haven’t really gotten a lot of screen time outside of the comic book pages actually get some face time for once.  Long time fans will surely enjoy this.  That’s about where the good ends.

X-Men: Destiny is really just a button masher/brawler, but not a very good one.  Combat is largely boring, the graphics look sort of like a pile of crap remade in HD, and the so called “choices” that you make really don’t affect much of anything. The main story is only slightly altered (basically who you see at the end).  It is boring and even feels slightly unfinished.

To be blunt, it doesn’t even seem like they were really trying with Destiny.  Someone basically said, “Hey, we have this very generic, kind of shitty brawler; if we re-skin it with X-Men characters it will sell more!” Thus, we have X-Men: Destiny.  The game is more solidly built than say, Thor, but not nearly as well built as Spider-Man: Edge of Time which still suffered from a lot of issues.  Pretty much everything about X-Men: Destiny screamed unpolished and is a clear sign that Activision was pushing to release the game in time for the holiday rush/to coincide with the release of Edge of Time.

Basically, the game is a blatant money grab and what could have been an awesome concept winds up being bargain bin rubbish at best. A real shame, as the X-Men (as a group) haven’t really had a good showing in video games for quite some time. For now I’m going to just hope that the new Deadpool game offers something much better.

 

Tomorrow I fight Roman legions with an assault rifle in Darkest of Days.

Final Rating: 3/10

CBR Break Down:
Console Played On: Xbox 360
Time to completion: Approximately 5 hours.
Gamer Score Earned: 650/1000
Price Bought at: $20
Current Price: $22.52 (Amazon)
Recommend Purchase Price: Under $10.
Why you should buy it: Great concept, some different X-Men get screen time for a change.
Why you shouldn’t buy it: You’re saving yourself for a good X-Men game.