daytrum - playstation game reviews

Publisher: Activision, www.activision.com

Ages: eight and up.

Parental Advisory: Violent fight action

Super heroes, such as the X-Men, are a natural for video games. And while past X-Men games haven't always been top flight titles, Activision's latest X-Men: Next Dimension is generally good. While the title fails to stand above the sea of fighting games on the market, fans of the X-Men should find lots to like.

In X-Men: Next Dimension, you become one of 20 popular X-Men and engage in various battles against sentinels in multi-tiered levels. The game offers an entertaining mix of attacks, combos, eight-way movement, aerial combat, and various gameplay modes: versus, which lets you fight one-on-one; arcade, which lets you battle in three-round matches; survival, to see how long you can survive against fighter after fighter; and practice. The game also serves four secret characters.

The single-play story mode sets up a series of one-on-one confrontations. Here, Bastion, the leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance and his Prime Sentinels kidnap Forge and try to use his powers to create a weapon that will destroy the X-Men. To save Forge, the X-Men do the unthinkable and team up with Magneto, their nemesis, and his Brotherhood of Mutants.

The controls are intuitive to anyone who plays fight games and make it easy to execute combos. However, response is sometimes inconsistent-lagging or reacting too fast. The game also depicts a meter for re-charging a character's super moves.

Graphically, X-Men Next Dimension portrays its characters in first rate 3D renditions that offer lots of detail, and the arenas look equally great and serve fun, breakable objects. Of course, violent, comic-book action is the name of this X-Men game.

In the end, what makes X-Men: Next Dimension standout is its use of the famous Marvel characters. Otherwise, it would simply be another, run-of-the-mill fight game. But for X-Men fans, the title can be marvelous fun.

1/8/2003 www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff