Arcade Classic Returns

If you had the chance to visit an arcade back in the ‘90’s, there is no doubt that you came across X-Men arcade.

This arcade game came out in 1992 and became a favorite of many. Recently this game was ported onto Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. Yet, after all these years is it still as fun as it once was?

I downloaded the game for the Xbox 360, which cost me about $10, which seems to be a fair price.

The game let’s you play as Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler or Dazzler. The goal is to battle through eight levels filled with Magneto’s minions in the hope of saving the world. That’s how deep it gets.

The dialog in the game was the first thing that hit me as being really bad. I don’t really know if I can complain about this to much, because I laughed quite a bit.

The gameplay is really just button mashing. You just continuously beat up enemies until you get to the end of the level. It’s really boring if you’re playing by yourself, but if you have a group of friends over or you jump into an online game it becomes less of a chore.

You can complete the game in under a half hour and if you’re playing on the Xbox you can get most of the achievements in one sitting.

Yet, you are treated to two versions of the game. You get the U.S. version and the Japanese version. They’re basically the same. The Japanese version has some differences, like energy pills and also it feels a lot faster than the U.S. version.

The graphics are very dated, but they’re not terrible. I just wished they made slight improvements, then again look what happened to Turtles in Time. I feel if you mess with a games look to much you loose some of what made it special, some if its magic so to speak.

Another weak point for the game is that it’s just a port. Yes, there is a new menu system, which is good, but everything else is limited. There is nothing so new to the game that you’ll be blown away; you’re basically getting the same exact arcade game from back in the day.

If you’re looking for a side scrolling, beat them up style game that you can play with friends then this is a good option. It’s not perfect, it can be very repetitive, but it still has a charm to it.