X-Men Destiny Impressions

[Vindel]

This came out today right? Has anyone taken the plunge and purchased or played this? I haven't really seen any reviews or player impressions.

[USMC Kato]

GamingTrends's review is on the front page

[metallicorphan]

wow,that's a lot of cons on the GT review,and some very serious ones as well 

[Vindel]

GamingTrends's review is on the front page

As always great review with insight and good pros and cons, with mostly cons  Thank you for helping say away from this game.

[CeeKay]

I bet rittchard will buy it- he buys anything!

[KC]

Ugh!  I'll check to see if there is a demo, but will likely take a pass on this one. 

[Doopri]

it was a game i was REALLY looking forward to, but as a full fledged rpg.  the more it started to look like an action game the less interested i became - which is a shame because the game i had hoped for in my mind was awesome!  i think i enjoyed this one the first time, when it was called wolverine: origins.  too much stuff coming out for me to jump on board which is a shame as aside from the limited class upgrades (somewhat mitigated by the many classes) i really liked too human.

[rittchard]

I bet rittchard will buy it- he buys anything!

lol I already bought it but didn't see the review yet, argh!

[USMC Kato]

I bet rittchard will buy it- he buys anything!

lol I already bought it but didn't see the review yet, argh!

Ha! I await your expert impressions Ritt!

[Knightshade Dragon]

I was really excited about this game too....it was painful to play as it was to write.  :/ 

[skystride]

Not surprising coming from Silicon Knights I guess.  I wish they would give these licenses to someone like Rocksteady.

[rittchard]

I'm still keeping my hopes up, although some of Ron's cons sounded pretty bad. 

Now I just need to pull myself away from Dominion to try it out

[CeeKay]

Not surprising coming from Silicon Knights I guess.  I wish they would give these licenses to someone like Rocksteady.

or let raven continue X-Men Legends.

[Purge]

I hear Raven is hard at work on X-Men Legends: First Class.

[Doopri]

rittchard if you get around to it mind posting some stuff about exactly how much character customization there is?  do those new genes really feel like new powers and abilities or is it just "fire ball" vs "ice ball" vs "electro ball"

and 5 hours huh?  ouch...

[Roguetad]

The decision to go with generic made up marvel characters didn't seem like a great idea when it was first revealed.  That alone initially turned me off to the game concept.  If the game turned out to be really good, I may have jumped on board.  It doesn't sound like it though.

As one of seemingly only a handful of people that enjoyed Too Human, it's dissapointing to see that studio fall further.  I would have liked a better sequel to Too Human. 

[rittchard]

OK, here's my impressions:

Short Version:  I played approx equal amounts of GoW 3 campaign and X-Men, about an hour-ish each.  Although I realize that GoW 3 is a far better game in pretty much every technical category I could imagine, the one I am more excited to get back to is X-Men.  

Longer Version:   Perspective is a funny thing, it's amazing how easy it is to pick on something when you are in the mindset, and equally amazing how easy it is to forgive things when you are an avid fanboy.  I found that everything negative in Ron's review I could see, but at least in this first hour, I didn't care.  But keep in mind I've been reading X-Men for over 30 years, and I still pick up the newest ones every few weeks.  So I'm connected to these characters and this world in a way I'm not even close to for GoW 3 (never played 1 or 2).  On top of that, I'm a fan of both Milo Ventimiglia (from Heroes) and Jamie Chung (from Samurai Girl, Sucker Punch and misc other roles), so I was excited about the voice acting as well.  I'm actually glad to hear the game is relatively short, because for once I might actually be interested in revisiting with the other 3 leads and making different choices.  I decided to go with the beefy hunk for my first run-through (voiced by Milo); story-wise I'd imagine the third lead might actually be the most interesting (he's aligned with the bad humans at the start).  You can also choose to align with the X-Men or the Brotherhood by taking on different paths in the game, though I have a feeling it won't matter in the long run.

It's interesting that people didn't like the "new mutant" concept, as it was a big draw for me; the only thing better might have been creating someone totally from scratch, but then of course there'd be issues with cutscenes and dialog.  I mentioned this in the other thread, but I actually far prefer this to games where I'm playing, say, Storm, and her powers just don't match up to what I think she should be doing.  I actually get distracted when I start thinking she should be able to do xxx or yyy but she's limited to 4 attacks and spends most of her time in melee.  With this game there isn't this expectation (of exactly how a character's powers should work) to get in the way and that's very refreshing for me.  

On the plus side, though, you still get to interact and fight alongside your favorite heroes, and it's definitely a thrill to be kicking someone's ass while Nightcrawler is bamf-ing back and forth around the corner.  That was one of the most fun things in DC Universe, but here it happens far more often and of course, I am an Marvel/X-Men whore.  Speaking of which, even in this first hour, there's already been a nice variety of characters to bump into (mostly ones fans from the movies are familiar with but also lesser known new faces like Pixie), and of course that's probably the main draw of the game for me.  I also like that they've set it in fairly "modern" X-Men lore, with the X-Men migrated to San Francisco (though of course they are still far behind some big changes that happened in the last year) and Xavier dead.  The human/mutant conflict is at the forefront of the storyline, and that generally makes for some good drama.

Combat is indeed repetitive but playing on Easy mode, it's not so bothersome.  I just continue to kick ass and keep moving through to the next area.  I haven't repeated through anything as of yet so I'm enjoying the cutscenes and story development.

To answer Doopri's question, I probably don't know yet.  At the outset you choose from 3 power sets which I haven't tried yet but seem fairly different.  The one I chose (dark matter) starts you with a short burst that's kind of like Nightcrawler teleportation but smaller range and then a short ranged AoE attack.  The other power sets were a generic energy blast and the third was something about controlling mass, I don't remember.  I apparently haven't gotten far enough or figured out how to unlock more of the individual powers from the tree I picked, but it looked like there were about 20 bubbles in the tree.  On top of that you can pick up specials which give you some other character's boost, like Colossus's strength.  It doesn't make any sense but whatever lol.  I think you can pick 4 of these.

Anyway, I personally had a lot of fun in the first hour.  The graphics are certainly lacking compared to top tier games, and the characters look kind of weird.  It's like they tried too hard to put detail on faces which actually makes people look kind of bizarre.  I can imagine the game getting repetitive but I think played in small chunks it could be a fun distraction for hardcore X-Men fans.  YMMV.

[th'FOOL]

Combat is indeed repetitive but playing on Easy mode, it's not so bothersome.  I just continue to kick ass and keep moving through to the next area.  

See, this screams 'broken' to me.

[rittchard]

Combat is indeed repetitive but playing on Easy mode, it's not so bothersome.  I just continue to kick ass and keep moving through to the next area.  

See, this screams 'broken' to me.

Not sure why - that's how Easy mode is supposed to work, isn't it?  For reference I'd say the combat felt pretty similar to the last Marvel Ultimate Alliance game. 

[th'FOOL]

If you have to crank combat down to easy to make it not so bothersome or repetitive, that is broken

[CeeKay]

You're ruining the integrity of the game!

[rittchard]

If you have to crank combat down to easy to make it not so bothersome or repetitive, that is broken

Ahhh, I see.  I guess I kind of confused the issue, as I'm blending things that Ron had mentioned in his review with my own experience.  I probably should have said, I could see how someone might eventually find it repetitive if the fights lasted a long time, and therefore bothersome.  I didn't crank down difficulty because that happened to me, I just started in easy because I prefer to play games like this feeling like I am extremely kick ass.  It could very well be that normal is more interesting/challenging from a combat standpoint, I don't know, but I'm happy with the combat pacing thus far.  As far as repetitiveness, I don't see it being any worse/different than the similar streams of bad guys you fight in Marvel UA or DC Universe or any action-RPG for that matter. 

@CK... Nice!

[Isgrimnur]

That reminds me. Tiger woods 12 told me I was doing too well and suggested I up the difficulty. Apparently 10 wins on your first year on the tour is not normal.