X-Men Destiny Previews
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Each of the three characters you can choose from has a unique set of attacks and abilities. There's Grant, a young American with a focus on melee attacks; Aimi, a Japanese teenage girl that specializes in ranged attacks; and finally there's Adrian, a stealth-oriented character that hits hard but takes lots of damage. Each character has his or her own full set of basic and empowered attacks, and as you add various mutants' X-genes to power up these base attacks, they each combine for a distinct final product. If I'm doing my math right, we should have many thousands of combinations of moves and X-genes to play with. We saw a few examples of the effects, and it seems like the game's lasting value might center around just how diverse your arsenal really does become with the outfits and gene additions. Fighting isn't the only thing you'll affect with your choices, however, as you'll also go through a storyline that allows you to decide the fate of mutants on Earth by picking one side or the other. It remains to be seen how different the game winds up being by picking one side over the other, but it's important to point out that this is relatively new no matter what - branching storylines are not something we've seen much of in big-license comic book games.
X-Men Destiny is certainly a departure by Beenox, the developer that has at least partially become the new steward of Marvel games, and they're going to have to deliver a pretty solid set of action-RPG elements to keep players interested as they go. You'll have an indirect, once-removed access to your favorite Marvel characters' powers, or at least as they're channeled through your created characters' standard abilities, but it's important to point out that from we saw during the E3 demo, it just wasn't quite the same as controlling the real character.
ShogunGamer:
One element of X-Men: Destiny that does sound interesting is the ability to enhance your abilities with that of a famous mutant. While gamers will only be able to choose one core ability out of the three that are made available to them at the start of the game, along the journey it's possible to acquire new abilities and then use those in battle if required. The example I was shown in the demo came during a boss battle in which an evil scientist (if you aren't a blue monkey like creature in the X-Men universe then you're immediately an evil scientist) took some mutant juice in the form of Colossus' DNA sample. I guess a normal person injecting themself with a little mutant DNA specifically that of a steel based Russian muscleman isn't that good to do as it resulted in the poor chap becoming a hulking beast whose body was half metal and half flesh. To fight against this abonimation the X-Gen of Quicksilver (added speed) was chosen which resulted in Aimi zipping around the battlefield like she was a marathon runner who had too much Red Bull and a banned substance. On top of having Quicksilver's X-Gene Aimi was also able to don a Quicksilver costume while still retaining a few aspects of her core character design. Being able to don a costume of a classic X-Men character may be cool, but it honestly looked a bit silly and seemed more like pandering fan service than an immediate game mechanic that added some substance to the proceedings.
After selecting Quicksilver's X-Gene and costume, the battle against the faux mega Colossus began and once again everything seemed rather basic. I can understand that at times not every game can include a boss battle we've never seen before and even Infamous 2 fell victim to borrowing elements from its predecessor or staying true to some genre standards. The boss battle featured in X-Men: Destiny had Aimi zipping around the faux Colossus dishing out some normal attacks until it went into mega juiced mode after selecting another mutant DNA sample which resulted in it being triple the size. Once in its biggest form, Aimi had to avoid the attacks that were dished out and then climb a small electrical column to perform a few quick attacks. Rinse wash repeat and you have yourself a big dead boss and a somewhat predictable mission.
Comic Book Resources:
One other side note for X-Men fans -- this is still a game that's meant for you. Despite the fact that you won't be directly playing as your favorite characters, it doesn't mean they aren't here. As we mentioned, Colossus and Gambit make an appearance, and others, both familiar and unique, will stop by as well. These include Wolverine, Surge, Beast, Northstar, Toad and Emma Frost, all of whom appear in the gene selection menu. Can you imagine how amazing Aimi would be with some extra adamantium in her system? Color us intrigued.
With a robust customization system, some solid beat-em-up action and a presentation that's shaping up better than we first expected, "X-Men: Destiny" could be a huge step for Activision's X-franchise. Granted, there wasn't anything wrong with "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," as it was one of the better games the company's released to date. But this is a bold new step, one that could reinvigorate the franchise the same way X-Men First Class is doing for films. And there's nothing wrong with that.
And Games Are Evil:
You will get to meet several franchise characters throughout the game. These include favorites such as Gambit and Wolverine, as well as lesser known characters such as Northstar, who will be making his first video game appearance. The mutants are divided into two factions: The X-men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. Each faction has a different way of dealing with those who threaten mutant kind.
The choices you make will affect which faction you side with, but which powers you gain as well. These important choices are made at various (destiny moments) throughout the game. The example demonstrated in our demo came after a boss fight with a scientist who injected way too many X-genes at once. Afterwords we had a choice to either give the scientist's dangerous new weapon to the Brotherhood of Mutants, or destroy it as the X-men instructed. We figured we might as well use the weapon against our enemies and sided with the Brotherhood.
