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The definitive Possibly the definitive X-Men game to be released to date.

There was a time where you could look at a licensed game, assume the worst, and most likely be right about it. The X-Men license has definitely not been any different from that scenario as there have been plenty of poorly done games using the license. Fortunately, publishers like Activision have taken the time to make sure their licenses are handled properly. Thanks to them and Raven Software, we not only finally have a good X-Men game, but probably the definitive X-Men game to be released to this date. Not since Konami's arcade game has an X-Men game been this good.

X-Men: Legends is an action-RPG with up to a party of four characters at the same time from a total of an eventual fifteen characters to choose from. You will start out with Wolverine, and as you progress through the game, meet new characters that you will be able to select from to be in your party. You can choose your party at the beginning of any mission and at any extraction point laid throughout the levels. These extraction points also serve as a place to save your game, level up in the Danger Room and meet up with Forge to buy new equipment.

For the action element, the gameplay is pretty straight forward. You have two standard attacks, a grapple/throw attack, and up to four different mutant power abilities. Three of those mutant powers will be standard, while the remaining one is your Xtreme Power. These will require the usage of Xtreme tokens which you will collect later on. While each character has their trademark abilities, what it comes down to is that you have two basic type of characters: melee and ranged. It is important that you keep this in mind when you select your party as certain enemies have better defense against certain characters types. In many ways, this at times feels like an overhead version of the arcade game, as it's a cross between a dungeon action RPG and a brawler arcade game.

What probably makes this game so interesting as an action game though is the ability to play up to four players cooperatively. Even better is how seamless they make this experience. At any point in time, people can join or quit as they choose and the game will switch characters from CPU AI automatically. There's no need to quit out and start a multiplayer session. Playing with friends though can be much more difficult however. You really need to work as a team and make sure that health is used efficiently, especially early on when you're extremely limited. If you don't, players can get killed off easily. It may not be recommended for a very casual player to jump in either because of this. But if you work as a team, instead of everyone doing their own thing, there are plenty of times where multiplayer can make the game easier and more fun.

If you run out of health packs, you can cheat your way to get more by hitting up an extraction point and playing an uncompleted Danger Room mission to restock your health packs since all your resources are shared between them. That also means if you use all your health packs up during a Danger Room mission, you'll be out of them in the main game as well. It seems to me that this whole part of the game wasn't thought out well enough or just didn't flesh out right due to time constraints. It seems to be more of an oversight than anything. You can only enter the Danger Room while you're either at the mansion or at an extraction point and it is at the extraction point where you can use your tech bits to revive a fallen member of your team or purchase upgrade equipment. Like the health packs, if you find the right Danger Room mission to keep unfinished, you can rack up as many tech bits as you want.

One improvement to the gameplay should have been the ability to either select a target or say locked onto a particular target. As mentioned before, throughout the game there are enemies who are strong against particular attacks. When there are numerous targets, it's hard to stay fixed on the enemy you were trying to take care of. As a result, you can expect to misfire and waste your mutant powers trying to target the correct guy. Another improvement would have been the ability to block. Enemies around you get to block, but you have no way to defend yourself other than to pull back, or to rely on your Agility attributes.

When it comes to audio, Raven Software has picked some well known voice actors to do voice work throughout the game. Some you will likely know and others you probably have heard their work before in other games or animation. These people include Patrick Stewart, Lou Diamond Philips, Danica McKellar, and Ed Asner. What's a bit disappointing is that the voice acting is a mixed bag in the performance. Some of the voice acting is very well done, such as Professor X, but some of it is anywhere from OK to pretty bad like Alison/Magma. Sound effects wise, everything sounds great, especially the effects of the mutant abilities. Wolverine's claws sound exactly as you would expect, as well as Cyclops optic blast.

Activision and Raven Software have produced what long time X-Men fans have been craving since video games have existed; a well done game based on the X-Men licensed. Like Treyarch's handling of the Spider-Man series, Raven Software has also done justice to Marvel's X-Men universe. Aside from some minor issues, the game overall is extremely fun and also features a great, though challenging, multiplayer mode.