Surprisingly, the somewhat shallow fighter had captured the hearts of many a PSX gamer and sold more copies than ever thought possible. Beloved perhaps because of the comic book series' incredible popularity, Mutant Academy and its sequel Mutant Academy 2 were bona fide success stories. It was only a matter of time before we saw the series make a splash on next-generation consoles, and that time is now.
Entitled X-Men: Next Dimension and developed by Paradox (the same team that handled the first two Activision fighters), the first GameCube version of mutant combat is surprisingly "okay." And while it won't win any awards for fighting game of the year, it does offer enough by way of fan service and flashy combo depth to satisfy at least the faithful comic book readers and the not-so picky fighting game casuals.
Features
A little beefy when compared to most American-bred fighting games, X-Men: Next Dimension has a surprisingly deep list of extras and game options. From Story Mode to Practice, there's plenty to sharpen your teeth here. Far too many times in the past have we sat down to play a genre piece that was programmed on the Western side of the Pacific, only to frown at how few opportunities were available beyond the main quest. Kudos to the teams at Activision and Paradox for taking some initiative in that regard.
Comic book fans will be happy to know that the story mode is quite plausible and offers up the return of Bastion. Bent on destroying all mutants and once again in possession of the Prime Sentinels, his latest plan is very devious. Kidnapping Forge (a mutant who can create any technology he imagines), Bastion uses his prize on two fronts: to construct a weapon for destroying his mutant enemies and to lure them out of hiding to make it easier. With the outcome of their fate in a delicate situation, Charles Xavier has no choice but to ally his X-Men with Magento's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
As each chapter of the story progresses, players will have the opportunity to choose one of several good and evil mutants to control in that particular arc. And while it's a pretty cool idea in theory, it would have been a better idea to let you choose your combatant before each fight. As the selection process stands now, you can choose one alter ego for one leg of the story, and end up having to use them for the next four or five battles instead of one or two. A better solution may have been to force the player to fight as one character in particular each fight. That way you could conceivably use everyone on your way to the final confrontation, and still avoid the monotony of using the same character over and over again. It may be a hard thing to balance, but it's an important aspect of the story that shouldn't have been so easily forgotten.
Arcade Mode plays out just as it sounds, with 10 consecutive battles against random opponents determining your mettle, while Versus Mode weighs in as your typical two-player function. Identical to just about every other fighting game, those two options are exactly as they should be and don't need any further description beyond the obvious. If you're like 99% of all fighting game fans out there however, versus is where you'll spend the majority of your time.
Rounding out your choices are Survival, Practice, and Assets. Survival pits you against an unending wave of foes to see how many consecutive matches you can win with only a single health bar, and Practice lets you try out your favorite combos and techniques until you've mastered them perfectly. Finally, Assets are located within the game's option menu and lets you view any CGI movie you may have unlocked throughout your adventure. As well as checking in on the hidden characters you've found, additional costumes, and various other goodies that perfectionists can hunt for. On the whole, it's a solid list and, much like Tekken 4, you can record your practice sessions for playback to wow your friends and remind yourself of past accomplishments.
Thankfully, A healthy options menu isn't the only positive that Next Dimension has going for it. The character and arena lists are bountiful and easily eclipse just about every X-Men fighting game before it. Boasting 24 easily recognizable fighters with four costumes each (including current variations, Xtreme X-Men garb, threads from the animated series, and original togs created specifically for the game) and almost 20 unique stages (with multiple floors and planes) including Asteroid M, The Savage Lands, X-Mansion, and Danger Room, Next Dimension is definitely not playing around, and its dedication to X-Men fans really shows.
Gameplay
At first, Next Dimension's fighting engine seemed to allow for far too many multi-hit combos with too little an effort. But the more we tested it out, however, and the more we began to realize the game's complexity, we started to understand where the game developers were coming from. The 15-25 hits landed during a super move were all fine and good, but it was mostly for show -- good players wouldn't settle for a flashy dial-a-combo, good players would build their own and string them together for nasty results.
Unfortunately, it took a couple of hours of button pounding to realize this, which is where this game will lose most of its replay value with the hardcore fighting crowd. After the first day or two has been spent figuring out what Next Dimension has to offer, the religious fighters out there will likely move on to some of their old favorites instead. Fluff compared to titles like Tekken 4, Dead or Alive 3, or Virtua Fighter 4, X-Men is better suited to the casual fighting fan and their tastes anyway. It's not meant to appeal to guys who can do 10-strings and counter-reversals in their sleep, never was.
That's not to say that Next Dimension doesn't have a level of difficulty or complexity to challenge gamers with. Combining Super Meters and aerial combos that borrow heavily from Capcom fighters within a 3D world, X-Men has a great deal of strategy to it in the late going. Throw in the capability of flight for certain characters, interactive objects, tech rolls, counters, and recovery attacks, and you have yourself a deeper experience than many will be willing to give it credit for. The problem with utilizing a lot of these features to its fullest however, lay in two key areas; the controller configuration and the god-like artificial intelligence.
Should you somehow master the difficult controls however, the computer brain will most likely whip your behind. A decent challenge even on easy, the latter difficulty settings rival even the toughest of the great SNK fighters. Putting together combos like you've never imagined, you can get taken out in a matter of seconds if you haven't improved to at least the intermediate level. 8-hit after 12-hit, the A.I. will beat on you mercifully until you just can't take it anymore. It's too bad really, as the difference between the settings is so great that it may deter players from getting better. Rather than a slow progression through the ranks, the challenge jumps so violently that it's ridiculous.
But "unbalanced" appears to be the reoccurring theme in X-Men: Next Dimension, as this rule applies to character selection too. Specifically a small sect of fighters that kick so many asses, it's unlikely you'd want to use anyone else. Dark Phoenix, Sentinel B, Cyclops, Wolverine, and The Blob in particular are way too powerful and can dish out punishment quicker than anyone else in the lineup. Although an experienced player could use Beast effectively against a Cyclops beginner, two experts using the same characters would likely never see a Beast victory; as Scott Summers is nearly unstoppable once you get the hang of him.
Other curious anomalies chip away at the finer points as well; The Blob for instance cannot be thrown (which makes sense, considering that the comic books reveal that his power keeps him from being lifted or knocked off of his feet) but at the same time, any character in the lineup can air juggle the behemoth as though he were light as a feather. While we applaud sticking to his mutant powers as far as the throws go, it doesn't make any sense at all to completely ignore that power in another attack variable. Strange decision on the part of Paradox don't you think?
Graphics
A sight to behold on the classic PSX, the Cube version of X-Men is a different story entirely. Though the interactive backgrounds and particle-filled destructible objects are nicely done, the character models themselves aren't animated well in the least. Stiff and unrealistic, the 20-hit combinations that your character supposedly lands appear to be more like 7 or 8. The textures on the character models also appear to be using too many shadows and are a tad on the blurry side.
On the flipside, the super moves your characters pull off are great, and with all the different camera angles the game uses, looks very much as though you are living your very own comic book. Moves that stand out specifically are Psylocke's excellent finishers, and just about anything that Dark Phoenix does is a pleasure to watch.
Finally, the areas you fight within are one of the best aspects the game has to offer. Littered with objects and goodies from X-Men lore, don't be surprised if you discover fallen Sentinel corpses, Apocalypse's Underground Tomb, the basketball court on the backside of X-Mansion, and various other things avid comic book readers will be delighted to see. Being able to smash into just about anything and progress to a different section of the stage earns the presentation some extra points too. There's some legitimately cool stuff here.
Sound
Voiced by Patrick Stewart and a band of talented voice actors, the vocals in Next Dimension aren't bad at all. Though I disagree with how some of the characters sound (Sorry, but Rogue's voice doesn't fit her at all and neither does Juggernaut's), they're pretty satisfactory on the whole. The only real strike against this particular field is that many of the canned phrases repeat themselves way too often. As instead of having multiple phrases for particular techniques, each character has the same introduction, same finale, and same lyric for their throw every time out. What happened to variety?
The soundtrack on the other hand is awesome and fits the cut scenes and fighting stages perfectly. Whether we're talking about the main theme, the tune in the Savage Lands, or the orchestral treatment given to the Danger Room, X-Men has one of the best scores we've heard in a fighting game all year. Not to mention the fact that you have the option to listen to it in surround sound in addition to the stereo and mono tracks (however for some strange reason, the game defaults to mono, so make sure you change it or the vocals will be drowned out almost entirely).
