X-Men Legends (N-Gage)

CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
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Overall score: 8.1 (4.0 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Avery Score
• Reviewed on: 02/07/2005
• Released on: 02/07/2005

The N-Gage has certainly seen its share of console ports. However, due to the technological limitations of the platform, most of these hail from past console generations. X-Men Legends, on the other hand, debuted last year on the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 and proved that mutant fighting teams and action RPGs can mesh. The N-Gage version of Legends has remained very close to its predecessor, both in design and execution. Equipped with a lengthy, fairly challenging adventure and great Bluetooth multiplayer, X-Men Legends is a lot of fun.

The Brotherhood loves neoindustrial architecture and design.

Legends centers on the drafting of a new mutant, Alison Crestmere, aka Magma. Like Rogue and Jubilee before her, Alison is a misunderstood teen who shows great potential, but is sometimes unable to control her power. Fortunately, training Alison proves an easy task for Professor Xavier (expertly voice-acted by Patrick Stewart), who manages to quickly smooth out the girl's rough edges by imparting a few choice words of wisdom via his commanding baritone. Wolverine, as always, provides the tough love of an older, highly protective brother, albeit one with a serious body-hair problem.

Alison's blossoming into a full-fledged field officer runs parallel to the main plotline, which is your typical Uncanny X-Men intrigue. Magneto and the Brotherhood, having labeled mutantkind "Homo superior," are planning to subjugate ordinary humans, converting them into a permanent underclass. Obviously, this sort of behavior unfairly sullies the name of hard-working, god-fearing mutants everywhere, so the X-Men are called into duty. Even Magma is asked to test her mettle against Magneto and company.

Of course, you spend most of your time combating Magneto's hapless underlings, who primarily attack you in small groups. The biggest danger is becoming overwhelmed by a large number of assailants. During large confrontations, it's necessary to use items like stun grenades to level the playing field. Your entire inventory is easily accessible via a series of contextual menus. Curative items occupy one section, and offensive items are grouped in another. Similar systems are used to select between mutants (three out of four mutants are controlled by AI in the single-player mode) and mutant special abilities. This system is elegant, and it almost completely obviates the need to enter the more-detailed pause menu, which you'll periodically have to use to manage character stats and abilities as your mutants gain experience.

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