Video Game Review: X-Men Arcade
Video Game Review: X-Men Arcade (1992, 2010)
Platforms: Arcade, PS3, Xbox 360
Developer: Konami
Plot: Magneto is at it again, this time attacking with Sentinels…and lizard people, and some funky mutant plant things. You know what, it’s an arcade game – you play as X-Men and you beat up bad guys.
When I was a little kid my friends and I would host our birthday parties at the local arcade / mini-golf place. There was little more we wanted than to just get out on the floor and play these video games. Aliens, Area 51, Terminator, TMNT – there were few games that weren’t awesome and amazing. There was one game that tended to suck up my quarters more than most, though, and that was the X-Men arcade.
Boasting twin screens and 6-players, this game was unlike anything else you could play at the time. You found your favorite (available) X-Men character and you just jumped in.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many quarters were put into this machine, but when it was announced that you could download it on the PSN I jumped all over that immediately. And beat it in a single night.
Was it worth the $10 to download? Absolutely.
Not only for the nostalgia, but also to justify the (I’m going to guess and say) hundreds of dollars worth of quarters I spent playing that thing while I was growing up. Now I can just pop it in and play whenever I want – and with friends online, to boot.
The game is simple: pick your favorite (available) X-Men character. You get to chose from Wolverine, Nighcrawler, Storm, Cyclopes, Dazzler, and Colossus. Next, you fight wave after wave of Sentinels, lizard people, and mutant plant things until you get to the end stage boss. The bosses consisted of Pyro, Blob, Wendigo, Nimrod, White Queen, Juggernaut, Mystique, and Magneto.
There’s no plot, just pure beat-em-up action and mutant powers that made little sense (Wolverine’s powers shoot across the screen?) – but were sure cool to use.
If you were a fan of the classic arcade, do yourself a favor and download this title. It’s uncanny.
