 SEGA DRUNK Obviously, I was a Super Nintendo kid during the 16-bit wars. I hated everything about the Genesis. The same way Minnesota Vikings fans hate the Green Bay Packers. I didn't think the Genesis sucked necessarily. I just didn't like it on principle. I had picked my side. Well, actually, my parents picked it for me. So I felt like I belonged to something. I felt obligated to defend it and dismiss everything else. Gotta support the team. However, there was one game in particular I was always jealous of. I really wish the Super Nintendo had a game like the Genesis had for X-Men. I loved X-Men as a kid. And this game predated the Super Nintendo game X-Men Mutant Apocalypse by nearly two years. What I like best about this game is that it really feels like a team game. There's a ton of characters. You get four to choose from at the start. Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Gambit, and Cyclops. And you also have four other X-Men that you can call upon to help out. Kind of like a screen-clear-all special ability from Rogue, Storm, Iceman, and Archangel. You can also switch between the four playable characters as you're playing in the level, similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES. This is the perfect approach for the X-Men universe in a video game. And it's something that I really wish the Super Nintendo game did as well. So what would the obvious appeal of an X-Men video game be? Playing as your favorite mutants, of course, or fighting them, for that matter, as this game features tons of classic villains as well. Granted, yeah, it would be nice to have more than four playable characters, but whatever, I appreciate the cameos from the others nonetheless. Of course, it helps that everyone really looks great. The sprites are all true to their early 90s comic book form, and they got the colors absolutely dead on. That sounds simple, but it's very important for a comic book game, especially one as colorful as X-Men. They did a great job capturing each character's mutant power as well. For the story, the game technically takes place inside the Danger Room, which is basically the X-Men's version of the holodeck. Magneto transmits a virus into the Danger Room computer, just to be a dick, I guess, and it disables the safety limits. I gotta say, that's a pretty convenient way to get all the prominent villains involved. Once the X-Men get rid of the computer virus, they head on up to asteroid M to face Magneto himself. As for the actual gameplay, it's just average. It's good enough, I guess. It's way more of a platformer than a beat-em-up like Mutant Apocalypse. Jumping can be a bit iffy at times, and that's being kind, but that's when you call upon Nightcrawler and you just teleport your way around. Man, I love that. But yeah, I admit, I feel okay giving the game a pass for just average gameplay because, well, why are you playing an X-Men game? To play as the X-Men and to do cool stuff with Mutant Powers and stuff, right? If the gameplay is just average from an objective standpoint, that's fine because if you're an X-Men fan, you're not gonna be objective about this game. You're gonna have an incentive to enjoy it because it nails the X-Men universe so well, from all the playable characters to the colors to the Mutant Powers. That's what's important. There are two glaring flaws that need to be addressed, though. Number one is the sound design. Jesus, that's annoying. And number two is, holy Christ, this game is hard, like NES hard. Asteroid M is preposterous. It doesn't help that the jumping kind of sucks. Ugh. Also, the game makes you reset your Genesis to continue at a certain point. That's completely stupid. I admire the developers for trying something different, but sacrificing your progress in a really difficult game is not a good idea. Have I mentioned this game is hard as hell? Anyway, it's tricky to review a game like X-Men, but you gotta keep in mind its target audience. The gameplay is mediocre. Nothing going out of your way to play, but if you like X-Men, you're much more likely to forgive that aspect because the game gets the presentation down so well. And for that reason, I like it slightly better than X-Men Mutant Apocalypse, even if that game is objectively better in terms of gameplay, if that makes any sense. So yeah, it's pretty simple. If you like X-Men, check out X-Men for Genesis. Don't expect to get wowed, but it's still a fun time hanging out with your favorite mutants.