4 My Game

The plot of the story mode has Professor X’s X-Men joining forces with Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants to battle Bastion’s Sentinel army intent on eliminating all mutant-kind. Okay, as an X-Men fan, I can buy into that storyline. But if that is the case, why does the game set up fights between supposed allies and even between the X-Men themselves? Just doesn’t add up. One good touch in the story mode is the voice acting, led by Patrick Stewart, who lends his vocal chords here for the role he portrays in the movie version of the X-Men, Professor X.

There are a few other modes, as would be expected, if you don’t want to try to figure out the logic of the story mode. An arcade, versus, survival, and practice mode all make a welcome appearance.

XND does have some redeeming qualities that make it worthy of purchase consideration if you are an X-Men fan. To start with, free full version games look good. The characters are detailed to the extreme. Odds are, if you have a favorite X-Men (or evil mutant, if you lean that way) you’ll find him or her in the roster. Magneto, Rogue, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast, Juggernaut, Forge, and my personal favorite, Wolverine, are here, among others. XND is the best looking videogame portrayal of the X-Men. It does seem to go a little overboard when it comes to the Marvel Universe’s super heroines and villains, though, who are a tad too breast-endowed here. Even worse is some of the rather skimpy attire hardly covering their bare essentials.