The X-Men arguably put all the other super heroes to shame. Spiderman may be able to sling a bit of web but he certainly can't control the weather! The Hulk maybe keen, green and mean but he doesn't possess amazing healing powers or have big metal claws and he's not too attractive either. Batman, he's not really a bat, same goes for Robin, Flash Gordon, well he can run fast but then again so can my dog - I think I've covered most of them now. X-Men though, there's a whole bunch of mutants out there, each with their own unique powers and that fascinating multi-directional story just makes X-Men all that more appealing to someone like me. I think the X-Men come under the A-List super heroes, along with G-Man, that well known Acegamez editor that has the power to change our words and make our literary offerings fit for public consumption!

The N-Gage is now lucky enough to be blessed with X-Men Legends, a super hero action game with hints of RPG elements, disguised with plenty of comic book syrup to allow X-Men legends to appeal to just about anybody. RPG lovers, comic book guys, super-hero action fans, I'm sure you can fit yourself into one of those categories. But is it any good?

At any one given time you are in charge of four X-Men. After the first level, missions thereafter allow you to pick any four X-Men of your choice and all of the familiar ones are here, more specifically, all the ones from the smash hit film. Wolverine, Beast, Storm, Cyclops they are all here and each of them is unique. Some characters have their strength going for them, while others such as Storm have their offensive powers to fall back on. You can't really go wrong as long as you pick Wolverine as the team leader, because his claws take enemies down quickly and efficiently.

In your party of four you are in total control of one of the characters and the other three just use clever AI, which you can actually set for what you want them to do. You can set the AI controlled characters to aggressive, defensive, berserk or normal - these little AI tweaks do noticeable things, so setting your team up can be crucial for winning a big boss battle. Switching between characters is a complete breeze; by holding down a certain button, a nice looking X-Men circle comes up, with each of the four different X-Men's icons set in north, east, south and west directions. By pressing the corresponding direction on the D-Pad, you quickly switch to that character. It's always handy to keep in mind where certain characters are placed on the circle selector, for quick, heat of the moment battles and decisions.

Lots of other actions are performed by the circle selectors. Common items and effects are stored in a string of circle selectors, all items divided into categories that are easy to find and navigate. I will say, however, that some of the icons aren't always clear enough to portray what they do and because no text comes up before you press the direction, actually using the item in question is the only way to know for sure. The X-Men can only have one special power readied at any one time, so the circle selector menu acts as a nice way of conveniently changing super fast. By then pressing the seven key you can use that power with ease, before changing back to a more regularly used power, energy permitting. Any time you have a selector open, the game pauses, so there's no need to worry about any enemies creeping up on you between switches. On the whole, these selectors work well.

X-Men Legends has a fantastic story running through it, complete with voiceovers to make the story flow extremely well. Levels in the game consist of many different objectives; you might be asked to find certain people, go on rescue missions, uncover things for Professor X or kick the daylight out of the Brotherhood, the enemies of this game. The missions are very enjoyable but at points you'll be left not knowing what to do. The only way to find out is to resort back to one of your previous saves and devote even more attention to the game, on the off chance that you missed some important briefing. I could blame myself for not paying full attention, but then again, it is a handheld game and when there're three siblings running around shouting, you're bound to miss something important. While the mission does appear on the mission page accessed by pressing a button, it never goes into detail, which could leave you hard pushed for a clue as how to proceed.

As you progress, the regular characters you take with you gain levels and with levels you gain points to spend on attributes and upgrading special powers. It's the typical RPG fashion these days but it's nice to have some depth to it. Those people who don't like to confuse themselves by spending points on attributes will be glad to know that they can opt for the automatic point system. By simply pressing a button, the game automatically buys the things that certain characters need the most and by opting for that you can just enjoy the missions, while the option for being a rebel and buying Wolverine intelligence is still there if you want it.

Some of the gameplay reminded me very much of Streets of Rage in some senses. Of course, X-Men is totally different in many aspects, such as being able to take a party of four and being able to use mutant powers - but the game has a certain old school feel to it that brought back some fond memories. Something else that reminded me of the old classic is the fact that you can destroy most objects in the game and that items lurk underneath the rubble! So if you're ever running low on health, you can normally punch a few streetlights down and find some med packs! Ah, happy days! The fighting side of things doesn't seem to be anything like Streets of Rage though; it basically consists of tapping one button for your melee attack and the other for your power-up attack, but it all makes for more hack and slash comic style fun.

Most of the sound has been well thought out, especially the voiceover that appears on the all the important bits, like conversations with Xavier. The voices can be heard well if you put the volume to full but even then it can be difficult to hear if the room has any sort of noise there. If you want to get fully absorbed you really ought to wear a headset. I was happy that you could adjust certain parts of the volume, so I could put voices on full blast, sound effects on medium and the music on low. Believe me, the music isn't that good and only appears when you're in battle. It's there so you know when trouble is around the corner, but it does get repetitive after a short while. There's not many sound effects to talk about, we don't have any effects for basic punching noises, though we do have a few for the specific powers. I feel that there could have been more here to aid the sound.

Graphically the game is pretty good - its all done in cracking FIFA type 3D; overhead and behind. Running about in you spandex suits has never looked so good on a handheld, everything has appropriate textures and there are not many repetitive areas, which is always a good thing. There are times when you wish you could rotate the camera but unfortunately it's fixed. However, there's a nice virtual map that should help you find you way, regardless of the muddle the fixed-camera problem can sometimes cause. Some effects for punching don't look too clear, depending on your character, but the rest of the effects stand out for all of the different abilities in the game. That and a couple of explosions here and there makes X-Men Legends nice to look at.

X-Men Legends for the N-Gage is a decent game. It's a game that delivers a cracking storyline, complimented by good voiceovers and some classic old-school hack and slash/RPG action with the nice bonus of having multiplayer blue tooth as well. X-Men Legends is definitely more suited for the person who likes to sit down and play for long periods of time, because this isn't a pick up and play game. And if you are not prepared to devote all eyes and ears to this game when you're playing it, you won't get far either. With that said, X-Men Legends has a lot going for it and makes a perfect travelling companion for long trips in the car.

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).