X-Men 2: Clone Wars for Genesis
Review #4694
X-Men 2: Clone Wars
The best 16-bit Marvel game
Gameplay
Lovely movement. Very fast paced and responsive. There are 6 different playable characters but unfortunately they all play about the same. They've got an attack, an upward attack, a jumping attack, and a special ability that you don't want to use because it uses up your health. So yeah, massive missed opportunity to differentiate the characters. A couple of them have a double jump but not all so it's pretty much pointless to use Cyclops. The only real downsides to the gameplay are the rather annoying camera which gives you about 80% draw distance but only moves when you start moving that direction. So you have to turn around. Press a couple times until it registers that you're moving that direction, let it pan over, and then you can proceed. The camera also keeps you at the absolute bottom of the screen. So when you come to a blind jump you have to stop, press down and hold down for about 2 seconds before the camera pans downward. Between this and the 80% draw distance, it makes for a lot of breaks in the action.
Level Design
It's just a bunch of corridors and hallways with short ceilings. But you have a tall jump and the maps are linear enough with the option to take some branching paths. However, each level only has a couple of enemies which are repeated over and over and over and over again which leads to monotony. I like the variety between levels but there's very little within levels. Luckily all you have to do is reach the end of a level to proceed.
Theme
This is a Marvel Comics game done right. Before each level you pick one of the six playable characters and watch a text scroll conversation between Cerebro and Professor X. That could have been done better. Overall, the presentation isn't perfect but it's decent.
Art Style
As with a previous game, the sprites and backgrounds here are all excellent. The animation is ramped up significantly here. I only wish that the colors were brighter and that there were more effects going on, like in the Adventures of Batman and Robin. Despite those nitpicks this is one of the better looking Genesis games while in motion.
Audio
The music isn't as bad as the previous game and the sound is significantly better, but overall this game sound is nothing special.
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