PLEASE NOTE:
You are currently viewing an archival version of GF!

Click here to return to the current GamesFirst! website.

Questions? Suggestions? Comments?
Contact us at:

editors@gamesfirst.com

xmenROA.jpg (12075 bytes)


star06.gif (4104 bytes)star06.gif (4104 bytes)

by Activision

roa_screen13_full-01.jpg (9729 bytes)When I write a review for a Game Boy game I try to churn out a minimum of five hundred words. The problem is some games can be summed up quite adequately in one or two words. There’s really no point in listing the faults of the game or trying to search out any possible merits it might posses. You just want to write that one word, give it a rating and get on with your life. But seeing as I have four hundred and eighteen words left to go, I can’t tip my hand to that word just yet. I suppose you could skip down to the bottom of the page to find out that word, but that would take away all of the suspense.

roa_screen14_full-01.jpg (10459 bytes)The game is X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse for the Game Boy Advance. Flying back to earth, the X-Men pass through an inter-dimensional rift and end up on a parallel earth where their arch nemesis Apocalypse now rules. The game follows the Double Dragon style of gameplay. You pick one of a handful of X-Men and walk from left to right punching, kicking and blasting away a horde of bad guys. That’s it. There’s nothing else to it. Sometimes you have bad guys come at you from the left and sometimes the right. The bosses at the end of each level tend to be so easy that they’re laughable.

roa_screen12_full-01.jpg (10677 bytes)This is one of the few games that I’ve played while talking to my wife where she (two hundred and fifty words—I’m half way there) didn’t notice any lapses in the conversation. The game takes that little concentration. It is that boring (If I ever hope to hit five hundred words I’d better start using more adverbs and adjectives). Let me loudly repeat to you, the game gets terribly boring very very quickly.

roa_screen09-01.jpg (10871 bytes)This is not a bad looking game. The graphics are fairly colorful and detailed, but they’re nothing to write home about. The controls are fairly responsive, but the only reason that you would want to use the B button or the L and R buttons is because your scarred by excessive wear on the A button. There’s really little incentive for using varied attacks other than to see your little X-Man do something marginally different.

roa_screen11-01.jpg (11526 bytes)The game supports a two player, two cartridge link mode for either versus or co-op play. (Only one hundred more words to go—I may actually make it.) If you suggest to a friend to get this game so that you can play together, you’re not much of a friend.

roa_screen10-01.jpg (11702 bytes)This is a game that exists strictly for the fanboys. It’s a shame; the X-Men should make for a really good video game franchise, but no one has been able to successfully tool their powers and abilities into good gameplay. Let me draw this review to a close with that one word that could have started and finished this review. My final, last, five-hundredth word is "insipid."

Jason Frank   (10/30/2001)

Snapshot

Ups: X-men.

Downs: Repetitive; shallow controls; too easy.

Platform:
Game Boy Advance