Hot on the heels of the release of X-Men: First Class comes the return of X-Men Arcade. Earlier this year, it made it’s return on XBOX Live and PlayStation Network, which I reviewed when it came out. This time, it’s out as a universal app for the iPhone and iPad. Though a lot of what I said about X-Men Arcade initially still stands for this port, the iOS version does have some perks and quirks worth noting in a separate review.
X-Men Arcade is very much a product of its time. At its peak, this 6-player arcade cabinet was one of the best experiences you could have at the arcade. I have fond memories of playing this game with 5 other people on the machine as we mashed that attack button over and over again until we beat the game or ran out of quarters. Usually, we ran out of quarters first, though if you had the funds, the game was beatable in about 30 minutes.
The core gameplay by today’s standards is pretty shallow and not very long, but it’s alright for what it is, especially with friends. This iOS app supports up to 4-players locally, which I tested briefly with my iPhone 4 and iPad 1. It seems to work very well. Odds are, you’ll be playing this by yourself though, which definitely drops the fun-factor of the overall package. If you have a few minutes to spare while you’re on the go to beat up robots with your X-Men character of choice, then it’s a nice-to-have at best.
The game uses on-screen buttons to control the action, which are hit-and-miss. They’re as responsive as you’d need them to be, and you’re given the ability to place the buttons anywhere on the screen. The problem is the playing field on the iPhone overlaps with your buttons, no matter where you place them. At times, your character and all of your enemies will be bunched up over your left thumb, which makes it impossible to see and control anything.
Playing it on the iPad helps, as the bigger screen ensures that your fingers don’t get in the way of the action. However, I had a few issues with the game crashing. Not sure what could be causing it, but it’s never a good thing to have the game crash on you.
The most annoying thing about X-Men Arcade on the iPhone and iPad is that you can’t change your character mid-game. If you start the game as Wolverine, and want to switch to anyone else halfway through, too bad. I can see why they’d limit your character selection for the purposes of score sharing and such, but at the cost of character-locking, it’s not worth it to me.
If this were a perfect port of X-Men Arcade that worked perfectly on iOS, I’d still have a hard time recommending this game to anyone who doesn’t have a strong sense of nostalgia for the original due to its short game length and shallow game mechanics. Unfortunately, there are a few design quirks and technical glitches that only detract from the experience. Even at $3, I’m sure there are other cheaper and better beat-em-up alternatives that are worth your time and money.
In Third Person 