Living in the modest city of Tucson, Arizona isn’t as exciting as a big city like L.A., New York or Vegas, but my fellow comic book nerd friends and I here in the southwest find ways to entertain ourselves. Your stereotypical “male bonding” vacations usually consist of things like hunting or fishing or some other outdoor excursion, but for my clan of nerds, we acquired a few cases of fine beer, rented a cabin in the beautiful southern Arizona hills, and hooked up a SEGA Genesis to a 55 inch TV and played some X-Men!
X-Men 2: Clone Wars
Publisher: SEGA
Developer: Headgames
Released: 1995
Platforms: SEGA Genesis
ESRB: K-A
One of my favorite parts about this game is that it wastes no time putting you into the action. As soon as you turn on your SEGA Genesis, you’re dropped into a snowy environment as a random X-Man with cannons firing at you. It’s really that quick. No SEGA logo, or developer or title screen, it’s immediate gameplay. Once you pass that opening level is when the game truly begins.
As Beast, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Cyclops, Psylocke, Wolverine, or Magneto (playable after the third level) you take on several of the classic X-Men rogues like Sentinels, Apocalypse, Exodus, Deathbird, and your primary threat, the Phalanx, who are assimilating humans and mutants, slowly taking over Earth. The great part of each playable character is how different they are. Aside from their various mutant powers (which double in power when your health meter is full), Nightcrawler and Wolverine are able to climb walls, and Psylocke and Beast are able to stick to walls. My favorite character to play as is Magneto. Aside from the great animation of his massive cape flowing around him, he has a hover ability that really comes in handy throughout the whole game.
The game is a side scrolling platformer and it’s a beautiful one. Each stage and its collection of enemies are unique and challenging; and I mean real old school video game challenging. Inexperienced or younger gamers will quickly become frustrated with this game, but completing each stage and defeating each boss is incredibly satisfying.
The game’s graphics are arguably the game’s best feature. Everything from environment, character design, and animation is detailed and beautiful. And the soundtrack is pretty awesome as well.
I have nothing bad to say about this game. I think X-Men 2: Clone Wars is about as close to perfection as any X-Men game can get. I just wish we could get a port of it to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, with maybe some achievements and a save feature thrown in.
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Andrew Hurst
andrewhurst@comicattack.net
@andrewEhurst
I still play this game from time to time (on my SEGA Genesis… still don’t have a Playstation or X-Box). Love it! Dare I say it is better than the first SEGA X-Men game. I certainly think it is more difficult. Thanks for the review. I think I’ll go play it now.
Magneto was a fun character to play, but I found Beast my favorite. His normal attacks seemed more powerful than everyone else. But Beast’s mutant attack was lame.
I want this again!