The Uncanny X-Men (NES)

Today I'm going to check out the very first X-Men game, Uncanny X-Men! Or 'Marvel's X-Men' if you're going to believe the title screen over what's written on the box.

Search and destroy the Robofactory? Battle through a living starship? How can I possibly choose?

Actually I'll start with the practice level because it seems like the sensible, boring thing to do.

Wow, I knew he was called Slim after playing Arcade's Revenge, but I never knew he was solar powered. I learn something new in every game!

I get to choose who I want to play as from Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Colossus and Storm. Actually it's letting me bring out a second character too. So I'll go with Cyclops and... I dunno, Colossus.

Hey, it's a top down run and gun action game. I was expecting a platformer or something.

I can run around, jump, and fire eye beams from my eyes at the evil bubbles conspiring to kill me. And Colossus stumbles around behind me like he's being controlled by a dog chewing on the d-pad.

My initial impression of the game is that it's total shit, but hey it might grow on me. It's playable at least.

So this is the end of the level then? It's only two screens tall? Well okay, fair enough it is a practice stage after all.

So do I have to shoot a certain amount of enemies or... what? I've been collecting these powerup letters but it's hard to tell what they do. I'm pretty sure 'S' makes the enemies stop and 'lightning bolt' makes them explode, but beyond that I've no clue.

Okay I think I'm just going to reset the game because this is going nowhere.

Right, okay. This is the Futurecity Street Fight stage, and I'm playing as Cyclops and Storm. And it seems that we're shooting evil snakes and avoiding floor turrets.

I can switch between my two characters at any time, but they seem pretty identical. Well okay Storm can hover a bit, but there doesn't seem much point to it.

Whoa, the door just closed and took out both my characters!

Fortunately though I can jump right back into the game with two of my other characters. This time I went with Wolverine and Spider-Man. Uh, I mean Nightcrawler.

These two are punching characters like Colossus, which means I have to walk right up to enemies to hit them. If there's a benefit to choosing them over a ranged character, I'm not seeing it.

Well Nightcrawler got himself killed, so at least I don't have to worry about getting both of them through the doors safely.

I went through a blue teleporter and ended up here.

Oh crap, the bubbles have me surrounded. Now I've lost Wolverine too!

All I have left now is Iceman and Colossus. And Colossus just got himself killed following me through the door.

I'm just going to ignore the enemies from now on, they mostly seem like a distraction and they're just slowing me down.

Damn, it seems like this level is a maze of teleporters. And that fuzzy energy field up there is flickering on and off like the doors. If I mess up the timing here my last character might get instantly vaporised.

Well I got the timing right. But I walked up the wrong square and ended up face first into a wall. And then the energy field turned back on.

GAME OVER. And I'm so glad.


I don't generally like to judge games, mostly because I really don't play them long enough to form a proper opinion, but I'm going to go ahead and say this game probably isn't worth anyone's time. Especially if they're fan of the characters.