I love a tie-in game with a unique story. It plays well too!

The unimaginatively title X:TOG was a tie-in for the third film, The Last Stand. However, it’s set between the second and third films, tying up loose ends from X2, “introducing” characters seen in X3, and occupying itself with new material. Compared to the last game I played, Wolverine’s Revenge, it’s much, much better integrated with the film continuity, and overall a much better game as well.

The key feature here is the three modes of play. Each character gets their own levels, pursuing different objectives in the plot. Wolverine plays like a 3D brawler; I was happily reminded of the Return of the King licensed game, although it’s a bit simpler. There’s a little bit of strategy to combat, and Logan has passive healing that can be accelerated if you get breathing room. It’s decent.

Nightcrawler reminded me of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, with all the snapping to rails to run along and gymnastic platforming. It’s fun to teleport willy-nilly either to get around his expansive levels, or in combat (although he’s a bit squishy). Kurt can heal too if he’s safe but it has a cooldown.

Iceman’s gameplay takes the form of a rail shooter, with some tunnel-like levels and some in all-range mode. These are pretty cool (pun super intended) as you skate around on ice, using an ice beam and ice shots to ice stuff up all icily, whether it’s putting out fires or blowing up robots.

All three characters get their own upgrade paths between levels. By taking on higher difficulties you get more upgrade points to improve things like health, regeneration, or attack power. I took the highest difficulty most of the time and was decently challenged. Death can come quickly and checkpoints are few, but it doesn’t take too long to get through a level (no, it’s the loading screens that really skeletonised me). Some levels were obnoxious, like the Colossus escort mission or some timed objectives, but I did get through it all and enjoyed myself.

The story was nice, fleshing out the film universe as it did. The co-writer of the third film Zak Penn collaborated with prolific X-Men comics writer Chris Claremont to create a fun story that bridges the two films nicely. It starts with a return to Alkali Lake to retrieve Cerebro parts, with the revelation that Jason Stryker survived. Soon Logan is off to Japan, fighting Hydra and the also surviving Deathstrike, finally confronting the Silver Samurai (but not the one that later showed up in The Wolverine). Meanwhile Kurt fights Multiple Man and Bobby stops Pyro from burning stuff, then they join forces with Magneto again (with the also apparently surviving Sabretooth in tow) to stop… the Sentinels (not related to the plotline that later showed up in Days of Future Past)!

So yeah, it’s a lot of comic book-y contrivance which is fine. Storm, Colossus, and Beast put in appearances for the goodies, but a few folks are conspicuous by their absence, oh well. The cutscenes are in an interesting “motion comic” style, with the occasional faux-comic panel montage; I would have liked to read these in actual comic form actually! They stopped doing movie-related comics after the second film, apart from a one-shot First Class prequel. All the actor likenesses are here, and they even have some reprising their film roles in voice; namely Xavier, Logan, Kurt, Bobby, Sabretooth, and Multiple Man, while the others are covered by quality sound-alike VAs.

By the way, I played the GBA version recently on a stream, so while I won’t review it separately I’ll mention it briefly here. It’s got WayForward’s typically lovely pixel art and animation, but plays a bit awkwardly. You can freely swap between the same three playable characters plus Colossus, fighting soldiers, robots, and the odd clone or genetic experiment. The story is truncated, moving directly from the Weapon X facility to the Master Mould, and leaving out Hydra, Jason, Deathstrike, and Magneto. But Colonel Stryker survives in it, and it also features Mystique, Toad, Juggernaut, and the surprise appearance of X-23 (but not the one that shows up later in Logan). It’s fine. As for the main console game, I was pleasantly surprised. It even has widescreen!