X Men Mutant Academy

by Playstation

Product Features

• Playstation

Product Details

• ASIN: B00002STKO
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 5 inches ; 1.6 ounces
• Media: Misc. Supplies
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,678 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Editorial Review

As many veteran gamers will attest, movie-based video games usually don't come off all that well--usually because they're thrown together in haste in an attempt to quickly cash in on a hot film license. But X-Men: Mutant Academy is an exception, offering plenty of characters, eye-popping graphics, and solid control as far as fighting games go.

Computer-generated visuals bring 10 X-Men home in their latex comic book costumes, as well as their leather movie duds. In addition to those characters featured in the movie, Mutant Academy also puts Beast and Gambit at players' disposal. (Rogue, however, is a no-show.)

The fighting system for Mutant Academy is built around three special move meters, which can be built up during battle. Once the special meter is filled, you can use your newly acquired moves to perform wild displays of combat skills. Uniquely, the power from one meter can be transferred to another, giving players an added strategic advantage while fighting. The game plays fast and takes skill to master, though it relies more heavily on special moves than combos. Still, it ranks right up there with Capcom's best. --Robb Guido

Pros:

• A 2-D fighter with 3-D rendered characters and an abundance of special moves
• Offers 10 X-Men in a choice of costumes, including those from the X-Men movie.

Cons:

• Not as many characters as other fighters

Product Description

This is the game X-Men: Mutant Academy for the Playstation 1. This game may not come with the original case and instructions. We stand by our products and offer a 60 day guarantee. If a game does not work within 60 days from the time you receive it we will gladly exchange it for you.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of strengths, lots of weaknesses., July 15, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X Men Mutant Academy (Misc. Supplies)

This is a game that invokes my most extreme love/hate impulses.

On one hand:

a) Excellent representation of the comic-book characters, both in terms of image and personality. It's a huge attraction to me because I used to read the comics, and I think fellow readers (or ex-readers) would also enjoy this aspect.

b) Lots of innovative touches, such as dressing Player 2 characters in the movie's costumes, even if they're much inferior to the comic-book costumes, and offering up great cover art for X-Men past issues during the (pretty long) loading times.

c) Including the movie trailer, even if I think the characters' image created for the X-Men movie is laughable, Cyclops, Magneto and Jean Grey being especially dorky-looking.

d) The inclusion of Phoenix/Jean Grey, one of X-Men comics' most complex characters (and my personal favourite), but rarely used in X-Men-related games.

e) Beautiful graphics overall.

f) Innovative "multiple-level" super-move system.

g) Great backgrounds.

Countering these strengths:

i) Sluggish response. It's hard to take advantage of an opponent's mistakes because of this. Also, the "hard" attacks become nearly useless because they take forever to come out.

ii) Imbalance. Mystique's gun is overwhelmingly powerful, and Beast can pull off a barrage of nearly-zero-recovery attacks with little risk to himself, but Storm and Gambit are too weak.

iii) Too little push-away for ordinary attacks. The chain-combo system leaves plenty to be desired.

iv) Some computer characters are pretty cheap -- Toad will toss you three times in a row if you don't retaliate, and that is made difficult by the slow response.

v) Terrible, terrible manual. Not only does it not give you a list of moves, but it's rift with typos and mistakes. To get *most* of the moves you have to go through the "Academy" mode, which is too slow and also doesn't teach you everything. I've already found one super move for Phoenix that isn't taught to you, and nowhere does it say how to pull off Counters, which the computer uses liberally (and fairly cheaply) against you.

vi) Too few characters. In the beginning, in fact, you can only choose from six X-Men. After beating the game four times you can select Toad, Mystique, Sabretooth and Magneto, but even that only brings the tally to 10, pretty flimsy for a modern fighting game.

vii) Bad endings. The developer should look at Tekken 3's beautiful, story-rich endings. X-Men: Mutant Academy's Arcade endings are very skimpy -- even the Academy mode's endings are better. Mystique's Arcade ending is especially bad.

Even if it's riddled with flaws, damned if I don't keep playing this game. The Capcom "Vs." titles, though pretty good, didn't offer up the more offbeat X-Men characters (Phoenix, Beast, Toad). If the mechanics of this game were better, it could really give Capcom a run for its money.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!, July 28, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X Men Mutant Academy (Misc. Supplies)

I went out and bought this title and I was quite surprised when I started playing it. First of all, the graphics are pretty impressive considering PlayStation being a 32 bit system. The character textures are very well done but the fighting backgrounds lack some detail. You can choose from 10 X-Men characters, 6 of them are the good guys, 4 of them are bad guys (and gals). I was a little bummed that there were only 10 playable characters but I didn't get bored using all of them. Second, the sound is excellent. The voiceovers were well done. It sounded like the voices from the X-Men animated series. The Academy option isn't that good, you just learn how to pull off different moves. The Cerebro option is cool because you can watch the movie trailer and view quite a few comic book pics and some pics from the movie. You can also unlock some character movies and some extra costumes. All in all, I think this game is worth buying and it is pretty entertaining.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars X MANIA!, July 18, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: X Men Mutant Academy (Misc. Supplies)

This is one of the greatest games I have played this year. It brings fighting games to a new level. The fact that you are X men Characters are even better. I saw the midnight showing and was outside of Toys R us the next morning waiting to buy this game and it was well worth it. A must to any X Men fan. Can't wait for the Sequels and Prequels.