The tale of X-Men: Destiny

 It's not a tale the Jedi would tell you

I was a fiend for licenced games back in my youth, a fact I've shared here once or twice, which grants me a history with some of the niche games out there that time forgot. Maybe not the ultra deep cuts hidden and nursed under a rock in Tuvalu, but the sorts of games that had their day and then were deeply buried from the spotlight, most of the times in rank embarrassment. Thus when I watched the reveal event for Marvel's Midnight Suns and heard the claim, lip service though it may be, that this would be the very first time in the Marvel universe that players would get to make and be their very own OC hero, my canine ears perked up. My gut reaction was 'X-Men: Legends', in which you are introduced to the famous team of mutants through the eyes of a new initiate, but then I remembered that Magma was actually from the comics, she was just often overlooked. (God, X Men Legends was great...) So I struck out there, but I couldn't shake the 'X Men' hook from the back of my mind. No matter how hard I tossed and turned it around I couldn't make it fit. Until it came to me, the misbegotten entry, 'X Men Destiny'.

You see, there was a Marvel labelled game that gave players the time and chance to create and be their very own superpowered hero, it's just not a game that is legal to be sold anymore because of a court ruling which concluded that the software used to make the game was illegitimate. You see, this was a game made by Silicon Knights, the guys behind the ambitious flop known as 'Too Human'. (To this day I kick myself for never getting the chance to play that museum exhibit of-a-game) Now as I understand this, and I may be missing some of the finer points, Too Human was meant to be Activision and Silicon Knight's opus, having been worked on to some degree for 10 years and being announced on the original Playstation. It was meant to the first in a trilogy, and when it flopped that was a huge investment embarrassment for all parties involved, but in it's wake would follow a series of unfortunate events that would shake Silicon Knights and, pertinently, X Men Destiny.

A couple of years before the game would see the light of day, Silicon and Epic made a deal that all their future games for that generation would be developed using Unreal Engine 3. Fair enough. However, it would seem that Silicon hit some significant development woes in attempting to bring their vision to life, because they ended up suing Epic for breach of contract, citing the many shortcomings of UE3 in key areas that they needed. Epic, never ones to miss a chance for some litigation, shot back with a countersuit claiming that Silicon were well aware that the Engine was still in development when they signed the contract and, whatsmore, made an agreement not to modify the engine on their end. Now it's here where things get a little fuzzy, as I'm not sure if Silicon had modified their UE3 or created their own engine with Unreal code, but whatever happened sparked a legal battle that lasted long enough for Silicon Knights to develop a whole other game; X Men Legends.

But why bring this up? Because the ending of the tale is so wild. You see, Silicon Knights lost the case and thus were forced to round up all unsold copies of games baring their Engine, which at this point were 'Too Human' and 'X Men Destiny', and destroy them. Yeah, we're talking full 'E.T The Game' treatment, only this was a court ordered punishment. As such, physical copies of either games are exceedingly rare, but guess what someone got gifted for their birthday round about the time all this went down? That's right, I have a piece of gaming history tucked away in my collection, and whilst the actual software itself has become less rare since Microsoft rereleased Too Human a couple of years back, for the time being I think that 'X Men Legends' is still a rare item, let alone boxed, so I may have a real gem gathering dust somewhere in storage.

And is the game worth this heritage value? Err... From the get go the game offers you three archetype people and three choices of ability, Shadow Matter, Destiny Control and Energy Projection. In my imperfect recollection I seem to recall that you could match any of the three protagonists with any power, but they were obvious 'correct' combinations that were made clear in move tutorial videos and themed costumes. Ideally the three different power routes would integrate an innate path of replayability into this game's DNA, and to the developers credits the various powers did stand out from one another in the roles they forced the player to adopt. Unfortunately, the actual game part of the gameplay just didn't really standout enough to make this worthwhile.

What I remember is being swarmed with mostly same-ish enemies that were never really too taxing or interesting to fight for their ultimate similarities. Sure, I was learning all these cool abilities, but I had little reason to really dive into them all that much. Which I'm sure is fine for some people, certain folks like to take these sorts of games at their own pace, but I prefer having the heat under my collar some of the time. Certain set piece fights, however, do stand out to be even now for sheer spectacle, like the Magneto battle. Perhaps what the game needed was more of a 'villain of the week' structure to it, similar to 'X Men Legends', so we'd have more opportunities to fight actual named super villians that have different powers and abilities to them. Then again, that would require the studio to be invested in the game just a couple shades more than 'not at all', which, owning to the franchises looming purchase by Disney, was not the case.

Ultimately I didn't dislike my time with X Men Destiny, I just found it mediocre and a waste of potential. One of the big marketing stings would rave about the choice, not only of powers, but which side of the X-Men/Brotherhood conflict you landed on. In practise, this just changed the AI companion who would show up for a few fleeting scenes; the core path of the game didn't change. The story of Destiny is fraught with situations like that; where the path seems laid out but pointedly ignored, as though this game were never truly 'finished'. Even now, with the history around the game making it much more important than the software's quality deserves, my memory of the game is more holes than substance. I remember Gambit shows up, I thought Juggernaut's suit had too many unnecessary details and I don't think Professor X appeared once. I might be wrong about that last one- but I think old baldy had already died or something in that game's timeline, if I remember correctly.

If you're looking for a little bit of gaming history that is inexplicably hard to find, than morbid curiosity might just land you on X Men Destiny. If you're looking for a quality X Men game that really lets you settle in with Marvel's Mutant family, than it's X Men Legends to which I send you. Seriously though, Legends is the precursor to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and it earns every ounce of that legacy by being a truly solid experience with a fantastic roster to get familiar with and master. Destiny, on the otherhand, gives you one hero with alright powers who you'll forget the name of by the third act. Maybe if 'Destiny' was a little more prescient, Silicon Knights wouldn't have stirred the hornet's next and they'd still be around to throw my critique back in my face with the perfect sequel that felt like it was bubbling somewhere on the pitch of this game. Alas, that is a reality for another sector of the multiverse, we just get a mediocre game with a fascinating story.