ith a bucket of burnt popcorn and a gallon of flat soda swirling down the digestive tract, the marriage of Hollywood and video games has belched up another unbearably foul and highly acidic wad of phlegm. Billed as an experience that goes beyond the motion picture, X-Men: The Official Game attempts to tell the story that bridges the gap between the second and third films. It’s a sound idea, but the execution couldn’t have been worse. With a thirst for blood, this game violently jabs Wolverine’s claws into the hearts of gamers, comic fans, and moviegoers that had hoped that it would provide further insight into this remarkable silver screen saga.

The game does answer several questions that may arise when you watch the third film. How does Iceman finally become a member of the core team? Why is Nightcrawler not around? What other secrets are buried within Wolverine’s clouded past? No matter how much your inner dork kicks and screams for the answers, believe me when I say that you don’t want to know what they are. In most cases, this story is an utter mockery of everything that the X-Men stand for. While comic characters have a tendency to only stay dead for a year or two, bringing Lady Deathstrike back to life after she suffered one of the greatest deaths in the history of cinema is just flat-out stupid. Sending Nightcrawler to Hell is even worse. And no, I am not kidding.

I don’t even know how this is possible, but the quality of the cinematic sequences is even worse than the script. Rather than telling the story through animated clips, the game makes use of still-frame sequences that feature voiceovers from many of the actors from the film. These clips make Reading Rainbow seem like a high-quality Disney production. Have you ever watched a person get crushed by a rock without animation? I can now say that I have.

The Hindenburg-like development philosophy also extends to gameplay. Saying that this game has levels can be a bit deceiving. Call me crazy, but small environments that are populated with wave after wave of enemies don’t constitute actual stages.

When I played as Wolverine I felt that I was being punished for something that I did. As great as his combat prowess is in the movie and comics, it would seem that his skills have regressed to repetitive blind hacking. Thankfully, the enemies really don’t seem to catch on. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the enemy types really don’t change from level to leve…er…room to room.
On a positive note, the mechanics that bring Nightcrawler’s teleportation to life are easy to use and a perfect fit for the character. It’s fun to quickly bamf from the rafters to a ledge to behind your adversary. Z-Axis has definitely captured the spirit of this character better than any game, but the challenges that await this blue devil are just as lifeless and repetitive as Wolverine’s.

And let’s not forget about the exploits of Iceman, who should be rewarded with the honorary rank of fireman given the number of blazes he has to put out in this game. Soaring on the ice stream is definitely cool, but the objectives that you are forced to complete are just obnoxious. His big battle against an army of Sentinels breaks down to the player shooting ice blasts at colored dots on their robotic exteriors. Isn’t this the same gameplay mechanic from The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600?

In many ways, this game is a digital mousetrap. You really want to know what happens, but you just end up with your neck getting snapped. Unless you despise the X-Men movies and simply want more ammo that can be used to insult your friends, I strongly advise that you avoid this game like you would French kissing Toad.