Review: X-Men Arcade Mobile

Konami and Marvel have ported X-Men Arcade over to mobile devices. It is now available on the Apple App Store and the Android Market for gamers everywhere!

“These are the first ever mobile versions of the popular 1992 cabinet arcade classic for these popular mobile platforms. The game allows players to join their favorite X-Men characters in what is widely considered their first great video game appearance”.

It’s a direct port of the arcade game with all the same levels and characters. You can still choose one of six X-Men: Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler or Dazzler and you can still play with your friends. While the game itself looks great, I did experience some slow down at random times. Usually when there was a lot of things going on, 4-5 enemies on screen while I use a mutant power. The interface is the worst part of this game. I admit, I am spoiled given that my phone has a slide out keyboard. Many classic games I play do not require me to use an on screen button layout, freeing up screen real-estate and my fingers aren’t blocking my view. That is not an option with X-Men arcade and what’s worse, the joystick takes up an entire corner of the screen. It is way too big and yet, if they shrunk it down it would cause even more problems. While the joystick certainly looks cool with a built-in X logo, there are a lot of dead spots. You have to touch the darker triangles for your character to move. Anywhere in between or outside these triangles has zero input. What’s worse, the size can cause an issue if you end up walking behind the joystick. You’ll be blocking your view of your character but at the same time you need to move them out of the way. It’s madness I tell you, madness.

While X-Men arcade has seen an increase in popularity due to it’s release on game consoles, it really doesn’t live up beyond the nostalgia. It’s a pure button masher as you only have one attack button, a special button and a jump button. The game is extremely challenging any many times enemies will stand over you waiting for you to get up just so they can knock you down again.  Much is left to be desired.

The game supports wi-fi multiplayer of up to four players. What’s great is the integration of social features like Open Feint (Leaderboard and Achievements), Facebook Connect (Publish Scores) and Game Center (Leaderboard and Achievements). The app is a $2.99 universal download and you can play both on your phone and tablet under the same account.

If you’re a big fan of the arcade game then you may want to give this a shot. Personally it didn’t hold my interest for more than five minutes and the buttons got me so frustrated that I just gave up. The multiplayer worked really well and it is probably the one saving grace for this game. If you can convince three other buddies to buy this one you may just have a decent time killer as you wait in line to see First Class this weekend.

“X-Men Arcade” has been designed to work on iOS 3.1.2 powered devices which includes the iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the 3rd generation iPod touch. “X-Men Arcade” is available for Android smart phones and tablets using version 2.2 of the operating system or better.