Game #981: X-Men Mutant Wars

  Who said war never changed? These wars mutated!

 Believe it or not, X-Men: Mutant Wars is a fairly nostalgic game for me. My parents got me a bootleg copy many years ago one day we were at the flea market. But it was a super high-quality bootleg, came with a decent box and even a fully colored instruction booklet, the only give-away was the grey cart. A grey cart that looked exactly like the legit ones. Regardless, I spent countless hours playing and replaying said game, it was short and sweet... or so I thought.

 In Mutant Wars you play as a five-man team comprised of Wolverine, Cyclops, Gambit, Ice-man and Storm. Wolverine gets top billing as he has the most moves, he can perform a running knee attack, a super running slashy attack, an uppercut, a back-flip, a dive-kick and a basic slash. The other four just get projectiles they can either shoot straight or angle them up or down. As long as they are alive you can swap character by pressing select alongside a directional input, or just press select alone to go back to Wolvie.

 The objective of the game is to move from right to left, while pressing up or down when you get to either openings on the foreground or ladders or doors in the background. Getting inside these mini-sections is vital to finishing the game because they hide either upgrades for your character(Whoever picks it up gets it) or a key you need to go to the right of the stage's boss. You can actually defeat a boss but won't be able to progress until you find the key. While you try to do this you'll be endlessly pelted by endlessly respawning enemies. It feels like one of those super unfair shoddily made NES games, but thankfully it's not as unfair. Although some bosses are pretty flippin' unfair, bosses like Magneto. Heck, there's no way to block so some incoming damage you'll just have to take it because there's no mercy invincibility when your character gets up.

 And that's the game. There's not much to it. It's a simple game and not a very good one, but hey, I've a soft spot for it so I'll admit I might be a bit extra nice with the final score. It's not a bad concept for a game, playing as a Team of X-Men that is, and I like how Wolverine has all these different moves you can perform with so few buttons. The graphics look pretty nice too considering it's a Gameboy Color game. On the other hand, the gameplay is extremely basic and some bosses are downright unfair, so make of that what you will. As for the length, it's made up of 9 very short stages, and each stage has its own boss, most being actual X-men villains.

 3.5