Last year Activision released X-Men: Mutant Academy to cash in on the success of the Hollywood movie. The game was pretty good, garnering a small cult following, but not really making any major attempts to break into new territory. It sold well enough for Activision to put up the funds for the sequel, but this time the need to wrap the game up in movie tie-ins like the black leather costumes or backgrounds from the movie isn’t as strong. It seems that the developers turned to the rich comic book history of the X-Men for inspiration this time around, and the results are that the sequel is a much better game than the original.

For starters, X-Men 2 trots out a bunch of new characters, culled from the comics and obviously put in the game for fan service. Characters like Forge, Rogue, Havok and Nightcrawler join the entire original cast from the first game, and you’ll also find Psylocke and Juggernaut after playing through the single player game several times. Sure, a few of these characters (Rogue, Juggernaut, Psylocke) have been seen before in Marvel licensed fighting games, but they’re presented nicely here, and the more obscure characters like Havok and Forge breathe fresh life into the game. Nightcrawler, in my opinion, has been missing from the fighting game scene for far too long, and I am very happy that the designers decided to add him to this game.

X-Men 2 doesn’t stray far from its predecessor in terms of visuals; it uses the same 3D engine as the first game, and that’s fine. The original game looked good. All of the characters are large, well animated, and highly detailed. Fans of the comic will be happy to see a wide range of different outfits available for each character (3 or 4 per mutant). Each character has several special attacks that fit their profile, and three or four super attacks. All of these moves are presented well, and remain faithful to the comics. Nightcrawler’s teleport moves are accompanied by a puff of purple smoke, Cyclops’s optic beams are suitably flashy, and the characters that can fly in the comics can fly in the game.

Gameplay hasn’t changed too much from the first game, with the notable exception of launchers and air combos. Anyone who’s played Capcom’s Marvel vs. series of games, or Rival Schools, will be feel at home with these attacks. Every character has several attacks that launch the opponent into the air and pressing up immediately after will cause your character to leap high into the air where you’ll be able to connect with an unblockable combo before landing.

This new addition leads directly into what has been the biggest complaint about X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 – cheap, unbalanced gameplay. Well, as much as I do like the game, I can’t argue this point. There are some characters that can rely on one or two attacks to completely dominate others. The launchers and air combos, although adding panache to the fighting engine, are also a cause of frustration for many players, since they’re incredibly easy to do and the person on the receiving end can’t do anything to stop or counter them after getting hit with a launcher move. However, I would argue that the game is mostly balanced, and almost all of the characters can handle themselves well against each other (it does seem as though the characters who can fly, Magneto excepted, got he short end of the stick when it came to technique – Storm, Phoenix and Rogue feel underpowered and lacking in ability when compared to many other mutants.

I’m not about to tell you that X-Men 2 is the best fighting game I’ve played in a while, it’s not. It can’t hold a candle to any of Capcom’s 2D efforts, or even some later SNK games like Garou or KoF ’99. It’s also not fair to compare this game to 3D fighters, because although it uses a 3D engine, it plays like a 2D game. However, if you can get past the somewhat unbalanced gameplay, and if you are a fan of the X-Men, the homages to the comic and the fact that the developers obviously did their homework will ring true, and you’ll enjoy the game.