All-Time Faves: X-Men (Sega Genesis)

by Mike “Master of Magnetism” Lunsford 

I got the Sega Genesis for Christmas/Hanukkah of 1991. Me and the Genesis were instantly buds. Sonic the Hedgehog was fun, but I was still splitting time with my NES because I didn't have a lot of really great games —the NES still had a place in my heart. In fact, I can't even remember exactly why I chose Sega over the Super Nintendo in the "Console Wars" of the early 90's. If memory serves, I think I also got a game called Joe Montana Sports Talk Football that Christmakkah, mostly because it was dirt cheap and my mom loved bargains. It's most innovative feature was the announcer who talked while you were playing! For the early 90s, it was pretty impressive...but I still liked Tecmo Bowl more. I expected the Genesis to replace the NES but it wasn't happening. 

Then...March of 1993 rolled around and X-Men came out. At this point, I had just started getting into comic books and was steadily becoming a huge fan. When I heard about this game and saw the graphics, I was sold. I scraped together every bit of birthday money I got to pick this game up.

Seriously, going from the NES graphics to this was a vast improvement.

When I put the game in that first time, I was instantly blown away. A staple of the Genesis' superiority over the NES was the graphics capability, Sega producing a 16 bit system vs Nintendo's 8 bit innovator. All of the X-Men looked awesome. The cut scenes were right out of the comics and an often overlooked feature —the soundtrack —was awesome. Seriously, give it a listen when you get a chance. This game was the tipping point in my conversion to Sega.

The game had an interesting design aspect in that it wasn't just "pick a character for each level and have at it." You got to choose from one of 4 playable X-Men: Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Gambit. However, you didn't have to stick with this character for the entire level, you could tag out if you felt the need. Your fight against most of the X-Men's rogues gallery was not a solo venture. You had assist characters in the form of Storm, Jean Gray, Iceman, Rogue and Archangel, each with their own benefits and strengths.

The main playable characters on the left (with some special appearances by Sabretooth and Apocalypse) and the support team on the right.

What ended up being a knock on the game (which I didn't get, personally), is that the game was too hard. It was difficult...but shouldn't it be? You're one of the X-Men! This isn't something that everyone can pull off, you gotta earn that title! Have some self-respect!

It did have a unique twist in the Mojo level that befuddled many a child (myself included). At the end of the level, Professor X informs you that you have to "reset" the Danger Room computer. How the heck do I do that? I'm trying to get my character in-game to reset the computer, but there's no computer!!!! HOW THE HECK DO I DO THIS??? Turns out, after making a non-sanctioned 1-900 Sega help line call, I learned that you had to literally hit reset on the friggin' Sega. This was next level, breaking the 4th wall sort of non-sense, how was any kid supposed to figure that out? Hit the reset button... BUT NOT TOO HARD!!!! You had to lightly tap the button or you were going to actually reset the whole darn game. It was both innovative and asinine at the same time. Asin-vative...Inno-nine...I'll get back to you on that one.

For all you younger folk reading this, you're probably thinking "why didn't you use gamefaqs.com and just find the cheats?" THE INTERNET DIDN'T EXIST YET!!! Well...it kinda did, but it was a barren waste land or glittery Geocities sites and AOL profiles. In the early 90s, we had this secret network of spies that were like the rebels from Rogue One,  stealing secret data plans from Sega to find a weakness to the insanely difficult X-Men game. They eventually came through and found one about a year after the game's release. A moment of silence for these brave rebels lost recess privleges to bring us this information.

"GET BACK HERE WITH THAT KONAMI CODE YOU REBEL SCUM!!"

The code that came out gave you the ability to regain health to max for all of your mutants just by hitting the start button (I know, Wolverine could have done this on his own but he could still die in the game if you weren't careful). This made the game beatable. I almost wonder if Sega released this code themselves as kids around the world were rage-quitting on X-Men.. 

Has this game aged well? No. The gameplay can be annoying (without the cheat code especially) and there have been other X-Men games that have come out since that make this one look like an inferior prototype (such as the Sega sequel X-Men 2: Clone Wars and the Super Nintendo version). In the end though, X-Men was the first video game to give Charles Xavier's mutant students a decent showing. It's unique gameplay and challenging nature made it worth your time and felt like an achievement when you beat it (even if you had to cheat to do it). X-Men made me become a full-time Sega kid and I never looked back at my NES...until I was in my 30s and wanted one of those NES minis. Damned Nostalgia, costing me money again!

Stay tuned to GGR as we have more of our "All-Time Faves" for video games in the month of April.