The Best and Worst X-Men Video Games of All Time
The X-Men may be one of the biggest superhero franchises in the world, but these mutant freedom fighters haven’t always had the best track record when it comes to video games. X-fans the world over are still feeling the sting of the massive disappointment that was 2011’s X-Men: Destiny. But that’s not to say there haven’t been some truly excellent Marvel games over the years that have prominently featured Marvel’s merry mutants. And with Hugh Jackman’s Logan finally making his MCU debut in Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s no better time to celebrate that gaming legacy.
From early winners like X-Men: The Arcade Game and X-Men: Children of the Atom to the fan-favorite X-Men Legends series, here’s a look back at the X-Men games that have captured what we love about these colorful yet tragic heroes.
By the beginning of the 1980s, the X-Men had risen from forgotten C-List Marvel team to arguably the biggest franchise in comics. Heroes like Wolverine, Storm and Cyclops became as recognizable to comics fans as Batman and Spider-Man. But despite this explosive growth, Marvel was surprisingly slow to capitalize on the X-Men’s newfound popularity outside the comics themselves. Only at the end of the decade did the X-Men begin dipping their toes into the gaming waters.
1989’s Uncanny X-Men for the NES has the distinction of being the very first X-Men game… and not much else. The game allowed players to take control of a wide variety of mutant heroes in a top-down action-adventure setting. However, it proved to be punishingly difficult, to say nothing of the fact that the final level is only accessible by a secret code. Uncanny X-Men is often lumped in among the worst NES games of all time. Not an auspicious start for the X-Men’s gaming career.
1991’s Wolverine wasn’t much better. That game proved to be a somewhat more traditional side-scroller, pitting Logan against his nemeses Sabretooth and Magneto. But any game that revolves around Logan scarfing down hamburgers to unsheathe his
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