Brain Junkfood: X-Men: Destiny

As a comic book fan, it is very hard for me to say this: I have not read a good mainstream comic in years. Between Spider-Man making deals with the devil to Batman creating a personality for the "inevitable" day that he got dosed with weapons grade meth by his dead father, I have been pretty much jaded. That's not getting into Todd McFarlane's "Rip-Off-O-Rama" that is Spawn and Haunt, who are totally not the Darkness and Spider-Man at all.

Bizarrely, I have been liking the games made with these characters. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Shattered Dimensions were both a lot of fun, and Arkham Asylum is a classic. But, an X-Men game hasn't been made since the X-Men: Legends series. Here comes X-Men: Destiny to save the day. Did I say save? I meant ruin, much like a sudden arrival of Leroy Jenkins.

You play as one of three mutants who find out they have powers at a mutant/human peace rally/ love-in. Adrian is a human militant who finds out he has mutant powers. Grant in a football player who does the same. Aimi is a Japanese immigrant who, well... you get the idea. What's weird is that she knew that she was a mutant according to her back story, but she acts like she never knew until the game begins. You can choose your own powers, ranging from Density Control, Energy Projection, and Shadow Matter. In layman's terms, this means, "Turn into a rock, shoot balls of pain, and teleport and use imaginary weapons." The story plays out the same no matter which character you use, but with slightly different interactions.

For example, Grant hits on Emma Frost (who is an X-Man, for some reason) every five seconds, where Adrian back talks every mutant in a feeble attempt to seem tough. You do get to choose which side of the battle you want to be on, be it X-Men or Brotherhood of Mutants. You get to make this choice three times, as if the game thinks that the player is too stupid to remember which side they're playing. This is especially an insult to one's intelligence seeing as the game is four-hours long. If you can't remember a choice you made half an hour ago, this game will remind you that you're an idiot.

The plot isn't X-Men vs Brotherhood, though. Cyclops, taking over after Xavier's death by Bastion. He helps make peace with humans with the help of Luis Reyes, politician and leader of the MRD. "Magneto" attacks the rally, causing the two mutant factions to order you around, and point fingers at each other.

Yes, you, the mutant who just found out about your powers, is the go to guy for a possible outbreak of war. Instead of them fighting each other, they tell you what to do. Emma Frost guides you in the tutorial, with the last tip being how to smash through the floor. Her advice: "This should be an easy smash through for you!" They are a "Welcome to die!" short of a classic, here, but luckily, I haven't "fell to their trap."

As you meet up with mutants, you eventually find that the MRD is creating alliances with human militants and a group called the "U-Men" who can steal mutant powers and absorb them, and supplying them with Sentinel technology. This, of course, means that Reyes is the bad guy, but he's under the influence of Bastion. As far as bad guys go, Reyes is the dumbest. He makes robots, including a robot suit for himself, that Bastion can upload his personality into. He thinks, though, that he brainwashed Bastion so he can get human/mutant peace.

You read this right. He was working on creating peace, so he teams up with a killer robot to create said peace by starting a mutant war so he can have human/mutant peace, despite standing on the brink of having that peace. He ruins his own plan two create a war for peace. This isn't the only dumb thing he does, either. He makes a robot suit based on Bastion's design, and give Bastion a code to "spread his influence" all over the world. This means, Bastion designed a suit, with a download code to input it's "personality" into. Reyes gave Bastion exactly what he wanted, thinking that Bastion would help him out.

Oh, wait, there's more! Reyes knows that Bastion is evil, but thinks he brainwashed him. He thinks he brainwashed a machine. He didn't reprogram it, he brainwashed it. This is why he felt comfortable using a robot suit that Bastion designed. It doesn't explain the stupidity of his plan. Starting a war for peace that was just about to be achieved is about as dumb as writing a book about why you shouldn't read.

Reyes isn't the only one who does stupid things, either. Towards the end of the game, Magneto tells Cyclops that he will kill all of the X-Men. 20 minutes later, Magneto and Cyclops are working together on how to stop Bastion. Then again, writing an actual branching story line may have been too much work. All of the missions are the same, only changing the characters that help you in the mission. At one point, Juggernaut helps you out, and scolds you. When you tell him that you need to find the trail of a mutant before it gets cold, he starts talking about a rotting corpse, then says, "Bummer! Gotta go!" I almost miss, "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!"

I know this is a little new for a Brain Junkfood, but it couldn't wait. This is the most nonsense game I've played in a while. This is including a game that took away my arms (looking at you, Dead Island)! How do you screw up X-Men like this? How hard is it to write a villain with actual motives? I'll tell you what, next time, we'll talk about a game with a villain with a seemingly dumb motive, but a better overall plan than Reyes. Can't be too hard, right? I just got to put on my trench coat and cowboy hat, and see that things get a little Bloody.