X-Men Video Game History

System: NES

Release: 1989

X Marks The: Firsties

The X-Men video game history begins on the NES, with the aptly-titled X-Men. The game marked the first time Marvel's mutants had shown up in a pixelated format in most of our living rooms. But don't let nostalgia fool you. To say X-Men doesn't hold up is an understatement. 

It is an insanely broken game that drove us crazy as kids and made our parents question their sanity at putting their children through the comic book equivalent of a no-win situation. Aside from a top-down view of the action, Uncanny X-Men became famous around schoolyards (or "precursor to Reddit") for the fact that you were boned if you went the game without a second player and if you chose the wrong character for a level, you would die constantly without ever receiving a hint that maybe Wolverine would be better on the "Future City Street Fight" instead of Iceman. Another highlight came after every boss battle, you'd have to race back to the start of the level before a bomb blew up. Who was leaving the bombs and why they only activated after defeating members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was a question left for another game.

Still, Uncanny has a spot in our hearts for being the first game. It's just we've since paved over that spot and try to just remember the good times instead of the same maddening frustration that we found with Mega Man games.

System: Sega Genesis 

Release: 1993

X Marks The: Graphics!

Nintendo had Mario, Paperboy and the hours of fun that Duck Hunt could provide. Sega, however, had the graphics and power that only a 16-bit system could provide during the early 90s. The plot here involved a virus turning off the safety protocols in the Danger Room and left you (as either Wolverine, Cyclops, Gambit or Nightcrawler) to fend for yourself through spots like Mojo World or the Savage Land. After each level, you'd come back to the Danger Room, hit a bunch of orbs to refill your Mutant Power bar and go back to platforming.

The only downside here, difficulty withstanding, was what can only be described as a novelty trick worthy of Hideo Kojima. In order to restart the Danger Room once the virus had been purged, players had no prompt on screen except a countdown clock. You were supposed to gently press your Genesis' restart button and the game would recognize that. A majority of people had no idea this was even an option and routinely assumed the game was broken or, if you were a player of the NES game, the no-win scenario returned to punish you across another system.

System: Arcade, Playstation, Sega Saturn

Release: 1994

X Marks The: Street Fighter!

In the age of comic book fighting games (of which X-Men characters can be found in ten) this marked the first Mutant-centric fighting game built off of a similar build from Capcom's other franchise-at-the-time, Darkstalkers. (Weirdly enough, a lot of the character sprites' evolution can be traced from the SNES Mutant Apocalypse game, which is right below us).   

It was standard fare for the time, but it can be hard to remember how rare decent fighting games were in the 90s when Street Fighter reigned supreme and everyone only knew how to play nerfed Shotokan. It would pave the way for future Marvel-themed fighting games, including Marvel Vs. Capcom, and undoubtedly convince other companies that they should do whatever they can to get a piece of that pie (e.g. DC Universe vs. Mortal Kombat) without understanding what makes this game so fun.    

 

System: SNES, Gameboy, Genesis

Release: 1992

X Marks The: Crossover

It's weird to leap back and forth between consoles and arcade platforms, but totally worth it thanks to the first in-game crossover that Spider-Man/X-Men brought us. Switching between Spidey and different stages (Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, Cyclops) we'd go from chase sequences to infuriating water levels that provided just the right flashback to all those Sonic the Hedgehog ticks.

From giant spinning wheels to collecting ruby quartz crystals to power up your optic blasts, Arcade's Revenge could be seen as a generic platformer. It should be seen as the first step in mixing the Marvel Universe one bit at a time.