X-Men: Legends - Game Guide - The Gamers Temple

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[1.1] Game Review
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X-Men Legends is an action role-playing game in the mold of Diablo, Dungeon 
Siege or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. The primary "role-playing" aspect of 
the game is controlling your characters' increase in power--a process 
called "leveling"--and the occasional non-action stage, where your main 
purpose is to hunt down other characters and chat with them.

Primarily, your task is to kill people and break things; and, since your 
characters are fifteen of the uncanny X-Men, you can do this very well. For 
fans of the action/RPG genre, this is a good game. For fans of the X-Men, 
this is a good game. For fans of both the action/RPG genre and the X-Men, 
this is...well, your geek dreams have come true.

The gameplay is smooth, combat controls are mostly intuitive, and the game 
is very linear, so you don't really have to put much thought into it beyond 
"X-Men Smash!" The story involves an ongoing fight between the X-Men and 
two opposing groups: The Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Magneto; and the 
Genetic Research and Security Organization (GRSO), led by General Kincaid. 
Throw in some of the supreme anti-mutant robots known as Sentinels and you 
have the recipe for rock-'em, sock-'em fun.

Some people have been put off by the fact the characters in the game are 
somewhat clumsily rendered using a cel-shaded technique, rather than being 
full, 3-dimensional polygonal figures. You will get used to it, and it does 
help the characters pop off the screen. Considering how chaotic many of the 
fights become, this is a good thing.

Controlling the X-Men's leveling is also a nice feature; but, a lot less 
useful than one would think. Each X-Man has a strength, and, for the most 
part, trying to make the X-Man anything else ranges from hard to 
impossible. For example, Wolverine, Beast and Rogue will never be anything 
other than hand-to-hand fighters and you can't make them into ranged 
fighters. Cyclops can be a hand-to-hand fighter if you level him that way; 
however, he will be an incredibly bad melee fighter, so why bother?

In the end, most of the X-Men end up being basically the same regardless 
how many times you play through. This does limit the replay value of the 
game; but, it is so much fun the first time (or two) through, it is 
definitely a worthwhile purchase.


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[1.2] Glossary
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A few terms used in this guide with which you may not be familiar...

Boss
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"Boss" enemies are the super-powerful opponents you face at different 
stages of the game. Typically you will see references to a "mini-boss", 
this is a slightly weaker foe you fight midway through a mission. A "boss" 
is the foe you meet at the end of a mission. The "end boss" is the wickedly 
powerful bad guy you have to defeat to end the game.

Buff, buffing, insta-buff
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A "buff" in game lingo is an increase in a character's powers. For the X-
Men, this may be an increase in ability scores or damage from attacks. An 
"insta-buff" is an increase in the team's powers that can be easily and 
immediately applied. For example, Cyclops' Command power increases the 
Strike and Agility scores of the entire team as soon as it is used, thus is 
can be described as an "insta-buff".

Critical hit
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A critical hit (or, sometimes just "critical" or "crit") is an attack that 
strikes a "sensitive" area and does more damage. In X-Men Legends, 
criticals do three times as much damage as a normal attack. E.g. if your 
normal attack averages 30 points damage, a crit will do 90 points damage.

Mob
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While this term originally referred to groups of enemies, it has evolved to 
refer to any enemy--even singular foes.

Spam
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In this context, "spam" refers to repetitive action. For example, to "spam 
the L button" means repeatedly press the L (Call Team) button. Or, "spam 
Lightning" means use Storm's Lightning power over and over and over and 
over...You get the point.

Tank
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A hand-to-hand fighter that can take a lot of damage and dish out even more 
damage. Colossus, Rogue, Beast and Wolverine are all examples of "tanks".