X-Men Legends

The detail that gives X-Men Legends its personality is the Danger Room, and not for the reason you might expect. It is a training sandbox, yes, but it is also where the game quietly admits what it really is: a character-collecting machine. Raven Software built a roster-driven action RPG on the Dark Alliance template, and the fun lies in swapping Wolverine for Storm or Iceman and watching the fights change shape.

The structure is straightforward. You lead a squad of four, each with a handful of powers that unlock as the character levels up, and you fight through linear missions broken up by a mansion hub where you talk to teammates, adjust equipment and take on side tasks. The best idea is the team attack, where two or more heroes combine powers into a single flashy move. It rewards you for thinking about pairings rather than simply picking favorites, and it gives a mob of Sentinels or Brotherhood goons something more interesting to fear than button mashing.

The story pulls from the comics without being precious about it. Magneto, Mystique and the usual rogues turn up, and the plot, built around a new recruit, Allison Kenney, serves mostly as a reason to travel. It is serviceable. The voice cast and the Marvel veneer do more work than the writing does.

Played now, the weaknesses are easy to spot. Camera angles are fixed and sometimes unhelpful, environments repeat, and a lot of the combat is crowd control with a limited sense of impact. Loot and stat management is thin compared with the games it borrows from. Solo, it can drag in the middle stretch.

With a friend on the couch, though, it sharpens considerably. Drop-in cooperative play lets two people cover each other's weak spots, and the team attacks become something you plan aloud. That is the version worth remembering, a licensed game that understood the appeal of a superhero team was never one hero, but the way several of them fit together.