What Common Sense Media says about X-Men: Destiny

Common Sense Media Says: OK for kids 12+

Moral choice aspect is overshadowed by lots of brawling.

What Parents need to know

Parents need to know that X-Men: Destiny is basically a fighting game in which you play a young superpowered mutant who can choose to either join up with the heroic X-Men or the villainous Brotherhood of Mutants in a fight against anti-mutant forces. Choosing to be a good guy or bad guy can alter your experience a bit, but there aren't really any hard lessons learned by choosing the less noble path. The game contains a whole lot of superhero fantasy combat and some sexual innuendo.

Families can talk about the moral ramifications of the choices you can make in the game. If you choose to follow the route of the Brotherhood of Mutants, do you think two wrongs make a right? Do you believe there are times when the end truly justifies the means?
In what ways does choosing the X-Men's route feel like a better moral choice?
What is it about superheroes games that make them so much fun to play?

Educational value:Meant to entertain rather than educate.

Positive messages:You need to make moral choices in the game, either by joining the X-Men (who have purer motives to their actions) or Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants (who work through a law-ignoring fight-fire-with-fire point of view). You can win either way, though, so the message presented by the game is mixed.

Positive role models:The X-Men team members you run into will talk about following laws, maintaining honor, and taking the more noble route (though they still engage in violence whenever the opportunity pops up). The members of the Brotherhood, who can also be your teammates (depending on the choices you make), espouse a more violent, far less forgiving ideology.

Ease of play:Gameplay is relatively easy. Multiple difficulty levels allow you to customize your experience quite a bit, but newcomers should be able to get through the full game on the easiest setting.

Violence:Through melee combat and energy blasting superpowers, you will fight your way through hundreds of enemies. While the enemies you defeat don't necessarily appear to die, there are tons of explosions and other destructive attacks from which survival seems a rather slim chance.

Sex:Some female characters wear skimpy outfits, bearing midriffs and cleavage. There's some sexual innuendo in a moment of dialogue where a character talks about wanting a "chick with super flexibility."

Language:Words such as "hell," "damn," and "ass" appear in the dialogue.

Consumerism:The game is a tie-in to Marvel's popular X-Men franchise, which includes comics, movies, cartoons, toys, and many other video games.

Drinking, drugs, & smoking:Not applicable.

Privacy & safety:Not applicable.

What's the story?

In X-MEN: DESTINY, you play as one of three young people who has just developed a superhuman mutant power. At the funeral of X-Men founder, Professor X, there is an attack by a militant anti-mutant group, the Purifiers. Two different factions, the noble X-Men and the belligerent Brotherhood of Mutants, battle against the purists -- but each with very different tactics. You have to choose which path to follow and which team to join.

Is it any good?

The storyline of X-Men: Destiny is interesting in that it lets you play as an original never-before-seen character, but allows you to interact with a slew of both popular and lesser-known characters from the X-Men universe. The course you choose doesn't alter the missions much at all, but will affect which other superheroes and villains you get to see and which new powers you can develop. There's a nice RPG aspect to the game that allows you to add new powers, suits, and equipment to customize your hero. But the story is basically linear with no real room for exploring. A little variety would have gone a long way here, since the majority of the game consists of brawling your way through large masses of enemies (which can grow tiresome after a while). At the same time, the simplicity of it all makes this a very nice entry point for newcomers to action gaming.