| | Building Your Super Team
X-Men™ Legends is a big game, with more than 20 hours of gameplay and more than a dozen of Marvel Comics' most popular and enduring heroes at your command. Each new mission will test your team's combat skills to the limit, so it's up to you to make sure they've got the experience they need. For each new adventure, the first and most important decision you make is which X-Men will be on your four-person squad.
Classic Wolverine.
And There Were Four …
Since you only have four slots, you want to make sure your team has the widest possible spread of attacks and abilities. Most of the enemies in the game are resistant to one type of attack or another. Sentinels, for example, are machines and thus resistant to mental attacks, and the Blob's well-cushioned body resists physical attacks. Always field a team that can answer any resistant enemy they might meet.
The most basic kind of damage is physical—the good old-fashioned beat-down your X-Men hand out through punches, kicks, and throws. Powerhouses like Wolverine, Colossus, and Beast also hand out major doses of physical pain with their mutant attacks. Your team will face low and medium level grunts in every level of the game, and when the screen is crowded with foes, there's really no substitute for a heavy hitter.
Spot Number One: The Leader
My first choice is always going to be Wolverine because he has the overwhelming offense (Brutal Slash, Claw Flurry, and Feral Rage are all pure dynamite to start and become even more powerful) backed up by a powerful defense (his healing factor). Just like his comic book counterpart, Wolverine can wade into the thick of combat over and over again, withdrawing only momentarily to regenerate his health bar. In all-out sustained combat, the Canuck cannot be beat. 
Stormy weather.
Spot Number Two: The Combo Booster
Team combat is built around your team combining its efforts against a single foe. Such combos produce more damage and deliver more experience points on their own, but they pack even more punch with a leader on board. X-Men like Storm and Cyclops can add up to 125-percent extra damage to a combo when fully leveled up, with an extra 25-percent experience points. I prefer to use Storm because she can fly, which makes scouting and reaching remote areas a snap. She also has Whirlwind and Chain Lightning mutant powers, which are absolutely awesome. Storm can enhance herself so that her melee attacks deliver energy damage as well as physical damage, giving her even more ways to take down the opposition.
Spot Number Three: The Multipurpose Mutant
The third slot should go to a strong multipurpose character like Iceman, Magma, or Gambit. These mutant superheroes have solid ranged attacks and the ability to beef themselves up for hand-to-hand roughhousing. Any additional mutant abilities they bring (like bridging gaps or welding) are gravy. This slot should primarily belong to a character you're comfortable leaving to the A.I.'s control in combat. 
Don't mess with Red.
Spot Number Three: The Specialist
The final squad member should be your specialist. In other words, choose a character with a unique or unusual ability. Jubilee is not the best fighter against bosses, even at her higher levels, but her Photo Flash attack can temporarily blind and confuse a whole screen full of enemies. Rogue's ability to steal powers from others can be used not only to make her strong, but also to make her enemy weak. This is the slot for exploring some of the characters you're less familiar with or have been ignoring because their powers don't seem as effective.
Until I have an idea of what I'm facing, I like to go with Jean Grey. She's no slouch in combat with her Psychic Shout. Her Telekinetic Shield can blunt the strongest enemy attacks, and she can fly. The real reason she's on my team, however, is because I love using her Telekinesis. Seizing an enemy does some damage, but once you've got 'em in your mental grip, you can bounce them around the room like a racquetball for even more punishment. Jean's a strong character all around, but moving stuff with your mind just never gets old.
Customizing your team of mutant heroes is one of the best parts ofX-Men: Legends, and you'll develop your own strategies along the way, based on the teams you create, train, and evolve. The more you know about the characters and their abilities, the stronger your strike teams will be.
By Pete Hutter |
