Controlling your team of mutants is a fairly easy task. Despite
the PSP having fewer buttons, the controls feel just as solid as they
did on the Xbox and PS2. They had to make a few changes to get
everything to work, but you'll barely notice what was sacrificed.
Perhaps the biggest change is that we no longer have control over the
camera, which might sound like something you need but it's not.
With only a few exceptions, the camera does an excellent job of staying
on the action at all times. Switching characters is a breeze and
you will never have trouble using health or other items as they have
been mapped to the D-pad. It may seem odd to use the analog nub
to move around, but once you get into it you'll be slicing through
baddies like a pro.
The game does have some problem keeping everything running smooth,
though. From time to time the game will slow down to a crawl,
giving it a poor-man's bullet time effect. Also, the game will
just stop to let the UMD load, usually when you've just come out of the
menu (or after the system has sat untouched for too long).
Thankfully these problems don't happen that frequently, but it's
noticeable … and sometimes kind of annoying.
Like its console counterpart, X-Men Legends 2 has a lot of load
time. It's never as pronounced as the PlayStation 2 version, but
you will definitely be looking at a loading screen more than you would
like. At first it will seem odd that it takes a couple seconds to
pause the game or go into any menu, but before too long it just becomes
part of the overall experience. I can't say I ever accepted the
loading, but considering that the console versions were plagued with
much the same problem, I can't say I'm surprised to see it here.
While I'm on the topic of the game's inadequacies, the biggest problem
with X-Men Legends 2 has to be its disturbingly confusing menu
system. Let's not lose sight that we're talking about a
role-playing game, the type of product you would usually spend a lot of
time micro-managing. But sifting through the various menus in
this game is a real hassle, partially due to the fact that it seems
like there's no rhyme or reason to the order. Everything just
seems thrown up with no organization or anything, it's extremely
frustrating. Before too long I found myself just wanting the
computer to do everything for me (which is actually an option).
If you spend enough time working on your characters you can eventually
turn them into almost anything you want, but I wouldn't be surprised if
most gamers just decide not to deal with it at all.
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