>So… I’m taking a page from Jon’s playbook this week and have decided to talk about an awesome arcade game from Marvel’s past. Today, I bring you a tale about a 6-player arcade cabinet… A game so awesome, that when played on the 6-player cabinet, your position dictated which character you were. The game? X-Men Arcade. Yes, Konami’s 1992 Beat-em-up staring the primary X-Men of the failed 1989 cartoon pilot, Pryde of the X-Men. This game featured the awesome team of Cyclops (Prepare yourself to learn more about this guy in a few days), Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Dazzler… Yes, Dazzler. And let me tell you, when you did have the fortune to play with 5 other people, no one wanted to be Dazzler. Anyway, the basis of the game was that Magneto, the master of magnetism, kidnaps Professor X and Kitty Pryde and takes them away to Asteroid M. You’re job, as the X-Men, is to get them back while defeating members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. This take on the Brotherhood was made with these characters on the roster: Blob, Wendigo, Pyro, Nimrod, Emma Frost, Juggernaut, Mystique, and of course, Magneto.

So why am I talking about this? Well, while the game was pretty fun back in the day, there are certain elements of this game that just crack me up now-a-days. Primarily, the voice clips for the characters. For example, if you happen to fall off of a stage, your character lets out an awful scream. A friend of mine recently recorded Colossus’ death scream for use as a ring tone. But the screams are nothing when compared to the villains’ dialogue. Whether it’s Wendigo’s constant shouting of “WENDIGO,” or Nimrod’s death or if it’s just Magneto talking period. All of these are very great things. But what about the gameplay? Well, it pretty much consisted of beating up human sized Sentinels until you got to the boss of a given level. Each member of the X-Men could use their special ability to cause massive damage, however, it was at the cost of some of their life bar. Wolverine shot out some sort of claw laser, Cyclops sent out a mini optic blast, Dazzler exploded the floor (yep), Storm shot out a massive tornado, Nighcrawler Bamf’d around the stage killing things, and Colossus screamed loudly and transformed violently from steel-to-human-to-steel again. Awesome. I had a lot of good times with this game, and I hope that if you should ever find yourself near a working X-Men Arcade cabinet, pop a quarter in and witness the magic of the game. And if you’re wondering why the title of this blog is called, “X-CHICKEN!”, look no further than this video.

-Fleet

---

Both comments and pings are currently closed.