My attitude going into X2 Wolverine's Revenge wasn't exactly what you'd consider positive. I blame it on that reoccurring dream I keep having...you know, the one where I'm bound and tied to a chair, and forced to sit down and play every officially licensed game that was ever released in the early/mid 1990's. I'm happy to report that with the help of developer - Vicarious Visions and publisher, Activision - X2 breaks the mold notoriously set by the abundance of shovel-ware licensed titles, and delivers a great addition to the GBA's 2-D side scrolling library. Lets have a look at the game, shall we?

X2's storyline is hit or miss in most cases, and you'll more than likely find yourself skipping over the games storytelling intermissions in order to get back to the action. From what I could tell, Magneto is trying to develop his own Mutant X laboratory to create his own team of powerful mutants and he's held Jean Grey captive for testing purposes. It's Wolverine's job to put an end to the madness and retrieve Jean before she's transformed into the Phoenix. It's nothing really epic, but it does get the job done in an acceptable, comic book like fashion.

Gameplay is where X2 really begins to shine, and although it doesn't bring anything new to the table as far as design is concerned, you'll quickly realize that gameplay mechanics are extremely solid. Wolverine can pull out his trademark claws plus retract them at will, thus you're able to engage in hand to hand combat, or use those admantium things to make grated cheese out of your foes. You'll see two bars in the upper left-hand corner of the gameplay screen, the top being your life gauge, and the bottom being your rage meter. In X2, Wolverine has the ability to heal himself when he doesn't have his claws extended, you'll see your health meter slowly creep back up to full strength. When you decide to attack with your claws in a repeated fashion, the rage meter begins to rise, and once it climaxes, the wolfster goes into berserker mode. In berserker mode, your attack power is increased, and your attack range is substantially increased as well. The thing is, once you're in berserker mode, you cannot retract your claws, henceforth rendering your healing ability useless for a few seconds. Although you'll rarely encounter a situation to where said is the matter between life and death, it does happen, therefore adding a few strategic elements to the fray.

As you progress further into the game, Wolverine learns new abilities and moves that are essential to success. Abilities such as crouch dashing, climbing walls, and double jumping are all things that are eventually migrated into regular use. Wall climbing coupled with the double jump have to be my two favorite abilities in X2, as you actually get a sense of being a superhero when you're scaling large obstacles so swiftly and effortlessly. Vicarious Visions even tried to add stealth elements to the game by including a stealth kill ability, coupled with levels that encourage sneaking up on enemies. The main problem with this is that the screen size is too small, and the camera doesn't zoom out far enough in order to witness enemy positioning. Add to the fact that the game plays on a 2D plane, and you come up with an idea that simply doesn't pan out like it needs to be. Besides a few minor gripes with the stealth idea though, I think any fan of the genre, especially old-school gamers, will be quite satisfied with the variety of elements involved with this title.

Artistically speaking, X2 is one of the better-looking GBA games currently on the market. The animation is without a doubt the standout point with regard to visuals. Each character involved has been given multiple frames of animation to make their actions look both life-like and believable. Since the realistic quality of the console versions would be impossible to emulate on the small screen, the developers opted instead for a colorful comic book like approach. While I was a little skeptical at first, the look ultimately works because each of the 8 environments are so different from one another. You won't get bored looking at the same old landscapes time and time again because of the amount of variety.

While X2 shaped up to be a solid title for the GBA, that doesn't mean that it's totally devoid from any problems. The main issue that I noticed is the difficulty level, or lack thereof in the beginning. The only levels available from the start of things are easy and normal mode, and both proved to be pushovers as I knocked out the game in just over an hour. Secondly, the boss battles require little strategy when it comes to defeating them. I found myself simply charging up until I was in berserker mode, and mashing away at the attack button until the boss was dead.

Even with said problems though, X2: Wolverine's Revenge still amounts to a solid purchase, for any fan of the X Men series, or anyone who seeks a top-of-the-line side-scroller for their Game Boy Advance. There's plenty of replay value that stems from the fact that it's just so well designed, along with added bonuses such as unlockable danger rooms, and additional abilities. If you're seesawing the idea of whether or not to purchase this game, let me give you a little help. Buy, you're not going to regret it.