Infinity9999x said:
I really like these ideas. So would your game be basically more of an RPG? And would the fights be like in X-men Legends? (I still have yet to play that I've kind of drifted away from video games over the past year
)
Or would the fights be more turn based like the Final Fantasy series? I ask this because I'm wondering how much strategy you would want in the game. I myself like the more strategic formats, but I also like it when it's combined to make the fighting more animated, like in Kingdom Hearts.
The fights would be almost
nothing like in the 'X-Men Legends' games. It would also definitely not be turn-based. The Role-Playing Game elements have to do with what you're allowed to do in between missions and in terms of story structure, not the layout or format of the environment or battle mechanics. I realize this is hard to visualize and that I'm probably not explaining it clearly enough, but I'll give it a shot.
The format of the game would be Third-Person Action/Adventure. It's basically a cross between the Spider-Man movie games and the Splinter Cell games, in that the camera follows behind the character (although you can rotate it around), and there's an interaction menu that corresponds to the ideally fully-interactive, detailed environements. The character would appear on the screen bigger than Spider-Man in those games, more like the size of Sam Fisher in 'Splinter Cell.'
My current working concept is that it's a one-player game, since several of the techniques used by the X-Men would require Super Slow Motion Mode (it's kind of like the "Bond-Sense" from '007: Everything or Nothing'), especially with Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler has always, always, always been shortchanged in video games, since you can never utilize the full extent of his teleportation power.
Similarly to 'X-Men Legends,' you can switch which character you're controlling. It's more like the 'Rainbow Six' games, in that you'll have to pause the game to switch (at least I think that's how it happened... I haven't played that in a long time, and I gave up after just a few weeks of trying to get it right... face it, I suck at those games), but don't worry; unlike 'Rainbow Six,' this sure as hell wouldn't be a First-Person Shooter. You'd have several X-Men in the field at a time to switch between unless it's a solo mission or segment from continuity.
This game series is supposed to allow each X-Man to use the full range of his or her powers (this disregards almost all recent changes and "secondary mutations," as this is about the classic X-Men and not about Grant Morrison's ego). Unlike 'X-Men Legends,' it would not fabricate new, fake powers for the purpose of giving everyone an equal number of powers (ex, Cyclops doesn't have a "radiation beam" or a beam that shoots out in three different directions, or any other of that crap).
Also unlike that game, whatever "leveling up" there is is much more realistic to the characters. Wolverine's healing factor is the same in the beginning of the second movie game as it is in the end of that game, as is his fighting prowess, strength, etc. Colossus does not get more durable or strong in the course of the game. Well, actually, he might, since he's never been tested on his strength before he became an X-Man, so there may be some leveling up there, but not in miniscule increments, and only after specific Danger Room trials. Hell, it'll probably just be a mini-game where the player taps the buttons frantically to lift some enormous weight or something. Everything you do that a couple times for each benchmark, you can do it on the missions as well. It's different for every X-Man. Nightcrawler probably isn't going to get any more agile, but his teleportation powers will increase with tutelage from the Professor, guidance from Cyclops and lots of practice, in the Danger Room and in the field. Those are some examples.
All of the original X-Men did their leveling up in the first movie game, and just like the second game and those after, it's done in a realistic fashion, relative to the world of the X-Men. Cyclops' power beam becomes increasingly more powerful in that game, as does Angel's flying speed, Beast's strength, and both Marvel Girl's and Iceman's respective magnitudes of power and range of feats.
On top of that, there are specific skills that various X-Men must learn, which I'll describe later in this post. The original X-Men learn all their basic skills in the first game, and then more advanced and different skills in the second.
The environments in general are supposed to be mostly fully-destructible in these games (after all, one of the trademarks of the X-Men is that you can usually tell where they've been). I don't know if anyone here has played 'Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction', but I want to say that the "fully-destructible" of that game and the "fully-destructible" of these games shouldn't be the same. In 'Mercenaries,' you fire rockets or grenades or air strikes or whatever at the buildings, and after a certain amount of hits, the whole thing crumbles. Uh uh. That's stupid and unrealistic. I want environenments that you can smash up piece by piece. Now, don't misunderstand, I'm not saying a big part of the game would be purposeful, mass destruction like in 'Mercenaries' and the last Hulk game (you do not get points for trashing property in my X-Men games, because that would be stupid), but I'm saying that during battles, supervillains can destroy things in relatively realistic ways, and the X-Men can, too, either as a deliberate tactic (ex. making an evacuated overpass arch collapse and fall on a Sentinel; knocking down a statue and throwing it at a Sentinel or super-strong villain; etc.) or by mistake. Reckless or deliberate, unnecessary destruction, for its own sake or by gross negligence, will be punished, however. The offending X-Man could be suspended or expelled, meaning you can't use it for a time or at all (you'd have to restart to use an expelled character, and try not screw up like that again).
The environments that really, really shouldn't be slashed up or smashed up are protected by the restraints put on the characters by the game. For example, if you try to make Wolverine slice up Cyclops' room because you think that's funny-- and you know you do, you scamp-- the attack functions simply won't work if you're close enough to actually do damage; the same would happen anywhere else in the house but a designated training area, unless some enemy invades and you have to fight within the X-Mansion. The same applies to spacecraft (I would plan on having the very first part of the Phoenix Saga from the comics-- where Sentinels attack the X-Men in the city, abduct Professor X, Banshee, Wolverine and Jean, they all end up on the moon fighting Stephen Lang's Sentinels, and they have to fly back to Earth through a deadly solar radiation storm with no way to steer, thus leaving Jean Grey the pilot who gets essentially nuked-- in the movie game, even if it's not in the movie), Cassidy Keep (Banshee's castle) before Black Tom and Juggernaut attack, and other areas and things you shouldn't bust up without a good reason. The same applies to most civilians, especially if the X-Man you're controlling at any given point is in civvies (that's another way in which it's like an RPG-- you get to play the X-Men during "down time," going shopping and on dates and so forth).
The thing that I thought was a nice touch is that certain characters can teach other's abilities. But also, once other characters learn that ability from the character who teaches it, would all those characters be equally as good as the teacher, or would the teacher still be slightly better? I was wondering about that because, lets say that a team has to pick the lock on a door, if certain doors are harder then others, then you would have to still use Storm, because even though Wolverine or Cyclops know how to pick locks, they still wouldn't be as good as her.
Exactly. You wouldn't
have to use Storm to pick the lock, but she'd do it faster, or she'd get a less difficult mini-game, or something. The same applies with various other characters and their pre-learned special skills. Wolverine will always be the best hand-to-hand fighter (and he's physically stronger and faster than
most of the others, although if Colossus, Thunderbird or the Beast connect during hand-to-hand combat, they'll obviously do some real damage themselves); Storm will always be the best at picking locks and picking pockets (which you might do while undercover or in full-on-stealth mode, taking keys off a passing guard or something like that). Nightcrawler and Beast will always be the most agile X-Men. However, with skills like Flight, no one X-Man is necessarily the best. It depends on the skill, really. Again, I want it to be as accurate as possible to classic X-Men continuity.
The thing about teaching the other characters stuff is basically to provide training scenarios (like in the very beginning of the first 'Splinter Cell' game, where you learn to pick locks, sneak around, shoot lightbulbs, etc.) that match the story. It also allows for a wider range of character interaction, since different characters (not all) are instructing and evaluating and therefore must speak. In the first movie game, only Professor Xavier teaches you anything (except for when Beast goes off on one of his random hyper-academic tangents and either teaches you something new by spewing out concepts and facts, annoys you and/or makes you feel stupid). It also seems a fitting idea because the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning is, in fact, a school.
The characters that come into the game with pre-learned skills can immediately use those techniques. (ex. Colossus could not pick a door lock when stealth is reccommended, he would have to break down the door and then he'd get yelled at; Colossus could try to grab a flag pole and swing around it while in human form, but he'd be clumsy as hell and would very likely screw the whole maneuver up; Colossus could try to perform a hand-to-hand fighting combo but he'd be slow, inaccurate and would mess up the move altogether, leaving him wide open for anyone strong enough to knock him off his feet-- Colossus is my primary example because he didn't know how to do a God damn thing when he first came to the X-Men besides growing crops and clear brush, pull tree stumps out of the ground and stand in front of a runaway thresher and not get killed... wait, he could also draw really well, but that won't ain't gonna stop a Sentinel, the Juggernaut or Sebastian Shaw, now will it??). The ones who don't need to be taught can do whatever they can do right from the get-go, but Cyclops and the Professor want you to pass a test before going out into the field. The second movie game would probably start out with the mission to free the original X-Men, Havok and Polaris from Krakoa, the Island that Walks Like a Man (which would not be featured in the movie), and I'm thinking it makes more sense to do the testing afterwards in some ways and before in others. I'll have to think on that, and I'm, open to the possibility of splitting up the tests, although you'll definitely need to know at least how to fight and basic stealth before going on to the second mission (Valhalla Mountain, where you fight Count Nefaria and the Ani-Men, at the end of which you get to be rid of Thunderbird and his constant grousing, and likewise Sunfire before the mission, although you can them both for the rest of the missions after beating the game once).
Some of these skills are already part of
several of the new X-Men's repertiores. For example, Banshee, Storm and Sunfire already know how to fly, so having the Angel "teach" them to fly really just means he'll
evaluate them, in terms of the story of the second game. For the
player's benefit, this is teaching
them how to use these characters' abilities to fly, but those particular characters themselves (especially Sunfire, who has a chip on his shoulder even bigger than Wolverine's) will make comments about how they already have these skills. Again, Warren will test them after you do some practice runs, and during the practice, the player will learn how to fly with the various X-Men that can.
In the comics, Wolverine taught Storm to fight (and to shoot a gun, but that's not something you'd be doing in an X-Men game), and she taught him how to pick locks at some point (which he would only do if it was super-strong shackles or if he wanted to be really, really sneaky, because otherwise he'd just cut the door open, just like Colossus could smash most doors open, etc.).
Cyclops taught Colossus some judo throws, too, and I would probably have him teach (or evaluate, in the cases of Wolverine, Thunderbird, Banshee, Sunfire and all the original X-Men) some of the
basic combat moves to the new X-Men in the second movie game (he and the other X-Men would learn those moves in the first movie game) and then Wolverine would instruct the X-Men in more advanced moves (but would simply be evaluating the trained samurai Sunfire).
The parts where some of the characters are just being evaluated instead of taught, and in many cases even when it's teaching as well as testing, should be very entertaining, since the characters who are offended by being tested-- again, like Wolverine, Thunderbird, Sunfire, Banshee, and Storm in at least one case-- would argue with the instructor/evaluator. It would probably irritating if you have to start over enough times so that the scripts repeated themselves, but if the game is made properly, there should be a huge number of scripts for every character in every situation. If you screw up so many times that you make the scripts repeat, then consider it what behaviorist psychologists call "negative reinforcement" (providing an aversive stimulus until you get the desired response, at which point you "reward" the subject by removing the aversive stimulus... it's like the noise a car makes when your seatbelt isn't buckled, as it stops when you buckle it).
I just want to say that I skipped around this post, editing here and there a lot, so if certain sentences seem out of place, that's why, and I apologize in advance.
I'm sure there's more I could and should say, but I gotta run for now. Thanks very much for your compliments and feedback, Infinity9999x.
