I love Marvel. More specifically, I love the X-Men. In fact, I absolutely adore the X-Men. Like Shakespeare's Macbeth, Miyamoto's Zelda and JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Stan Lee's X-Men is a work of genius. Brilliant plots and characterisation, not to mention some of the best artwork around, are formed around timeless themes like prejudice and intolerance. Being an avid X-fan, I have been patiently waiting for a game to do the comic justice. I am still waiting, but X-Men Legends, if pulled off right, could satisfy my hopes.

I guess my grievance has been the types of games based on the licence. The Marvel vs Capcom series of games were terrific, and Next Dimensionon gamecube was alright, but I'm not a huge beat-em-up fan, and I'm not really one for simple action games like Wolverine's Revenge and some of the scrolling fighters we've seen were enjoyable, but unspectacular. Maybe my hopes are just to high, who knows. But the prospect of X-Men Legends is really getting me excited, mostly because of the game's RPG/adventure premise. Such genres open up a lot of opportunities for open-ended gameplay and a grander scale of game.

Basically, it seems that you'll initially pick a team of four mutants. And as the game progresses, you'll build your team up, changing members and unlocking new abilities and powers for the ones you have. So far, so Final Fantasy. But Legends is not turn-based, combat is real-time with a more emphasis on action than strategic decisions. You can also take control of individual characters when you need their specific abilities to progress (e.g if strength is what you're after Colossus packs a mighty punch). This is encouraging, as it means we get both the solo-combat and the team-adventuring aspects.

Something that comes as standard with a licence, and gives a wealth of material for Raven Software to work with, is the massive, massive bank of characters the X-Men universe sports. So far in screenshots we've seen the following mutants:

• Jean Grey
• Cyclops
• Wolverine
• Iceman
• Colossus
• Storm

Activision have talked about "recruiting from 15 different heroes". Whether this is 15 X-Men available from the start to pick your team from, or 15 X-Men that gradually pop up to be recruited have confused some. But from one of the screenshots, we see a team solely consisting of Cyclops, so therefore we can assume that you begin with him (or perhaps one other hero) and gradually build up your team from 15 X-Men that appear.

From that 15, 9 X-Men are left. So here is my best guess as to the other X-Men that will be recruitable; Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Archangel, Nightcrawler, Bishop, Psylocke, Jubilee and Banshee. But others will probably make an appearance. But not all mutants are Good you know, the Evil ones are just as plentiful and brilliant. Magneto (arguably the single greatest villain in comic book history) is of course the big baddie in Legends. The master of magnetism has devised a plan to give mutants the power to reign supreme over humans. So naturally it's up to the X-Men to battle Magneto to prevent global chaos and stop their foes from imprisoning the human race. Activision have already stated the Brotherhood of Mutants will be showing up, but we don't know in what form. I'm betting on a mixture of the different incarnations of the team, similar to that of the kick-ass X-Men 2 film. We'll probably see the likes of Sabretooth, Toad, Mystique, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Juggernaut, Pyro and hopefully the devilish Sinister will show up. And you'll be fighting Sentinels too.

As for the structure of the game, it's divided up into missions. Again, details are scarce so we don't know if you'll pick your team before each mission or continue with the one you've got. Expect a lot of variety in the missions, as the X-Men get up to lost of different adventures. The storyline, something I'm crossing my fingers to turn out well, is reportedly "multi-branching" and offers "abundant replay value". Simple Good vs Evil won't do, a twisting, turning plot better be on the table. I've got a feeling it is though. Also, there'll be a multiplayer mode where the four players will control each member of a team, which should be good fun.

Overall, we've seen little of X-Men Legends, but I'm hoping that it's potential is filled by the developers. The basic premise is exciting, and the option to customize and upgrade your team with new mutants and powers is an X-fan's dream. But it all depends on whether or not the developers can pull it off. Ditto for the rest of the game. But already Legends is on this X-fan's most wanted list.