X-Men: Children of the Atom

Name: X-Men: Children of the Atom

Platform: Arcade (then PC)

Developer: Capcom

Release Year: 1994 (PC 1997)

Basic Plot

Magneto is on Asteroid M and the X-Men need to... actually just add in any plot from an X-Men game here. Loosely based on Fatal Attractions. It doesn't really matter.

What's its deal?

It's Street Fighter with X-Men characters.

Character select screen

Gameplay

It's a one-on-one 2D fighter from the good ol' days before team tag combos and 3D blah blah blah.

The first thing that struck you was how amazing the graphics were. The look and feel of the game was true to the X-Men 1991 comics run and the characters looked like they'd stepped right out of the comic panels (and animated TV series) and onto your screen. I love how they did not try to re-imagine the X-Men for this game or 'go in a new direction' and most likely fuck everything. No, you love the X-Men? Well here they are exactly how you have come to know and love them. Thank you Capcom. Thank you. The only exception to this was Sentinel, but they needed to make a new 'model' to fit on the screen and they made him badass so no harm, no foul.

Controls were exactly the same as SFII with 6 button attacks – 3 punches, 3 kicks. Special moves were your run of the mill 'fireball' and 'dragon punch' movements. Characters also had a 'rage meter' that would build up mutant energy during the fight allowing more powerful special moves to be unlocked including a powerful X attack. Again, these were all suited to the character so each one had their own unique play style. 

Even regular punches and kicks were suited to the characters eg) Cyclops' heavy punch threw out a small optic blast, Iceman's heavy kick threw up a wall of ice that could be used for offense or defence. The attention to detail was amazing. 

Iceman 'Arctic Attack'. Done real close, it destroys.

The 10 playable characters* were split between 6 goodies and 4 baddies:

• Cyclops: sit back and keep em busy with optic blasts; play to his strengths man. His super X power was (wait for it) a giant optic blast! although he did also have a less powerful one but it could be aimed and moved once initiated; you could also bounce it off the floor. 
• Psylocke: get in close and use those special attacks designed to link on from regular combos. She was a combo queen.
• Colossus: one of my favourites. Play him as a wrestler. His special X attack sucked (just did a big diving head butt) much better to use his alternative 'super armour' power where he took less damage and just walked through attacks. Nothing like seeing the big man charging through and taking a smack in the face just to get in close and pile drive the enemy.
• Iceman: a very versatile fighter. One of the most original special moves in the game was Iceman summoning a large ice boulder to drop down and smash on you. The cool thing about this power was it also could be used to shield you from projectiles if timed right.
• Storm: her punches were laced with lighting and her kicks with tiny typhoons. She could also fly.
• Wolverine: played like the brawler that he is. Lots of speedy hack and slash. His berserker barrage special X power looked pretty gruesome too.

• Silver Samurai: Had one of the coolest special moves where his movements would trail – kind of like he had 5 shadows that would copy all his movements exactly a half second after him. So hitting a guy once would actually hit him 5 times. Very cool.
• Spiral: I'm not sure why the hell they chose Spiral? You know, Mojo's number 2. Why not Sabretooth, Pyro, Toad etc? Oh well, she was the only character that could get a 6-hit combo from just using her heavy punch.
• Sentinal: AWESOME. Every animation for every attack was awesome, he looked like he was transforming all the time with rockets coming out of his wrists and mouth and thrust kicks and shit. His movements were heavy and you really felt like a ton of metal raining down techno pain on your opponents. He could even launch mini Sentinels that did an aerial bombing run. Yes, you read that correctly.
• Omega Red: If you mastered his coils, you were a force to be reckoned with. Having an option of 5 directions to launch a coil from (up, 45, straight, 45 down, down – last two need to be mid-jump) once it hit your opponent you had options. You could either just throw them around, drain their energy or drain a bit of their life.

*Ok, Akuma was also a hidden character but he can eat a dick. Piss off Akuma, you don't belong here. Don't you have like 500 other games to go and hide in?

Optic blasts Vs Rockets. Oh it's awwwn.

There were a few more game mechanics thrown in. Players could move around a little bit before the round actually started to vie for a good starting position. Every character could perform super jumps and dashes. Some stages had destructible floors eg) on Colossus' level you could smash your opponent through the street level and drop down into the sewers. Some characters had the ability to perform attacks on downed players – Wolverine could jump on top of a downed opponent playground-bully-style and punch them in the face with his claws. Colossus could pick people up from the ground and lift them over his head and then decide what to do with them.

There were two bosses. Juggernaut was the sub-boss and Magneto was the main boss. Once you finished the single player mode each character had their own little epilouge animation ala Street Fighter II.

Memorable moments

Probably having epic battles using Colossus. During his hyper-tackle move he is INVULNERABLE. I loved waiting for opponents to unleash their ultimate attacks and have Colossus just charge right through it taking no damage. Muhahaha eat it Magneto. Also Colossus Vs Juggernaut was always a big slug fest and I'll never forget the first time I picked up the Juggernaut over my head and then pile drove his ass. Good times.

Said Hyper-tackle.  Fav move in the game.

Positives

• Was true to the X-Men comics. Everything was honoured, no stylistic raping at all
• Was a damn good fighter, whatever your playing style
• Each character was unique giving you lots of replay value
• Looked amazing. Even the backgrounds were dynamic (danger room!)
• Seriously fun

Negatives

• Not enough characters! What? No Gambit!?

Extra comments

The success of this game lead to the start of the X-Men Vs Street Fighter series (which eventually led to Marvel Vs Capcom 3) Although they never made a strict sequel to this game which I would have loved to see. While these spin-off sequels were fun they lost the immersion into the X-Men universe and made the game more about wanky combos and underpowered special moves.

Unfortunately X-Men: Children of the Atom had a winning formula that no one used again – making it the Captain America of fighting games. Sigh.