X-Men (4 Players ver AEA, bootleg)

Arcade Video game published 32 years ago:

X-Men (c) 1992 Konami.

X-Men is a side-scrolling beat-em-up for up to four players. The X-Men's mission is to find and rescue Professor X, who has been captured by evil mutants and is now being held prisoner by Magneto.

Each X-Man character has an 'Attack', 'Jump' and 'Mutant Power' button. The mutant power attack is a powerful special move unique to each X-Man. While it inflicts a lot of damage on the enemies, the trade-off is that each usage removes 3 bars from the players health meter (a full meter has 10 bars). Each level ends with a face-off against a powerful mutant boss character.

The game has six stages, with the final one set on 'Asteroid M', Magneto's base. The defeated mutant bosses from the previous levels each make an appearance (albeit in a less powerful form) before the final encounter with Magneto himself.

Players can chose from 6 X-Men characters, they are:
Cyclops
Colossus
Wolverine
Storm
Nightcrawler
Dazzler

- TECHNICAL -

Game ID : GX065

[4-Player model]

Main CPU : Motorola 68000
Sound CPU : Zilog Z80
Sound Chips : Yamaha YM2151, K054539

Players : 4
Control : 8-Way Joystick
Buttons : 3
=> Attack, Jump, Mutant Power Attack

- TRIVIA -

X-Men was released in April 1992.

X-Men is based upon the comic book series of the same name (most of the game's plot is loosely based on the 1989 X-Men cartoon called 'Pryde Of The X-Men'). Here are the debut comics for all Marvel characters from this game including non-playable characters :
Cyclops (aka Scott Summers) - X-Men #1
Colossus (aka Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin) - Giant-Size X-Men #1
Wolverine (aka James 'Logan' Howlett) - Incredible Hulk #180
Storm (aka Ororo Munroe) - Giant Size X-Men #1
Nightcrawler (aka Kurt Wagner) - Giant Size X-Men #1
Dazzler (aka Alison Blaire) - X-Men #130
Professor X (aka Charles Francis Xavier) - X-Men #1
Shadowcat (aka Katherine 'Kitty' Pryde) - X-Men #129
The Sentinels - X-Men #14
Bonebreaker - Uncanny X-Men #229
Pyro (aka St. John Allerdyce - Level 1 boss) - Uncanny X-Men 141
The Blob (aka Fred J. Dukes - Level 2 boss) - X-Men #3
Wendigo (Level 3 boss) - Incredible Hulk #162
Master Mold (Level 4 boss) - X-Men #15
The White Queen (aka Emma Grace Frost - Level 5 Mid-Boss) - Uncanny X-Men #129
Juggernaut (aka Cain Marko - Level 5 boss) - X-Men #12
Mystique (aka Raven Darkholme - Level 7 boss) - Ms. Marvel #16
Magneto (aka Erik 'Magnus' Lehnsherr - Final boss) - X-Men #1

In Nightcrawler's ranking screen, his name is misspelled as 'Nightcrowler'.

Although "Final Fight" set the standard for scrolling fighters. Konami's X-Men created several innovations for the genre, including the ability to hit fallen opponents to prevent them from getting back up, as well as a character-specialized 'mutant power', which could clear the screen of enemies, but also reduced the player's health. The game is fondly remembered by those who played it for its fun, addicting game-play and colorful graphics. However, it is also sometimes criticized for its wooden voice acting and often ungrammatical script ('I am Magneto, Master of Magnet').

Bill Toups holds the official record for this game with 830 points on June 11, 2004.

King Records released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Konami All Stars 1993 - KICA-9016, 9018) on December 21, 1992.

A X-Men unit appears in the 1998 movie 'The Replacement Killers'.

- UPDATES -

Due to certain issues, both the 2-player and 4-player cabinets, a rare occurrence, had character selecting, while the 6-player cabinets forced the selections.

- STAFF -

Chief Producer and Director : Lee
Visual Designers : K. Hattori, Captain Oe
Design Works : Y. Asano, Mitsuhiro Nomi
Hardware Designers : H. Matsuura, S. Yasuda
Cabinet Designer : Rasher Y. Tamura
Sound Producer and Composer : Seiichi Fukami (S. Fukami)
Music Co-Producer and Composer : Yuji Takenouchi (Y. Technouchi)
Guest Composer : Junya Nakano (J. Nakano)
Support Composer : A. Hashimoto

Special Thanks : Y. Hatano
Young Man : H. Ohyama

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES:
Sony PlayStation 3 [PSN] [US] (dec.14, 2010) [Model NPUB-30320]
Sony PlayStation 3 [PSN] [EU] (feb.2, 2011)