Six players at once at a single giant machine – such luxury could be offered by only a handful of arcade games, and X-Men by Konami from 1992 was their flagship. This brawler turned Marvel's comic-book superheroes into perfect material for cooperative slaughter that everyone who ever glimpsed it somewhere still remembers to this day.
Players choose among mutants like Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler or Dazzler, each of whom has their own mutant screen-clearing attack. The foundation is the classic left-to-right progression, pummeling hordes of Magneto's henchmen and his allies, and flashy special abilities that cost a chunk of health but can turn a desperate situation around. The version with a wide screen and six controllers was among the most impressive machines ever to appear in arcades.
Konami drew on the animated and comic-book universe of the X-Men, and the game is full of posing villains and unforgettably over-the-top English lines that became internet folklore. The visuals bet on large, bold sprites and colorful environments faithful to the source.
Culturally it's one of the peaks of the era of licensed superhero arcade games and proof of how strongly an arcade beat 'em up could tap into a comic's fan base. For long years the title lived mainly in memories and emulators, before it received an official digital re-release for modern platforms.
The difficulty is set, as was typical of the era, to demand more coins, but with a full lineup of heroes X-Men becomes a collective spectacle where the chaos on screen turns into pure fun.
Why play: A legendary superhero brawler for up to six players, whose wild cooperation and cult lines never grow old.
Game 54 of 258 for Arcade
