X-Men 3

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Marvel's mutants get ready for their latest appearance on GameCube

Ice slide, ice slide, ice slide! That's what got us shivering with anticipation over X3, the game of the film of the sequel to the sequel. Iceman sliding around the sky on his personal mid-air bobsleigh track - it's the very definition of cool.

This is just one part of the third-person action game that's making X3 a very different beast to the X-Men fighting (Next Dimension) and RPGing (Legends) games that we're used to.

The spotlight's on Nightcrawler, Iceman and Wolverine. Their to-do lists are similar - run around a bit and disembowel the Brotherhood (the bad X-Men) - but they each get their own dedicated levels and a very different style of play.

So Nightcrawler shows off Prince of Persia-style acrobatics and his ability to BAMF (that's teleport) around enemies, all thanks to a simple targeting system.

Wolverine's levels, which see him settling old scores, are more combat-focused, enabling you to unleash a Fury Mode that'll see Sir Sideburns slicing and dicing like a hyena with a head-cold.

Finally, for Iceman's chunks, you're usually up against the clock as you bung ice beams about, rouse hailstorms and ice slide around vast, open areas.

Regardless of which freak you're fighting with, the effects-fuelled action and piles of Brotherhood bodies should make even the movie itself blush.

Even Activision's feature-naming department has got the green light to go nuts - there's a Mutant Evolution System that upgrades your mutant powers as you go, and comicbook-style 'Hyperboard Cutscenes' that are the worst-named game gimmick since The Godfather's 'Mobface'.

The X3 team got its hands on Fox Movies' scripts, set designs and costumes, and the game intersects with both the films and the comics as it unravels the tale leading up to the movie.

That means you get characters and locations from all three celluloid cash-spinners, and locations that include the Statue of Liberty (from the first film), Dark Cerebro (from the second), and the X-Men's base at Alkali Lake. And there's the ice sliding too! We've got goosebumps.