X-Men: Children of the Atom (video game)

X-Men: Children of the Atom is an arcade game that was produced by Capcom in 1994. It is the first fighting game produced by Capcom using characters under license from Marvel Comics, widely praised for its faithfulness in capturing the spirit of its namesake comics, by using colorful animation and voice actors from the X-Men animated series, such as Cathal Dodd as Wolverine.

The ultimate object of the game is to defeat the mutant supervillain Magneto, who wishes to eliminate the human population to free the oppressed mutants. The player selects from members of the X-Men (Cyclops, Psylocke, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Iceman), who have set up a fighting tournament to determine who is strong enough to challenge Magneto to battle.

Unlike previous incarnations of X-Men video games, X-Men: Children of the Atom also allowed players to helm popular X-Men villains, such as Omega Red; the mutant hunting android Sentinel; Spiral, lackey of Mojo; and Silver Samurai. Also, because this game was released around the same time as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, programmers also included Akuma, as the secret final boss.

The game, along with SSFII Turbo, is considered one of the first fighting games to popularize the now often-used ideas of "super jumps," "super combos," and "Tech. Hit," which meant that an attempted grab or throw had been negated by the opponent. Furthermore, the game was the precursor to the Marvel vs. Capcom series, with elements and characters from this game having been combined with Street Fighter Alpha to create X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Ports of X-Men: Children of the Atom were later released to PC, Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn.

External links

• KLOV entry for X-Men: Children of the Atom