Odd coming from Activision, but X-Men III The Official Game is yet another example of good, popcorn-fluff movie fodder getting somehow botched in the movie-based-game transmogrification process despite an abundance of the quintessential fluff de popcorn ingredient so very key to the videogame fun factor; a botching that happens all too frequently in the videogame biz.

Odd, because Activision is one of the few publishers with a history of bucking the transmogrification-gone-awry trend and making cool games based on cool movies, like the superior Spider-Man- and the above-average Shrek-based games. They just neglected dodge the botch here.

Still, it's not all bad, some heavy-handed (albeit derivative) action with the coolest comic book characters ever to transmogrify to the silver screen before re-mogrifying to the interactive form (in this case, filling a story hole between the last two of three X-Men movies). Lots of up-and-adamantium slashing with Wolverine, ice surfing with Ice Man and smokin' the blue fantastic with Nightcrawler. However, strip away the coolness of playing mutant dudes and you're left with cookie cutter action, peculiar air surfing and repetitive teleportational lever yanking.

Makes a modicum of sense as a popcorn-fluff Xbox game at a fair $40 US/$50 CDN, but the $60/$70 for the Xbox 360 version is unjustified. Yank this, Nightcrawler. Great quickie rental in both cases, however.