took the most memorable characters from the last 40 years and grouped them together. X-Men Legends uses cel shading to give the characters a comic-like appearance. However, Raven cited that they opted for then-high resolution textures to stay away from "cartoony looking" characters. The process was accomplished by creating a second copy of the model, inverting the normals, then increasing the size of the model slightly. Character costumes were inspired by Marvel Comics' Ultimate X-Men, but some of the X-Men playable in X-Men Legends had not appeared in the comics at the time of its release so, with permission from Marvel, Raven created unique looks for those characters. During development Raven tried visual formats for the X-Men, including using their New X-Men uniforms as well as removing the cel-shaded look from the characters. In contrast, the back stories, relationships and personalities of the X-Men were taken from Marvel's mainstream universe. Angel was also to be included in the game, and was to be voiced by André Sogliuzzo, but was cut from the final build. The game's marketing budget was $5 million. Reception X-Men Legends received mostly positive reviews, with the Xbox version receiving the highest aggregate scores of 83.36% at GameRankings and 82/100 at Metacritic. The GameCube version was rated next highest, scoring 81.98% at GameRankings and 81/100 at Metacritic. Though the PlayStation 2 version received the lowest scores of the console versions, it still fared well, scoring 80.50% at GameRankings and 79/100 at Metacritic. The N-Gage version garnered scores similar to its console counterparts, receiving 76.13% and 79/100 at GameRankings and Metacritic, respectively. In 2011, GamePro retrospectively listed "the melee combat, ability to customize your stats, and multiplayer" among the strong points of X-Men Legends, adding that the game "was so successful that it created a well-received sequel and paved the way for the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series". Critics generally praised the game's use of cel-shading. IGN's Hilary Goldstein stated, "to capture the 'comic book feel', Raven Soft chose to go for a cel-shaded look with Legends. It's not that the characters look two-dimensional, but they have very basic textures and a cut-out look". GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann pointed out that though the characters are cel-shaded, the environments are not, making them easy to distinguish. The gameplay was lauded for its role-playing elements, character powers and melee combat. Eurogamer praised the Xbox version's control system for character powers and