Cover:
A phalanx in a supermarket in front of a shelf of chewing gums. A woman and her child are seen in a near distance from the phalanx. The phalanx holds a cinnamon flavored chewing gum and a tear runs down his face. A large yellow caption saying “Phalanx – Discriminated!” is at the bottom of the cover.

Page 2: Previously...
The uncanny X-Men graced the comic landscape the first time with their presence in the year 1963, and were created by Stan Lee and Jack "King" Kirby. Probably by default, the most profound superhero team in mainstream comics and also one of the most successful.
X-Men was one of the few comics that dealt with mature themes such as racism, sexuality and religion. After “Giant Size X-Men”, the comic became famous for it's diverse characters and pushed those themes more in the foreground. The pinnacle was reached with the “Phoenix Saga”, one of the most striking and influential stories in the X-Universe.
A decade later, the X-Men stories became more superficial and dealt with fun, but dull stories about new characters that rose quickly to popularity.

The ramification of the success was, that the market was flooded with spin-offs series like X-Factor. The X-Universe was now fully established and isolated itself as a niche with a large fanbase. The X-Men and the spin-offs created a large fictional history, that it is even hard for fans to keep up with.
Marvel reacted and “re-launched” the title as “New X-Men”, which was written by Grant Morrison, and again with success and within the own bubble. It took till issue 500 to establish the X-Men back into the shared universe, and this time even with success.

Page 5: “Xenophobia is okay as long if they are aliens!”
“X-Men 2: Clone Wars” for the Sega Genesis is the adaption of the “Phalanx Saga”, and immediately puts you into the battle against the phalanx. The story is told through “conversations” between Cerebro (a large supercomputer) and Professor X (bald headed leader of the X-Men).

But lets get to the meat of it. The gameplay is simply great. You get to control one of six mutants and make use of their sweet abilities. And that's where many games went the wrong way, by limiting the use of your powers and thus making the games too hard and unforgiving, but that isn't present in X-Men 2. The player can use the powers as much as he wants!
That gives the player another feel and invokes an overall great experience, that other X-Men failed to convey. As for the powers though, there are only two characters whose powers feel a little bit idiotic. First, there's Psylocke, which is a bad character to start with, that has her “Psy-dagger” as power....what? Remember Child of Atoms where she had the ultra cool, purple side-slashing attack?
Why not implementing it here instead of a short range attack?
Whatever. Next, is Beast whose powers in the comics is his heightened agility, strength and senses.
So, clearly he's the powerhouse in the game, but being a little sluggish and to counter that with a stupid Hulk-esque punch on the ground is stoopid! Just to make clear, it could be worse. However, when there's such a wide variety of mutants with different powers (give Nightcrawler the swords and substitute Psylocke with Iceman), why not make it?
Talk about the graphics and the sound. Both, are as good as the gameplay and remind of the X-Men animated series that ran at that time. The graphics in some levels feel a tad out of place and look muddy, but in return you get the awesome Sentinel factory map, which is probably the best level in the game.
The boss fights are as tough and long as you'd expect. Sometimes, the feel a little bit overpowered and it can get frustrating, since the X-Men die too fast.
Nevertheless, the biggest flaw though, is the ending. Are you fucking kidding me? Really, all you get is a text ending? At least give me more Jim Lee inspired/swiped pixel art! Urgh!

[b]Page 25: Ads[/img]
In conclusion is the game a pretty nice throwback to the X-Men from the nineties and when you grew up with the animated series, then I recommend this game. I'll even go so far, that I would recommend the game over the comics. The comics at this point recount old stories and tie them back into the continuity, which isn't all to new-reader friendly. Plus, the stories since the “Messiah War” are all intertwined with the sister titles. So, pick up the game if you got a Sega Genesis!

Next issue is going to be the final issue (at least for now)!
(feedback appreciated)