X-Men: Children of the Atom

X-Men: Children of the Atom is an arcade game that was produced by Capcom and released on the CPS-2 arcade system 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 from his space station Avalon in order 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 in battle.

Unlike previous X-Men video games, Children of the Atom also allowed players to helm popular X-Men villains who want their own personal gains from defeating Magneto; such as Omega Red, the mutant hunting android Sentinel, Spiral (lackey of Mojo), and Silver Samurai. Juggernaut is also included as a sub-boss and a lackey of Magneto. This game was released shortly after Super Street Fighter II Turbo, the game that introduced the world to Akuma. As an in-joke to Super Turbo's Japanese title (Super Street Fighter II X), Akuma was included as a secret character and the secret final boss. The sub-boss and main boss, Juggernaut and Magneto, respectively, are not selectable in the arcade version of the game, but are selectable in the PC version.

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. However, a player must have at least a Level 2 Gauge (about half the total bar), and while some characters simply land on their feet or recover in mid-air (like Wolverine or Omega Red), other characters escape the throw entirely and a select few can even reverse the grapple (like Iceman). 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 Children of the Atom were later released to Sega Saturn in 1995, PC in 1997, and PlayStation in 1998.