X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
September 26,2005 - We loved the original X-Men Legends, with its fresh take on the action-RPG and the gleeful button mashing that comes with the Diablo-style gameplay. Rise of Apocalypse delivers fans more of what they loved about the first game, and in every version but the Gamecube’s, it also supplies a satisfying new online co-op mode. Legend II’s 20 hours of pandemonium is fun, but it makes us wonder if more is always better. Die-hard X-Men fans and RPG-lite lovers will be pleased, but considering similar formulas in Fantastic Four and Champions of Norrath, we can’t help but feel a little unfulfilled. If you loved the original, or require the online play, feel free to pick up X-Men legends II; just don’t expect more than a continuation of the title you finished a year ago.

While the original X-Men Legends took time to introduce newcomers to the X-Men universe, Rise of Apocalypse wastes no time in getting started, teaming up Xavier’s band of mutants with its archenemy, The Brotherhood. Newcomers may be baffled at first, since the game assumes some level of familiarity with the characters, and quickly pushes you into the action. The initial cut-scene prologue is beautiful but unhelpful, and it will take some time for those players to get a feel for each character’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as their relationships and personalities. Fans won’t mind skipping the preliminaries—and will already understand what makes the evil mutant Apocalypse such a threat. Either way, the main story is secondary to its purpose, which is to give you the chance to simultaneously control both good and evil mutants.

And that purpose works well, thanks to a full roster of mutants to control, up to four at any given time. Legends II is a pure sequel, playing almost exactly like its predecessor. As such, you will hack and slash your way Dark Alliance-style through five chapters of action-RPG mayhem. In the console versions, controls are fluid, although we prefer having access to the PS2’s shoulder buttons for health and energy replenishment, as the black and white buttons on the Xbox make doing so a little unwieldy. Due to awkwardness with a mouse and keyboard, we recommend PC players use a gamepad for best results. You can switch among the four members of your party easily, and the artificial intelligence takes care of the rest. The AI does a great job of giving you a hand with the horde of villains on your heel, although the pathfinding is terrible, and it’s easy to get stuck between your teammates and the environment. It’s never permanent, but an annoyance nevertheless, as you may not notice for a few minutes that you’ve left one of your stuck AI teammates behind.

It should come as no surprise that the combat is still a lot of fun, thanks to an immense array of attacks, powers, and character combinations at your disposal. Playing as the Brotherhood is simply cool, and as any fan of superhero games could tell you, unleashing superhuman brawn on gangs of foes rarely gets old. The huge list of available mutants also means nonstop variety, so if you like melee, take Wolverine or Colossus into the scuffle; if you want ranged attacks, Storm and Magneto do an excellent job keeping the baddies at bay. On standard difficulty, Legends II isn’t very hard, although as the game progresses, you will want to keep your party balanced, and you’ll need to manage hero inventory more closely than in the first half of the game. The highest difficulty setting is somewhat more challenging, but not unbearably so. 

Games, News, Reviews, Media and More