X-Men Legends II takes advantage of the X-Men's rich history and characters and features good old RPG fun.
User Rating: 8.5 | X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse PC
The X-Men strike again in this second installment of the X-Men Legends series. This time the X-Men and the Brotherhood must battle Apocalypse and stop him from gaining god-like power to control the world. You'll also face hordes of X-Men baddies, both popular and obscure. The story is standard comic book stuff, but its amazingly coherent given the large cast of characters it has to deal with. The visuals of the game is similar to the one used in Ultimate Spider-Man, making everything seem like they popped right out of the comic book. Sound is also great with the voice actors doing good jobs with the X-Men characters. Some of it sounds a little cheesy and amateurish but it's only a minor annoyance. The music is forgettable since its standard action music. What really makes this game stand out is the wide variety of playable characters. You can choose four different X-Men or Brotherhood characters and duke it out with all the bosses, of which there are many. You can even mix and match such as putting Wolverine and Magneto on the same team! Every character features an amazing array of powers that you can upgrade though all this makes part of the game unbalanced as some characters feel too weak or too strong. I really must applaud Activision and Raven Software for doing extensive research into all of the X-Men characters taking advantage of the comics' rich history and characters, giving you a solid story combined with amazing fight scenes and combos. A few problems with the game is that the camera can be a little frustrating and the the cutscenes aren't really rendered at high resolution. Also, it does get repetitive since the game features "Diablo-style" gameplay with you clicking on enemies a lot. Despite these issues, X-Men Legends II is a great action/adventure Role-Playing Game for all X-Men fans and casual gamers alike, and is a definite must buy.
*Revised review to reflect my current review standards.*
