INTRO:
Wherever there is a work of fiction involving groups of characters who strive to complete objectives that occur outside of the games industry, there would be game-makers who are eager to adapt this work of fiction for a game with mechanisms that are oriented around a party, namely squad-based action games or RPGs. If the characters have entertaining superhuman powers, this temptation becomes all the stronger.
Such a temptation has been sated – yet again – in the form of Rise of Apocalypse, developed by Raven Software and published by Activision via its license from Marvel.
PREMISE:
Apocalypse, who is a bitterly ancient and powerful mutant, threatens the world – yet again – with a diabolical plan to bring about an age in which he rules the world as a tyrant. Not too eager for the world that he envisions yet not having enough resources and manpower to defeat him on their own, the usually irreconcilable pair of the Brotherhood of Mutants and the X-Men forms a tenuous alliance.
Of course, this is really only an excuse to have these fictional misfits work with each other, as well as have one heck of a marketing theme for Activision and Raven Software to work with.
Gameplay-wise, the game is similar to its predecessor, the first X-Men Legends game. However, the premise perhaps allowed for more variety in the characters, which is a plus over the previous game.
CHARACTER LEVEL SYSTEM:
Being apparently designed as a hack-and-slash RPG with some rudimentary party system, not unlike its predecessor, Rise of Apocalypse has a system for the accumulation of experience points, which are typically awarded for the elimination of enemies and the completion of objectives. Upon achieving a threshold of experience points, the character gains a "level", thus obtaining a handful of points that can be spent on the character's statistics or his/her powers. There will be more elaboration on these later.
Anyway, each next level grants four points that can be freely spent on statistics; each of these raises a statistic by one point, unsurprisingly enough. Each next level also grants two points that are automatically assigned; this is out of the control of the player, though these two points go into statistics that are usually relevant to the characters that are being developed.
However, points to upgrade characers' powers do not follow this convention. As a certain power of the character gains ranks from the investment of these points, it takes more and more points to increase in rank.
Any character can only reach up to Level 99, which by then he/she would be quite powerful (even for the higher difficulty settings), though he/she would never have enough points to unlock and upgrade all abilities and statistics.
In the hub maps, the player can visit certain NPCs to purchase the option to reset the powers of a character, freeing up the 'skill points' that he/she has gained for reallocation. The fee for this option increases steeply for each subsequent reset, up to a total of three resets, after which there is no more to be had. Therefore, the reset option is not one that can be taken willy-nilly. There is no reset option for other statistics, however.
Not all powers have the same potential number of ranks; Xtreme powers, in particular, have only a few ranks, whereas the first few powers that are already available to characters can have up to 20 ranks.
Characters that are not in the player's party do gain levels as the game progresses, despite not having the chance to gain experience points; as the story progresses, each character will be raised to certain minimum levels, if they have not surpassed these already. They are just barely capable to handle the challenges ahead, but this is still convenient enough if the player wants to check out other characters.
PLAYER CHARACTER STATISTICS:
Each player character has a set of statistics that determine his/her performance in combat. For ease of packing in text into the user interface, each of these statistics has acronyms, such as "ATK" for the "Attack" statistic.
Anyway, the designs of the statistics would not seem unfamiliar to players that have experience in the hack-and-slash RPG subgenre, which is probably what this game is closest to. For example, the "Attack" statistic is a variable that will be measured against a target's "Defense", the result of which ascertains the player character's chances at hitting said target with an attack.
Some of the primary statistics would be familiar to veterans of RPGs, such as the statistic of "Body", which generally determines the toughness of the character. Some others have interesting benefits when developed, such as increments to the melee damage (in the form of bonus mental damage) of a Focus-oriented character as he/she builds up his/her Focus.
The statistics that the player will probably worry about most are Energy and Health, which are statistics that are derived from Focus and Body, respectively.
Health would be quite familiar to most players; as soon as this runs out for a player character, he/she falls over, incapacitated. He/She can be revived later, but if the entire party is incapacitated, game-over occurs, simply enough. As for Energy, it is the resource that player characters tap into to fuel their powers with, without which the latter cannot be used.
Health and Energy can be restored by using portable resupply items, which are simply called Health and Energy "Packs". Each pack restores 33% of its associated statistic, though the player character's Focus and Body statistics may determine the chance of getting double of the benefits.
Initially, the player may only have up to 10 of these packs. For every ten levels that the player's party gains, his/her pack capacity increases by 5 packs for either kind of pack. This can cause gameplay balance issues, as there are few challenges in the game that can stop a party with dozens of packs; only carelessness on the part of the player would, because packs cannot be used by incapacitated player characters.
It has to be mentioned here that there is a design oversight that causes a minor problem that may be discovered by players who develop a character to the point where one of his/her statistics overflows above a threshold that is not visible to the player, thus resetting the statistic back to 1. This could be a data overflow issue, but the threshold amounts are not consistent; for example, Bishop's overflow threshold for his Body statistic is 284, whereas that for his Speed statistic is 298.
It is not known why Raven Software chose to have these variable hidden thresholds, which can be revealed by players who test the game vigorously enough. On the other hand, there are few effective character builds that have statistics reaching these thresholds.
PARTY A.I.:
As the player may only control one of four characters at a time, the others are controlled by the A.I., which is not always reliable.
A.I.-controlled party members attempt to follow the player's choice around as best as they can, but they are not always up to that, despite how simple and open the environments in the game world are. Furthermore, any obstacle-laden map may have them doing silly things such as running against walls, detritus and doorways before their path-findings are re-executed.
Raven Software is, in fact, quite aware of the path-finding issues. However, instead of looking back at the path-finding scripts and level designs more closely, it implemented a convenient solution of having A.I.-controlled party members appearing off the edge of the screen at high speeds if they have been separated from the character that is under the player's control for too long.
The A.I. for party members that are not directly under the control of the player can be set to use Packs automatically when their Health reserves fall below thresholds that the player can set, which is convenient. They will not use Health Packs if there are only a couple left, though this precautionary design could have been better if the player can specifically set the minimum number of reserved Health Packs.
Another convenience is that A.I.-controlled party members can be set to automatically use Health Packs if the party comes across excess ones; this also extends to the character that is being controlled by the player.
A.I.-controlled party members are incapable of using Energy Packs automatically, however, because they rarely use any powers at all while under the control of the A.I, unless they are directed to attack the player's current target.
Yet, even if they do, the Energy costs are conveniently waived, as can be seen if the player quickly switches over to them after they appear to have used their powers; their Energy bars would not have changed by much, if at all. Furthermore, if the player wants to have them continuously use their powers, he/she has to jam away at the button that orders them to attack. Moreover, the effects of their powers are reduced when they are controlled by the A.I.
A player may also have worries that the rather questionable A.I. for party members may cause them to be hurt so much that they waste a lot of the player's stockpile of Health packs. Raven Software appears to have foreseen such concerns, but its solutions are not exactly ingenious; it simply gives significant bonuses to the toughness of A.I.-controlled party members.
As mentioned earlier, party members can be directed to attack the target that the currently controlled character is attacking, but only if their A.I. has been set to the "Aggressive" policy. The player can set them to more conservative behaviours, but considering the bonus to toughness that characters that are under the control of the A.I. get, this may not be desirable as it holds them back from the battle.
Moreover, the A.I.-controlled characters are limited to the powers that the player has selected for their use when called upon to help with a target. The player can somewhat anticipate which powers to use from observing the enemies that are "indigenous" to certain levels and prepare accordingly, but this can seem to be so much busywork when the A.I. scripting could have been developed further to make A.I.-controlled characters smarter.
The A.I.-controlled characters can be terribly careless when fighting in places with many falling hazards. Although they do a good job of avoiding them if they are just following the leading character (i.e. the character under the player's control), any caution that they have is thrown to the wind when they are fighting in these places.
Another feature that concerns control over the party is an option to have party members automatically allocating points to their powers and statistics. This may not be desirable, as their choices can seem questionable, such as allocating points to powers that are useless against the enemies that the player would face in the current phase of the story.
There is also an option for automatic equipping of items that have been looted off the levels, but unlike the auto-equip options that have been seen in other games, such as those in very early RPG titles from Square Soft, this option is built around the level requirements of the items instead of the magnitude of their benefits to the characters that are equipping them. This is a halfway-there design that would irk meticulous players.
POWERS:
As befitting the superhuman fictional characters of the Marvel universe, the characters that the player can control have powers that can be used against enemies to generally devastating effect. The game calls them "Skills" in-game, which perhaps contribute to the impression that the game is of the hack-and-slash subgenre of RPGs. For the purpose of this review, they are referred to as "Powers" anyway.
Perhaps to help the player manage the powers of the player characters, they have been categorized to several clearly labelled types.
There is the appropriately named "Boost" category, which imparts a usually temporary benefit on the target. Conversely, there is "De-Buff", which impart penalties on the target.
An "Ability" power usually grants the player character an additional method of movement in addition to just running around on foot (which just about everyone can do). For example, there is the Flight ability, which allows a character to fly overhead and circumvent obstacles that would have impeded anyone else on foot. However, using any method of movement other than running around on foot spends Energy and stalls Energy regeneration.
"Passive" powers would be familiar to players who are experienced with hack-and-slash RPGs. They impart ever-present bonuses on the player character(s) and do not need Energy to be useful.
The offensive powers are generally categorized into "Melee", "Projectile", "Beam", "Blast", "Radial", "Charge" and "Trap" sorts. This is surprisingly exhaustive categorization, which meticulous players would appreciate.
"Melee" powers are enhanced hand-to-hand attacks and are usually common to the more brutish of characters. "Projectile" powers typically have characters hurling projectiles at targets; these projectiles take time to arrive at the intended destination, meaning that they can miss. "Beam" powers create instantaneous rays of some energy or other, which immediately hit the target; however, "Beam" powers may require a short 'charging-up' animation, which can be interrupted by enemies.
"Blast" powers create an explosion on the targeted location, thus making them useful as crowd control tools. "Radial" powers are similar to "Blast" powers, but the explosions or emissions originate on the player characters. "Charge" powers are like "Melee" powers, except that the player character will surge forward when making his/her attacks, thus making "Charge" powers useful for closing the distance between enemies and player characters.
"Trap" powers are perhaps poorly named, as they include powers that technically are not traps per se. Anyway, "Trap" powers generally litter the targeted area with objects that inflict harm on enemies that are nearby, which are usually turrets of some sorts, or enemies that are right on top of them, in the case of mines and caltrops. These objects may not necessarily be static, such is the case with Storm's Funnels, which create mini-tornados that move about randomly.
"Special" powers are actually powers that Raven Software could not easily lump under any of the aforementioned categories of powers. These powers tend to have unique designs, such as Jean Grey's Telekinesis, which allows her to move and toss things about.
The ultimate powers of the characters are called "Xtremes", typically enough, of which there are two for each character and which would only be available at level 15. These powers do not consume Energy, but instead consume "Xtreme Tokens", which are loot items. Having plenty of Xtreme Tokens does not mean that the player can spam Xtreme powers willy-nilly though, as each Xtreme power has a cooldown timer.
On the other hand, all characters draw from the same pool of tokens, meaning that the player can have all characters pulling off Xtreme powers in succession, which can make certain tough fights shorter. However, the capacity of tokens that the party has depends on the overall average level for all characters, up to a maximum of five chances for the execution of Xtreme powers. This is perhaps a wise balancing decision on the developer's part.
It should be noted here that Xtreme powers are screen-clearing powers that are intended to be used against many enemies, and not single targets such as bosses. On the other hand, bosses tend to summon in goons at certain moments during fights against them, so Xtreme powers can still be of some use.
Some of the powers that certain characters have can be visually disconcerting. One of them is Juggernaut's Crimson Rage power. On paper, every hit that he performs with this attack increases his damage, which is desirable. However, the visual indicator for this is an increase in his model size, but there is no increase in the size of the hitboxes of his attacks, or the hitbox of his model. This means that Juggernaut's model will obscure the player's view of the action as the player uses Crimson Rage. His model also happens to clip through many objects.
However, such a visual oddity is rare, as the player is not likely to be able to find an enemy that Juggernaut can pummel away repeatedly without him losing size.
As mentioned earlier, powers have ranks, which are practically their levels of effectiveness. Although powers with higher ranks are understandably more powerful, they tend to draw more Energy, thus requiring improvement of the characters' Energy capacities before these higher-ranked powers can be practical.
It has to be said there that the general usefulness of powers over default attacks consequently means that the Focus and Energy statistics are the most important ones, as these help facilitate the spamming of powers. Wise players are likely to focus (pun not intended) on the development of these statistics over anything else in their character builds, which do not exactly speak well of the wisdom (or lack thereof) behind the game's designs.
It should be mentioned here that investments in powers do not follow the rule of diminishing returns. The next rank for a power may offer the same magnitude of incremental power, or more, or less; there is no consistency, which suggests that Raven Software may have spent a lot of time balancing the powers. On the other hand, the increasing amount of points required to advance a power to the next rank serves to indirectly enforce this rule.
In addition, certain powers for a character require that other powers reach certain ranks, which further prevent overpowered builds.
Some powers in the game can seem impractical. These include abilities that buff the melee attacks of characters that are far better off being used as ranged characters; one such example is Storm's Elemental Combat power, which is likely undesirable to many players as her other powers are ranged.
Some certain other powers have design problems, at least in the launch version of the game. For example, Rogue's Heal power removes debuffs and heals the target character as described, but it also removes buffs from party members, which is an annoyance. Another example is Nightcrawler's Frenzy attack, which is tied to his Teleport ability; improving the latter too much may cause the former to have Nightcrawler overshooting enemies more often than the player would like.
COMBOS & LEADERSHIP:
In the previous game, having characters simultaneously execute attacks (either with default attacks or powers) on a single target inflicts additional damage as well as impart more experience points when it is slain, the act of which is called a "combo" in-game. In Rise of Apocalypse, there are only additional experience points to be had from combos.
Considering that enemies within a level respawn after the player has left the level alone for some time and can thus be farmed for additional experience, the additional experience from combos is not really that crucial, unless the player wants to spend as little time with the game as possible. In fact, for such a player, the bonus damage would have been very welcome, if it was in the game.
Perhaps the only consolation is that the mechanism of bonus damage has been worked into a power, or more precisely, a skill, by the name of "Leadership"; appropriately enough, characters that are canonically leaders, such as Cyclops, have Leadership. Anyway, it offers bonuses to chances for critical hits when combos are successfully pulled off. However, the bonuses from multiple characters with Leadership would not stack.
Leadership also imparts bonus experience points upon the execution of any combo, even if it does not include the finishing blow.
On the other hand, the benefits of Leadership would suggest that the player would need a character with this skill in the party at all times in order to benefit from the mechanisms for combos. Characters with Leadership are generally quite versatile though, so this would only be an issue to players who like playing with theme-based parties, e.g. all-brawn characters.
As for the execution of combos, the window of opportunity for combos to be registered by the game can be rather narrow, if the combo does not include a power that stuns struck enemies. The animations for most powers are brief enough to fit into this window, though the projectiles from some Projectile powers can be too slow for combos. Conversely, area-effect powers can be very convenient for scoring multiple combos at once.
The exception to this rule for windows of opportunity is the stun status that some powers inflict on enemies. Any attack that hits a stunned enemy counts as a combo, thus making such powers rather useful (though they would have been more useful if they do not have high energy costs, which they tend to have).
GEAR:
Perhaps the aspect of this game that gives the strongest impression that Rise of Apocalypse takes on many RPG tropes is the gear system for characters.
Each character has several slots for a few different types of gear pieces that he/she can equip, specifically belts, gloves and armor – even if some characters do not visibly or canonically use any.
Gear pieces can be typically found as loot, or bought off vendor NPCs. They usually impart bonuses to the statistics of characters that equip them, though some are less mundane, such as pieces of gear that impart bonus damage of damage types that are not associated with the character.
Yet, despise these designs, the gear system in this game would not seem remarkable to veterans of RPGs, who may have encountered far more sophisticated equipment systems. That the player's inventory is limited to just 20 items can also be a frustration.
The player can store desired items in the "Hero Stash" in hub maps. Theoretically, it can hold plenty more than just 20 items, but due to issues with how the game handles memory dumps, having more than 30 can cause crashes whenever the player tries to access the stash, especially when the player has progressed into the final act of the story.
TECH BITS:
Perhaps in an attempt to disguise what is really a mundane currency system, Raven Software named the virtual currency in this game as "Tech Bits". Tech Bits are primarily obtained as loot from enemies and from destroying objects in the levels, upon which they spill out as shiny golden bits that are attracted to nearby party members. Tech Bits can also be gained from selling unwanted gear.
Tech Bits are typically used to purchase items from vendors, though the items that they offer are usually too underpowered for the challenges ahead. They are also used to revive incapacitated characters, which can only be done at Xtraction points or the hub map, though if the player is careful enough, he/she would not be expending too many Tech Bits.
The expenditure of Tech Bits that the player would indulge in the most would be the purchase of reset options, as mentioned earlier, as well as re-stocks of Health and Energy packs. There is little other reason to spend Tech Bits, unfortunately, as just about everything else, notably gear, is not worth the expenditure.
CONTROL DESIGNS:
It has to be said here that this game is very much a straight port of the console version when it comes to user friendliness. The mouse is almost useless, thus requiring the player to use the keyboard most of the time. Yet, the default layout of the control inputs is cumbersome, being little more than some facsimile of the layout of a gamepad.
The control inputs can be remapped, but ultimately the control designs strongly suggest that Raven Software is not keen on optimizing the game for play on the computer platform.
Regardless of the player's choice of controls or any reservations that he/she has with them, the player needs to learn that they determine how the player can have player characters using their powers.
By default, the player characters can only make hand-to-hand attacks; there is one button for a regular attack, and another for heavy attacks. These tend to be wimpy, however, especially if the player character is not one that is associated with having close-combat prowess.
The buttons for these default attacks are also used to execute powers with, in conjunction with the "Use" button, which will be described shortly. However, the player is also given the option of assigning dedicated buttons for them, which is likely what players that are playing the computer version would do. This is perhaps one of very few good decisions that Raven Software has taken when porting the game over to the computer platform.
The "Use" button is also used for interacting with objects and characters, such as picking up boxes – or enemies - that can be thrown with another tap of the "Use" button. That it is used for interaction with many objects and characters can cause problems when these objects and characters happen to be close together. The most control that the player has over which gets interacted with is the facing of the player character, who generally interacts with whatever is in front of him/her.
Considering the pervasiveness of combat in this game, the player has to have controls that help him/her better take down enemies. Unfortunately, the game does not exactly have the best control designs for this purpose. Although the game has player characters immediately lunging towards the nearest enemy when they attack, or any enemy that happens to be in front of them if there are many, there is little other aid in targeting.
This limitation becomes a problem when the player is using powers that discharge harm continuously, such as Sunfire's flame-spewing powers. The player can rotate the character about so that his/her attacks hit enemies, but there will always be moments where the attacks do not, and it is at these moments when the character's Energy is wasted. Furthermore, these continuous-discharge attacks often require 'charging-up' animations, which while brief, are just too long when there are many enemies about.
MOVEMENT:
As mentioned earlier, all characters can run and walk around. All characters can jump, and almost everyone makes regular jumps at the same height, which can seem odd to those who are versed in Marvel lore. Of course, a player may choose to fly to get to higher places instead of jumping, upon when she may find that transitioning from a jump into flight is easy, which is a good decision on Raven Software's part.
Changing altitudes while flying can take a while to get used to, as the camera is hardly good at portraying elevation and there are no dedicated visual indicators for altitudes. It is also worth noting here that only the player character under a player's control can fly; the A.I. always moves characters about on-foot and lands them if they were flying.
It should be noted here that flying characters may not carry other characters, which is a difference that this game has compared to its predecessor. This is an unfortunate reduction in the sophistication of the series.
Some characters have movement methods that pay tribute to their trademark moves in Marvel lore, though most of them have limited gameplay value. Ice-Man has his ice-sliding shenanigan, which is visually pleasing though practically difficult to control, and Night Crawler can teleport but only teleport forward, which does not provide much space for tactical maneuvers. Perhaps Toad's double-jump would be the most useful of these movement alternatives, though double-jumps were already unremarkably common by the time of this game.
Players may realize that making a heavy jumping attack also happens to bring the player character's model and hitbox going up further than regular jumps, which can be handy for getting on certain high platforms. The heavy jumping attack is otherwise impractical for anything else.
After rescuing a certain character at one early point in the game, the player can open a portal back to the hub map (more on this shortly) at just about anywhere. The portal has a cooldown timer of 5 minutes, however, so it cannot be abused too much. The location of this portal is retained in the game-save though, so it can be convenient if the player wants to stop playing the game but wants to retain his/her progress through a level.
HUB MAP:
In their struggle against the forces of Apocalypse, the X-Men and Brotherhood alliance makes use of several bases of operation, such as the X-Mansion, which has seen better days. These bases are hubs that contain facilities and merchants that the player can interact with for the purpose of developing the player's favoured characters.
The hub maps also have some other distractions, such as the trivia mini-game (which will be described later), the Danger Room challenges (more on this later too) and characters that shed some light on other characters and the backstory when talked to. Each subsequent Hub Map that is encountered also signifies the start of the next act in the story. There are also NPCs that can be talked to with specific characters in the party in order to trigger special conversations, which will be described later.
LEVEL DESIGNS & SAVE-POINTS:
The levels are typically composed of a lot of corridors with goons that can seem to be nuisances on the way to more eventful encounters. There are sometimes paths that loop back onto the main path, but otherwise they are mostly linear.
Some more interesting levels have the player characters jumping about to move from platform to platform. There are also some goodies that can only be reached by doing so. Of course, it would be easier to just fly if there are player characters that can do that.
Helping the player navigate the levels is a mini-map with several view modes that can be toggled back and forth. The one that takes up the least screen space is perhaps the best for use during a fight, as it still offers enough visual contrast for the player to know where the party is relative to the boundaries of the level. For backtracking purposes, the largest and translucent mode is probably more useful.
If the player wants to examine the map, he/she can bring up a dedicated screen for this, though there would not be much to examine as the maps in the game do not really have impressive layouts.
Clear, high-contrast icons on the map show places of interest and characters of interest as well as the general location of the player's party, but there are no icons for enemies, unfortunately.
The game makes use of checkpoints for its game-saving system, which further reinforces the impression that the computer version is a slacking port. There are locations called "Xtraction Points" – cheesily enough – which are supposedly locations where the X-Men's Blackbird ship can bring the party from one place to another as well as bring characters over to switch out party members with. However, the Blackbird does not exactly come over at all; there are no visual treats to be had from Xtraction Points, only what sounds like jets screaming.
Anyway, Xtraction Points are the only way for the player to save the game and move from one map to another, or back to the hub map. It can be a hassle to run back to an Xtraction Point to save, but thankfully, the portal system that has been described earlier can be used to help the player save his/her progress at any spot in a level.
It has to be mentioned here that game-saves hold information on the state of a few of the levels that the player has recently gone through. As the player enters new levels or returns to old ones, the information on these older levels would be over-written by the information on these levels that the player is currently going through. Therefore, older levels can be "reset", causing enemies and objects in the level to respawn, which facilitates grinding.
LEVEL OBJECTS & HAZARDS:
Many levels have objects that can be picked up and thrown at enemies; these are usually thematically appropriate for the levels, such as moss-covered boulders for wooded outdoors, though crates, containers and barrels can be too typically pervasive. Throwing objects into regular enemies tend to immediately stun them, which may seem desirable, but the hassle of picking things up and then throwing them with the game's limited targeting system may be too troublesome for this tactic to be worthwhile.
More importantly, and frustratingly, the hitboxes for the environs and the thrown objects can be problematic; the objects may appear to collide with hidden ceilings and hit terrain features that have larger hitboxes than expected, among other collision detection issues.
Some levels have weapon caches that can be opened for a lot more loot than from anything else in the level. These reward exploration, though they are not really difficult to find.
Acting as obstacles in exploration are chasms, higher platforms and heavy boulders, among others. To tackle them, the player needs to have characters with special abilities that have been mentioned earlier, such as flight, mighty strength or in some cases, the ability to build bridges out of rocks and other detritus. These obstacles tend to be optional to overcome, though they often lead to side paths that make backtracking easier or to caches of goodies.
Some levels have hazards such as traps that trigger when the player character is close to or on top of them. They can be unpleasant surprises the first time around, though they are visually distinct enough that an observant player would not be caught in them more than once. There are also barriers such as force fields that prevent progress, though they can usually be circumvented by moving around them through other rooms or looking for the switches that would turn them off.
ENEMIES – REGULAR GOONS:
Throughout the game, the player will come across many regular enemies, which are typically the goons that are associated with the bosses of the levels.
Some goons have weaknesses to certain types of damage and/or particularly high resistance to others. Therefore, it is in the player's interest to have characters with a mix of damage types in the party, though there are a few characters that can inflict more than a few damage types, such as the aforementioned Iron Man.
Some other goons are stronger than the rest, a difference that is usually visually portrayed by their having bigger models and different colours; in other words, these more powerful goons are palette swaps of their more mundane variants.
Anyway, these more powerful goons have abilities that make them more challenging than just being chaff to be cut down. They may have regenerating health, auras that continuously damage characters that get too close and auras that sap away Energy.
These more powerful goons may also have invulnerability that requires the player to make use of combos of default attacks to remove the invulnerability. The moments when the player encounters such enemies are the only times where default attacks are needed, so they may give an impression that such enemies have been included in the game if only to shoehorn the player into using default attacks, which may irk some players.
Overall, these regular goons seem to be there for the player to clear away with powers, i.e. giving the game opportunities to dazzle players with the visually flashy abilities of the mutants and other super-powered characters. This impression is stronger for the Xtreme powers, which are generally useful against regular goons, as mentioned earlier.
It has to be mentioned here that certain levels have "themes" to their denizens, such as levels having mostly robotic enemies. This can pose a problem to players who use characters that specialize in specific types of damage. For example, Jean Grey is next to useless in levels that are populated by robots. This will require the player to locate Xtraction Points or use the Blink portal to switch out characters, which can break the pace of the game.
ENEMIES – BOSSES:
Not to miss out on the opportunity to showcase some particularly powerful villains in the Marvel universe, Raven Software has included them in the game as bosses. However, they are of the usual variety of bosses: they are challenging the first time around, but no longer after the player has wised-up to their tricks.
Typically, they have plenty of health and attack patterns that can be learned and countered. They have little more A.I.-scripting beyond simply pursuing player characters and attacking them, periodically using special powers.
Generally, boss fights occur in areas that are more expansive than the usual corridors; in fact, they are often the dead-ends of said corridors. Concluding the boss fights usually creates some form of shortcut back to the hub map, which is convenient not only for the player, but also Raven Software, which took opportunities to rope in characters with convenient powers or resources of travelling.
If there is anything that is convincingly entertaining about these boss fights, it is the dialogues that they offer. Most of them are portrayed in ways that stay true to their canon, such as Apocalypse himself being the usual spiteful demi-god who is out to remake the world.
MISSION OBJECTIVES:
Throughout the game, the player has to achieve objectives that are intended to dismantle Apocalypse's plans, bit by bit. In practice though, most of them are run-of-the-mill objectives that have been seen in many other games before.
Some are as dull as collecting a certain number of items, which are typically guarded by enemies that have to be disposed of before they can be retrieved. There is also the usual elimination of specific enemies or enemy hardware, which are guarded by goons of course.
There are rarer objectives such as the rescue of certain characters, but these characters are usually stowed away somewhere inaccessible until the player eliminates their captors, which do not make these missions much different from the usual traversing of corridors that are filled with goons and end with boss fights.
There are many lost opportunities for the utilization of the mutants' powers in interesting ways.
TRIVIA MINI-GAME:
In each of the hub maps, there is a machine that the player can interact with and which will ask questions that pertain to Marvel lore, such as the relationship between characters. Most of them are somewhat relevant to the story in Rise of Apocalypse and the right answers to most of them can be obtained by chatting up the NPCs in the hub map.
On the other hand, a player can attempt to just guess the right one and do some elimination of answers, because each question has a set of answers, one of which is the right one. The player is not penalized much for answering questions wrongly; the trivia mini-game moves on to the next question, but the questions would eventually recycle, allowing the player to try questions that he/she answered wrongly.
Answering a question correctly yields some experience points. The amounts that are rewarded increase as the player progresses in the story mode, though the questions do not necessarily become any harder. Questions that have been answered correctly will no longer yield experience rewards, which is a wise design on Raven Software's part.
Perhaps this mini-game would endear to fans of Marvel's comics who relish an opportunity to have something useful made out of their knowledge about Marvel fiction, but to other players, it would seem to be a cheesily weak attempt at working in Marvel lore into the gameplay.
In terms of gameplay consequences, it somewhat helps the player improve his/her party of characters in preparation for the challenges in levels ahead.
COLLECTIBLES:
Making use of the game's license from Marvel comics, the developers have named the collectibles in this game after paraphernalia that is associated with the comic media. Most of them have next to no relevant context to the story, e.g. there is no reason for them to be floating around in the levels, but then this is just a minor complaint.
Some of them are only there for gratuitous purposes, such as comic books, which only show covers from certain issues of certain comic book lines (disappointingly enough). Some others are more useful, such as so-called "tech stations" which permanently increase one of the statistics of the characters that interact with them, and Data Discs, which impart increments to the carrying capacities of Health and Energy packs when enough have been collected.
The most valuable of these collectibles are Danger Room Discs, which unlock special scenarios in the Danger Room. This will be described later.
Finally, there is one last type of collectible, which is associated with the unlocking of one of the initially unavailable characters. However, they will not be described further other than that they lead to "secret levels" of sorts, which have to be cleared to lead to items that are needed to unlock said character.
This character happens to be one of the most powerful and versatile in the game, which is a worthwhile reward for all that busywork; this character would come in useful in the next playthrough, if the player imports the characters into it. On the other hand, one can argue that this character is quite overpowered.
DANGER ROOM:
There is a mini-game that can be accessed in the hub maps; fittingly enough, it is called the "Danger Room". This mini-game has courses that may already be available, automatically unlocked as the player progresses, bought from vendors in the same hub maps, or unlocked via collectible items known as "Danger Room Discs".
The ones that are already available tend to be tutorials of sorts. To be specific, they teach the player moves that require a few control inputs before they can be executed, such as triple hit combos and throwing things.
Throughout the game, the player may encounter Danger Room Discs. These are usually hidden in the nooks and crannies of the maps in the game. These items unlock optional challenges in the Danger Room mini-game and are usually associated with most of the playable characters in the game.
Accessing one of the character-associated challenges is followed by some commentary by the character, usually over his/her past. This is then followed by the player's replaying of one particular moment in their adventures, which is usually when they are pitted alone against one of their nemeses and his/her/its goons. There is some amusing dialogue to be had when they come across their nemeses and more afterwards if the player manages to defeat them.
Entertainment value aside, these courses can be quite difficult, as the player character is all alone and may not even be one that is favoured by the player. The player will have to bring this character aside to be developed and practiced with before the course can be attempted. This observation is not lost on Raven Software though, which implemented a convenient advantage in the form of unlimited energy for the characters in these courses.
Every course in the Danger Room can be completed with various performance levels, which are indicated via the awarding of medals (which are named after the fictional super-metals in Marvel comics, which Marvel fans may find endearing).
The medals in turn are associated with other unlockable content in the game, such as alternate skins for the models of characters that are associated with some of the courses. These skins are mainly there for cosmetic purposes, but they also have a role in a game feature that will be mentioned later. The medals may also come with more practical rewards, such as a token amount of points for the participants' statistics, or some experience points.
Completing character-associated courses and obtaining the best medals provides lucrative rewards in the form of character-specific gear pieces that can be astonishingly powerful. On the other hand, if the player does not favour the character, this gear piece may well be useless.
Some of the courses have the entire party participating in scenarios against waves of enemies, eventually culminating in boss fights. These scenarios are not really that much different from the scenarios in the story mode, though the bosses are generally much tougher.
PARTY BONUS:
There is a (somewhat) "hidden" feature in the game involving the composition of the party. Forming a party of characters that are canonically closely associated with each other (other than being a member of the X-Men or the Brotherhood) imparts a party-wide bonus, the occasion of which is announced loudly by a disembodied voice. These bonuses can be very hefty, such as a doubling of every party member's Attack rating.
Most of these party bonuses can be accessed without any reference to third-party sources of information if the player is well-versed in Marvel comic lore and is aware of this feature. Other party bonuses have themes that are somewhat more apparent to other players, such as the "Agile Warriors" bonus.
An interesting aspect of this feature is that the costumes of the characters are also a factor in the formation of these thematic parties. For example, the "Age of Apocalypse" party bonus can only be unlocked by including characters that use costumes that are associated with this alternate X-Men comic timeline in the party.
It should also be noted here that there can only be one party bonus in effect at any one time, even if the party consists of characters that fulfill two sets of condition. Only experimentation will reveal which bonus takes priority. In hindsight, this was perhaps a wise design decision as it prevents the party from becoming too overpowered.
MISCELLANEOUS COMPLAINTS:
There are a handful of characters that can be unlocked for play, usually by retrieving enough collectibles. However, these characters have little relevance to the story. For example, there is a walking Professor X with powers that are similar to Psylocke's. It would also seem awkward to have him standing next to the story's actual Professor X. (On the other hand, Psylocke is not in the game.)
The computer version of the game has some "bonus" characters, but these are actually disappointing in terms of value. Sabertooth is practically Wolverine re-skinned, whereas Pyro is Sunfire's knock-off, minus his flight capability (which makes him even more difficult to appreciate).
Activision also appears to have made use of its license from Marvel to render certain characters from the Marvel universe exclusive to specific versions of the game. The aforementioned Sabretooth and Pyro are exclusive to the computer version, whereas some others are absent from the game. This may not sit well with people who despise having missed out on content for having chosen one version of the game over the others.
As mentioned earlier, this game seems to be little more than a straight port. Another design that reinforces this impression is that the player can have only up to ten game-saves, which can seem paltry compared to the norm of unlimited game-saves for computer games during the time of this game. On the other hand, the gameplay is simple and linear enough that multiple game-saves (for the purpose of decision-branching, which is rare in this game) would be unnecessary.
It has to be mentioned here that one of the characters, Magneto, may be a bit too useful, so useful such that observant players would notice that he is better off being in the party most of the time, if only for the convenience. He has Leadership, bridge-building powers, the ability to move (metal-containing) objects and flight, as well as mighty combat powers (as befitting Magneto).
Such "Swiss army knife" characters take away limelight from other characters, especially those that lack the powers that they have, such as Gambit (who is purely a combat-oriented character).
GRAPHICS:
The game uses the same engine as that of its predecessor, specifically the Alchemy engine that was designed by Vicarious Visions, which is Raven Software's fellow Activision subsidiary. In other words, a player that has played the previous game can expect very similar visuals, albeit with some upgrades, such as clearer fingers on the extremities of characters' appendages.
The textures for the levels are bland enough such that the locales tend to look rather similar to each other, especially for indoor areas. This could have been averted if the lighting is bright enough to show off the colors of the textures, but it is not.
In fact, the lighting is quite dim, though it does accentuate objects that happen to be light sources, especially fires, which looked brilliant in this game during its time.
The character models would have been the main appeal of the visual designs of this game, but, again, the lighting and shadowing system sabotages this. Ironically, the more brilliant lighting and shadowing in the computer version of this game happens to highlight the flaws in the character models, such as the lack of sophisticated polygons for most characters' heads and faces, which the designers attempt to disguises with textures.
The shadows fall across these simple polygons, obscuring said textures. The same can also be said for minor details on the characters' models, such as their belts and badges, which are really only textures and not made of polygons.
However, the animations for the character models would seem quite satisfactory, especially to X-Men fans. To cite some examples, Nightcrawler and Wolverine have suitably feral poses and movement, whereas Juggernaut is convincingly the lumbering brute with long strides that he is.
On the other hand, an observant player may also notice that some animations, such as those for running about, are recycled across many other characters.
VOICE-ACTING & WRITING FOR CHARACTERS:
Although Raven Software may have taken a lot of liberties with the powers of the characters, such as giving Cyclops a radioactive beam attack when his optic beam is canonically not radioactive at all, their personalities have generally been unaltered.
Their personalities are portrayed best in their voice-overs during battle. Most of these voice-overs are one-liners, with more than a few being puns; the rest are macho outbursts and taunts that are directed at defeated enemies. However, as typical as these voice-overs sound, they are very much appropriate for what are, after all, fictional comic book characters with superhuman powers that are apparently meant for purposes of combat.
The in-game cutscenes do not portray the characters as well as their quips during battle, however. The in-game cutscenes are meant for story development, but Raven Software attempts to inject scenes if only to showcase some of the more bombastic characters. The result may not endear to every player, however, as the characters may come off as campy and their remarks may seem unnecessary.
For example, there is a scene where Juggernaut makes a remark during a mission briefing that gets him into trouble with one of the more brawn-inclined X-Men, who is Colossus. Although this scene does showcase how brutish both of them can be and the difference in nobility of character between them, it does not add to the brevity of the mission.
Fortunately, this is not all there is to the voice-overs. There are special dialogues that play when the player has the appropriate character in the party when encountering an NPC. Usually, these characters know each other (for better or worse); they either exchange opinions or, in the case of bad blood between them, taunts and pleas. These moments serve as reminders of the relationships between certain characters, which may entertain fans of the X-Men comics.
(There is an Easter Egg moment involving one of the unlockable characters meeting one of the more comical bosses, which can be hilarious.)
Raven Software does attempt to portray the friction between the members of the Brotherhood and the X-Men via the dialogue that plays out when the player uses a character from either organization to interact with a character from the other organization, but these are ultimately canned responses and have little impact on the gameplay, if at all.
SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC:
As befitting its comic-book settings, Rise of Apocalypse has a lot of outlandish sound effects. To cite some examples, there are warbles or booms that accompany area-effect attacks, zings that punctuate beam attacks, dings and plinks for projectiles that hit walls, and, of course, many explosions. They are plenty fitting with the action that occurs on-screen, though they can sometimes be rather loud and seem recycled a bit too much (especially for common occurrences such as things breaking apart during battle).
The veteran composer Gregor Narholz designed the music for this game. Already an experienced composer by the time of this game, he has the versatility to compose music with themes that are appropriate to the media that he has been contracted to work on; Rise of Apocalypse would not be an exception.
Much of the music in this game is very appropriate to the themes and settings of the level that the player is currently in, such as relatively serene scores for the hub maps, and much more exciting and ominous ones for boss fights. Of particular noteworthiness is the short flourishes and rise in tempo that occurs whenever enemies have spotted the party and move in to engage after a lull in the action.
MULTIPLAYER:
Being a game that has a party of characters running around beating people and objects up, it would have been disappointing if Rise of the Apocalypse does not have options for cooperative multiplayer. Fortunately, it does not disappoint – somewhat.
Players can opt for local co-op play with additional control devices plugged into the computer, but the camera is a problem in this mode. Instead of resorting to split-screens, the camera zooms all the way out to fit all characters on-screen.
Although one can argue that the team should be sticking close together, there are objectives that could have been more easily achieved by having each character going off separately to reach objects of importance that are away from each other. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as the zoomed-out camera reduces visual contrast and makes gauging distances harder, among other visual issues.
Of course, these problems somewhat go away if the players play over the Internet, where everyone gets his/her own screen. If any player has his/her character separated too far from the rest of the party, he/she has the option to merely tap a button to have his/her character teleport over to the nearest party member, conveniently enough.
There is a complaint common to both local and Internet play: if any player accesses the menus, the game pauses, which may be undesirable to one or more of the other players who may not appreciate the break in the pace.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, there is an impression that Raven Software and Activision have made use of their license from Marvel to create a game that has the unlikely but exciting scenario of the X-Men working with their rivals from the Brotherhood of Mutants against a common enemy, but have done little more than this. There are many lost opportunities to inject and exploit the uneasiness of such a tenuous alliance.
Gameplay-wise, the game has some improvements over its predecessor, but also takes away some sophistication that has been seen in the previous game. Otherwise, the game has little if anything new and refreshing to offer the player that has have some experience in squad-based action games, though it is quite solidly designed.