"The New "Best Marvel Game to Date""

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse is the sequel to the highly acclaimed X-Men Legends. At its heart, X-Men Legends II is a hack-n-slash with RPG ties that will undoubtly appeal to all comers.

Story (9/10)--I really enjoyed the storyline this time around as opposed to the first outing, simply because Magneto is always predictable with his actions, and Apocalypse's quest for total domination seems much more potent than any other X-Men villian. Apocalypse is brutal and pure evil and the story is done quite superbly.

Graphics (8/10)--I had issues with the first games graphics, mainly the character detail when not in a battle situation, they looked very deformed. While its not a drastic change, the characters look more cleaner and the fine detailed this time the hands and feet. The FMV look absolutley wonderful and was a great surprise and a definite upgrade from the prior outing.

Sound (7/10)--This is perhaps the weakest part of the game, the music is ok and nothing that will keep you humming very long, but my biggest gripe has to be the voice acting. It seems to have taken the biggest hit from the last outing, especially Rogue, god does she sound awful, but she's not the only one.

Gameplay (9/10)--Of course the most importantly aspect to any game. If you were a fan of the previous game, you will for sure be right at home, its easy to pick up for anyone, yet has a little depth for the veterans. You will control 1 of 4 characters at any given time and button mash through five acts in your quest to defeat Apocalypse. The biggest surprise is the boss battles. There are numerous mid-boss fights to include Omega Red, Lady Deathstrike among others, and the real battles with his four horsemen. The battles are long and take a little bit of puzzle solving to figure out the weakness. While not difficult, it adds some depth to the fights. The menus have been re-done and seem easier to navigate and helps with the load times which were the previous' games biggest killer. Each character has more attacks at his disposal that you can toggle in any way you choose. While the menus to upgrade your character are more detailed and difficult to understand as opposed to the first game's simplicity in character enhancement, you should be a pro in no time.

Characters (7/10)--There are new characters to use in this game that differ from the previous game, which is good, but I do have gripes. You get to play with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants this time as they are forced to join forces with the X-Men. Your choices include Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Juggernaut, and Toad. As for X-Men your choices are Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Sunfire, Bishop, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Iceman. You have three secret characters as well, Prof. X, Deadpool, and Iron Man! (Iron Man will rule this game singlehandily). My biggest gripe as I said were some new characters, you won't ever use Prof. X, Sunfire (where did he come from, and why was he included?) Bishop(while he is important in the comics to destroying Apocalypse, you get him from the gate, yet in the previous game he is a baby, so you don't know if he did his whole time travel thing to help destroy Apocalypse. Scarlet Witch of course is in the BrotherHood yet in the previous game she's unaccounted for, in this game she was obviously inserted due to her brother being part of the storyline. There are much cooler adversaries that could have been used (Sabretooth, Mystique) that have been regulated to the backside unfortunatley, and of course Toad, the worse character alive, yet he's one of the best in the game. I know they add characters based on the storyline, but Magma (the star of the previous game) is gone without question, Psylocke (personal fav. next to Woverine) makes is gone, even though comic boyfriend Angel is big importance to story, Jubilee is gone for no reason...I can see Emma Frost being gone, no crying there.

Overall (9/10)--Despite issues I may have, I believe this game is as good as you will ever play based on the comic book universe. Certainly the best game for the popular X-Men. Go out and buy and you will not be dissappointed, I promise you. I am hoping that someone in Activison and Marvel think to create a Marvel Comics game that will feature the all the Marvel favorites (X-Men, Avengers, FF and others) in a massive game. A dream come true if it were to happen and play out like X-Men Legends II.

Minor quirks--There are some playability issues I didn't like. In Act 3 your in the Weapon X compound, if your Wolverine and you go up to Heather Hudson, she'll act like your not Wolverine, and when the topic of Mr. Logan pops up, she'll say, oh yes we know him and he was part of Alpha Flight, but we had personality issues and parted ways, yet she's speaking to him of him, seems really weird. Happens all the time, hated that. And another issue was the missions breifings...When you go into a mission briefing, they will only include about 4 or 5 characters on the screen as opposed to the first game where the whole crew was shown, its really annoying cause they mainly show Juggernaut, the idiot Toad, Wolverine, Magneto, and Prof. X, from time to time other characters will be on screen. I wonder how come team leaders Cyclops who has no role in this game or Storm never appear in the briefings...very annoying. Then during the briefings you get some tension scenes of either Juggernaut and Wolverine and others, and you ALWAYS get the two sense of Toad...I know I'm probably being picky to others, but I've been a fan for the X-Men since my father gave me his copy of X-Men #1, first edition from 1963, and I like to see the best in those mutants. So its the little things that annoy me. I hope this was useful to everyone.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/06