GameCube

X-Men: Legends II - Rise of Apocalypse

Overall, I offer the identical recommendation I did last year - this is pure fun that increases exponentially as you add more friends to the mix.

Overall X-Men Legends II is a lot of fun to play in single player and multiplayer modes. The length and depth of the story keep the game playable for a very longtime. In addition the amount of un-lockable items will keep X-men gamers interested. The vast amount of characters that are playable and non-playable characters should appeal to all X-men fans. This would be a good addition to anyone's game collection.

I can't say I'll be going online much, but I'm really glad to see it as a big addition in XML2. I've played coop and melee on a broadband connection and saw only the slightest lag...hiccups really. Not much more to say here except that playing coop is not only a fast way to get through the game, it's a more natural way. After all, XML2 is at its core a team-driven game and playing alongside other people just makes sense.

X-Men Legends II isn’t a drastic improvement over the first game, but it is definitely an improvement and ultimately a fun game. In addition to the lengthy single-player mode, the cooperative mode adds many hours to the game. This isn’t even mentioning that the single-player mode has a high replay value since you can easily go through to the game with another set and enjoy yourself. Overall, X-Men Legends II is definitely recommended.

The only problems I really had with the game is that all but 3 characters are unlocked from the get go, the characters you do unlock are obtained at the very end of the game, and 2 of them don't take much effort to get. There also aren't many places for you to actually level yourself up. Not that the game is uber hard or anything, but it'd be nice to be able to pick up new skills and upgrades a bit easier. Which is fine, considering that the game isn't all that hard the first time around (yes, that's a gripe also). Either way, this game was a lot better than the first, and that says a lot.

If you enjoyed X-Men Legends, you need to drop what you're doing right now and go get X-Men Legends II. The game takes everything done right in the first game and does it better. The story is just as compelling if not better, and being able to mix the Brotherhood with the X-Men is over the top of cool. Almost all the complaints from the first game have been successfully addressed, and some new features make this game an even more compelling experience.

Man merkt dem Titel durchaus an, dass sich die Entwickler Gedanken gemacht haben. Rise of Apocalypse wirkt in spielerischer Hinsicht durch die Detailverbesserungen ausgereifter als der Vorgänger. Besonders erwähnenswert ist der sehr gut gelungene Mehrspieler-Part. Optisch ist zwar ebenfalls ein Schritt nach vorne zu bemerken, der aber durch häufiges und auf Dauer störendes Ruckeln nur bedingt positiv ausfällt. Wem Baldur´s Gate schon gefallen hat, der kann zugreifen. Comic-Fans sind jedoch im Vorteil.

Overall, X-Men Legends II is a definite step up from its predecessor. It doesn't do anything new or groundbreaking in terms of gameplay mechanics, but the cast of characters and the story are more than enough to make it worth playing. The game takes about 25 hours to finish, but when you do, you can play again on a different difficulty setting. Better yet, you can try playing through with a new combination of characters to see which combos work best. Even if you're only a passing fan of the comic book series, and even if you've already played the first game to death, you'll have a lot of fun with X-Men Legends II.

There have been roughly a billion different X-Men games over the years and most of them have disappointed. Last year's X-Men Legends was an exception. It captured the essence of the wide range of characters and of the whole X-Men concept and distilled it into a well-received game. This time around, Raven Software beefed up things in just about every department, and the result is a game that will wow fans of the first game and probably earn some converts to the series. Things just keep getting better for the Marvel Universe. Excelsior!

In classic sequel tradition, Raven Software has made the action RPG, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, the game that X-Men Legends should have been. It's got tons of playable characters including a healthy range of X-men and the Brotherhood of Evil, it's bigger and more interactive, and it's re-organized for more efficient team-based leveling up.

I have listed quite a few complains about X-Men Legends II in the course of this review, but I still find myself shoving those ideas aside and seeing the truth of the matter: This game is still fun. While I wouldn't dare touch the single player mode ever again, I will still enjoy multiplayer sessions with friends, and, no matter how easy the game is, we will still have fun. I do hope for an improved, focused sequel to this game, one that is more of an evolution from the original than the tweaked add-on that this version feels like. I will have fun with this nonetheless, and I will hold my tongue every time the game slows down or even freezes, because I would love to get back in to the fray and dig my adamantium claws into another few scores of the ranks of evil.

In the end, if you think comics are for dorks and that a Garokk is something you get on your wang when you don't use adequate protection, well, I suppose you can go back to playing football and making out with girls, or whatever else it is you and your kind do when not administering wedgies or swirlies to people like me. If, though, you really liked the first X-Men Legends and you've always wondered what a battle with Gambit, Sunfire, the Scarlet Witch, and Bishop versus the Living Monolith would look like, this game is everything you could ever dream of in a sequel. And, on a side note, perhaps it's time you went outside and got a little sun.

X-Men Legends II verse dans le "toujours plus" avec davantage de personnages, de pouvoirs mais quid des améliorations concernant la jouabilité ? Eh bien, il n'en est rien vu que tous les problèmes du premier épisode sont à nouveau au rendez-vous. C'est d'autant plus rageant que le concept de X-Men Legends est à la base, excellent. Retrouver tout ce qui a fait la mythologie des X-Men dans un jeu à la BG Dark Alliance est une idée riche de possibilités mais si le gameplay ne suit pas, à quoi bon ?!