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X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (PC) Review
A little over a year after the nice surprise that was X-Men Legends, we are treated with a sequel from Activision. After battling Sentinels and the evil Brotherhood the sequel introduces us to a new enemy that is so powerful the previously quarreling X-men and Brotherhood must team up to defeat him and his minions. Apocalypse is an ancient mutant that has existed since the time of the Egyptians and probably longer than that. All you need to know is that his invasion of the planet is a problem and you’re going to need to battle through waves of his minions to find out exactly what he’s up to. That’s right, more enemies, more mutants to pick from, more items, more, more and more. That’s what XML2 is all about: more of the same thing. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either.
Raven knew what gamers liked last time, and gives us the same brutal hack and slash (or in this case: smash and fire) brawler they provided last year. You choose a party of four from a large pool of mutants that include all sorts of mutants from the obscure Japanese, anti-hero Sunfire to traditional Brotherhood mutants like Magneto (yes, yes you can) to the classics like Cyclops. Sorry, Beast is sitting this one out as an NPC, but there are now exclusive mutants to each console. Each party member can be switched out at Xtraction points just like the original. This time you have the option of creating a temporary portal back to the primary base to switch out characters on the fly, which means no more running all the way back to get Storm so she can fly over that bottomless pit. To balance out this new benefit, the portal is limited to one use every five minutes and some special areas are cut off from using it.
Legends II doesn’t try to insult you with overcomplicated gameplay, either. They knew their audience and the game is a pleasant mix of switch-pulling puzzles and action. Particularly humorous (and what would be very saddening if this were something like Prince of Persia) are the objectives that involve “fixing” a particular problem during a mission. Most of the time I simply got a message telling me that well, since the switch didn’t work, we should try smashing said console, control panel, or machine. Of course, it worked every time. The true joy is tweaking your characters and enjoying the destruction they create. Even better is playing with a cooperatively.
 Humans will always outpace computer A.I. in videogames, but that is an understatement in XML2. Your computer-controlled partners work just fine, and will competently fight enemies and distract them, but they take a backseat to your lead. Their damage is lessened, which allows you to be a primary part of the action. In fact, improvements to A.I. this time around mean they will automatically use a health potion when your inventories are full and you run across an extra bottle. This makes the action run along a lot smoother than previously stopping to check everyone’s health and make sure you can’t squeeze one more potion in. That being said, cooperative play (now over the internet) allows you to match up with players around the world and create more havoc than before. The few games I could actually find people hosting were festering with lag, however, but your results may vary (depending on whether you end up with dial-up users or not).
This brings me to some gripes and the biggest question throughout the entire game. To get a minor gripe out of the way, I should say that towards the end when mutant powers start to kick in the game becomes pretty easy. Now, counterbalance to this is the sheer joy of blowing through what you should be blowing through: basic troops. Yes, a minor gripe and one that can be avoided by simply playing hard mode with your already leveled and precious characters. It really depends on how much time one spends tailoring your characters to a certain build and completing the danger room missions to gain very useful equipment and experience.
 Now, I have a question for the developers: Why the rush? I ask this because there are numerous bugs and generally unpolished bits throughout the game. There are no upcoming X-Men movies (besides X3 in May) or any other Marvel events to coincide with. Besides a date set by the publisher, it seems like Raven had plenty of time to test this game for bugs and errors. About 28 hours into the game I thought I had encountered a bug to only Xtract in and out to solve the issue. My primary gripe with the last game was how unpolished it seemed, which leaves me still wondering: what was the rush to get this out before fixing most everything? Fortunately I was too busy having fun to worry a lot about the one or two truly frustratingly confusing or bugged objectives.
Ignoring XML2’s lack of improvements in the game-testing area, I can confidently say the game runs without a hiccup and it runs beautifully. The graphics seems to have improved significantly last time (although I was on the considerably less crisp Gamecube version before) and the game looks great for how well it runs. The game ran at a smooth-as-butter rate of 60 frames per second on my Athlon 64 3200+ paired with 1.25 GB DDR 400 RAM and ATI’s X850XT (1280x1024 screen size). I have no doubt it will run as smoothly on older cards with the settings just as high. Effects look great and the characters retain the outline and partly cell-shaded look from the first game. It won’t compete with Half-Life 2 for the best visuals, but it still looks fantastic. They’ve also changed the in-game cinematics so that close-up scenes involve higher poly-count models with synced voice-acting. It’s a nice touch that complements the fantastic CGI movies. Also notable were the load times. There was rarely a time I had to wait longer than 3 seconds for a level to load. If you’ve got a decent gaming computer and are wondering which platform to pick this up for, choose PC. The game easily configured to both of my game pads (a PS2 converter and Logitech’s Dual Action), which was a great relief.
Worth noting is not the music, which is decent, but the voice-acting. Scanning the credits in the back of manual turns up with some great acting talent with the likes of John DiMaggio (Bender from “Futurama,” voicing an entertaining Juggernaut this time around), Steve Blum (Spike from “Cowboy Bebop” and doing the voice for Wolverine in XML2), and of course, Captain Jean Luc Picard, I mean, Patrick Stewart. Hearing Iceman’s “I’m even COOLER now” and other equally corny, but pleasing, lines from all the characters brought a smile to my face. The X-men are truly not fully fleshed out without their signature one-liners.
Legends II shines a better and brighter light on the series. With more action and more variety this time, even with a few hiccups and over-powered characters, I can only see the series getting better. The marketing for the game pervades every source of media (from magazines to online ads to television), so it’s likely this is not the end of the series. I truly hope it isn’t, because Raven and Activision can still do so much with such a promising second start.
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Written by Chad Phillips. Posted year 2005.
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Released on
September 20, 2005
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