X-Men Legends II: Rise Of Apocalypse

very good
key review info
  • Game: X-Men Legends II: Rise Of Apocalypse
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
  • Reviewed on:

Heavy snow has strayed upon the rooftops and yards of the facility. With the snowing and the darkness, an overwhelming silence has taken over the landscape.

Two impetuous guards watch over the entrance to the military prison outpost. Something is not right. The heavy steel-gates start shaking. Three rugged wanderers glance into the mist of the night. The shaking becomes more and more intense until the heavy gates are blown to smithereens. The guards fall back and huddle together. They call for backup. However, it is too late now. A new, mysterious force is in motion. Shortly after the breach, the entire outpost falls. Xavier?s imprisonment ends at the will of Magneto. But why?

Story After so much time of reckless and ruthless conflict, the X-Men and the Brotherhood have forged their first alliance. They must stand unite against a greater threat than themselves. An old friend (5000 years old, to be exact) is back and has transformed the homeland of the mutants (Genosha, who?s righteous ruler is Magneto) into a scrapheap.

This menace stands by the name of En Sabah Nur or ? to be more accurate ? Apocalypse (from Greek apokalupsis, "revelation", Apocalypse, from apokaluptein, "to uncover" : apo- + kaluptein, "to cover"; a catastrophic end, from the Greek name of ?The Book of Revelations?, the prophetic visions of Saint John concerning the end of the world).

With the destruction of Genosha, his son (Quicksilver) kidnapped, and his position of ?would-be world conqueror? usurped by Apocalypse, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr suspended his extremist beliefs in the Homo Superior (it is strange how a man, who was interred at the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz, may come to embrace a doctrine like this) and decided to ally with Professor Charles Francis Xavier to end the rise of Apocalypse.

There is no doubt that Apocalypse will eventually fall, but two things remains unclear: what will happen with the two factions afterwards? Moreover, has Magneto really left aside his hatred against humankind and the X-Men?

This is the plot behind X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. It is unfold gradually through the dialogues between the characters of the game, and by some action cut scenes between the acts ? like in Diablo II.

The quality of the dialogues - the heart of the story line - shifts between well inspired and overstated (like those of Grizzly, Magneto). In addition, the voice acting is just a bit better than that of a soap opera. For a great range of players, this will prove to be quite annoying.

However, the cut scenes (low-res) have a nice muscle touch and manage to unfold enough for you to understand better what happened and raise enough questions to keep some level of mystery around the schemes of the two archenemies, Apocalypse and Magneto.

Concept The history of PC ?Dungeons and Dragon? games has known many universes. From my point of view, those who concentrate on characters rather than species or classes of warfare specialization feel much more natural and are much more immersive. Attaining a great victory against a well-defined individuality is much closer to our human nature than killing some strange looking beasts.

The X-Men universe is one of the richest in terms of types of psychic and physical features. And each one is represented by a unique being ? a mutated human with his own identity and personality. So, unlike many others, who are mainly geographical and racial, this universe is typological. This means a lot of talking and a lot of action ? as a form of interaction between the characters you control and the world in which they live (which, like I said, is made of beings not of regions and their respective fauna).

The game?s approach resembles to that of Diablo: more action, less RPG, but with a Baldur?s Gate touch ? the game is stuffed with dialogues and easy tasks and encourages team-play.

Gameplay Like his older brother, Rise of the Apocalypse is more of a hack&slash/dungeon crawl game than a serious RPG. (By RPG, I understand an action game provided with a level-up system, where any quest given may have more than one solution and more than one consequence corresponding to what one has seen fit to do about it).

The game is made up of five chapters/areas (like Diablo II: LOD) organized in sectors (around ten per area). Some of these areas have a rally point (like in D2) called X-traction point. From here you can either return to any of your five headquarters (one for each area), save your game or change your team (up to four members).

You will be allowed to choose from twenty mutant heroes X-Men, Brotherhood or neutral (Bishop, Colossus, Cyclops, Gambit, Iceman, Juggernaut, Jean Grey, Magneto, Nightcrawler, Pyro, Rogue, Scarlet Witch, Sunfire, Sabretooth, Storm, Toad, Wolverine), the other three ? I won?t spoil anyone?s fun by revealing them - will join your forces later in the game. Magma or Psylocke are missing, and Beast or Emma Frost appear as NPCs (non-player characters).

Like in Diablo II, a character will rely on his stats and his skills. Stats (body, focus, strike, and speed) improve the attack and defense ratings, hit points, energy points and melee or mental damage. Every mutant has a set of unique skills, which may be offensive, passive, or bolstering. Some of them represent Xtreme powers and need Xtreme tokens to work ? unlike their counterparts that require energy points.

Otherwise, every mutant is able to rely on three types of melee attack: punching, kicking, and throwing (enemies, or objects? at enemies). More than this, all characters are able to jump or fly or both and do combat moves (by making certain key sequences which can be learned in the Danger Room). Also, some team combos can be done.

Choosing your team is not something one should care about too much - RoA is easy to play. Nevertheless, you will be surprised to find that some mutants may combine each other?s Xtreme powers to create a third, devastating one. Also, the suits you choose for each one of your mutants may add bonuses to your team.

You cannot control more than one team member in the same time. So the other three will be AI controlled. But you can switch between them whenever you want with the (default) arrow keys. The AI tends to rely on range attacks. Therefore, it is a good thing to keep in mind when you pick up your team. I have formed my team of Iceman, Cyclops and Storm ? as range attackers ? and Sabretooth as the frenzied fighter ? in my control. The default team is also very efficient: Storm, Cyclops, Magneto and Wolverine.

Each mutant may use an equipment made up of a body armor (defense rating), a belt (defense rating), and a pair of gauntlets (attack rating). These can be either simple, special, or character designed (they boost the skills of the character they belong to). I have noticed that equipment items are not 100% random. You will always found the same item types with the same quality in the same spots; the only thing that changes is their enhancements or their character design.

The game itself resumes to a long series tasks you are required to fulfill ? mostly hack and slash style. Actually these tasks are part of the story. You will not have to tear your brains out of your skull because quests come with the story and are solved with your advance through the landscape. All you have to do is push on ? in a straight line ? Diablo style. Even your descents into caves or tunnels will be return-free, as they will represent the only way to go.

Experience is raised by completing quests, exterminating cockroaches, and from dialogues. Well, experience (and skill/stat points) may also be found as tokens on the ground. Isn?t it fun? This game can actually kill brain cells. It is better not to play it for a long period of time if the level of your IQ is that thing your life depends on.

The Danger Room (defeat monsters or interact with objects ? pretty dumb actually, or pretty smart for a tutorial, decide for yourselves), the Secret Area and The Trivia Game represent the alternative way to gain experience. I can draw a line and see that, even so, after completing the game once these kind of things will get on your nerves as they will be the boring way of improving your main character/team (the danger room bonuses, in terms of character improvement, will affect ? only once ? to the character/team involved in its training exercises).

Well, in terms of leveling-up (4 stat points and 1 skill point per level) you won?t need to bother. It is madness: the rate of leveling up is faster than killing).

Those heroes who do not take part of the action receive enough experience to be able to catch up with your active characters if you will eventually decide to rally them.

As a final note I must add that ? like in Diablo and its counterpart, Sacred ? the monsters re-spawn but only after jumping from one area/chapter to another. The thing is unique monsters do not re-spawn. Furthermore, a mutant named Blink will act as your tome of town portal (but it has a cooling time). I have also noticed a strange bug: the crates filled with credits reappear after you move from one sector to another.

For fans, the game has many things to unlock. Among many things (that suffer of low-res ? console caused ? disease), you will be allowed to taste the excellence of the Beenox, Activision and Ravensoft logos (I bet you guys hardly wait). But there are still a handful of great things to unlock: costumes for your characters (having a team with lets say: Age of Apocalypse ? it is not a season, but an issue- collection grants you not just eye pleasure but +100% attack rating), or the opportunity to play with all the characters in the game in the Danger Room. I personally yearned for the evil ones.

Video The comic-book touch makes the characters resemble better than ever with ugly-looking porcelain toys. What happened with the paper? Anyway the whole graphic concept is terrible. Better than this, the sun rarely dawns; so many landscapes are completely drowned in a watery brown-grey mix.

The (overhead) camera-view is also made of pure evil. It covers too little of the landscape you move through because of its angle and positioning. Because of this, the fact it isn?t locked on the back of your controlled character prevents you from having a clear view of what is happening around you.

Otherwise, the way the mutants act is delightful. I lost a lot of time leveling-up my entire team just to see the visual effects of their skills and combos. Also, there is a lot of stuff that can be broken. Just wait to see Colossus grabbing a soldier and breaking a wall with him. Or, one time in a cavern, I was surprised to see Wolverine slashing some bugs through a stalagmite. In short, through games like RoA you get the opportunity to ask yourselves questions such as: ?what to do with that door: open it, break it??

Sound It is stereo all right! The slashing and bashing feel like it. However, the voice acting is not that all right: ?I [5 sec. pause] am [10 sec. pause] Magneto? and I am evil!?. Doh! I guess being subtle is not an attribute of evil geniuses that have X powers.

The sound themes are to be taken into consideration: I especially appreciate the one from the Sanctuary (it resembles very much with the motif from the Resident Evil 2 typewriter-areas).

Multiplayer It can also be played via LAN or online: skirmish (king of the hill, last man standing, last man ladder ? who wins gains one level, brawl ? fight for a period of time) or campaign (up to four players).

Conclusion A simplistic yet incredibly addictive game. Its familiar gameplay and rich universe are powerful enough to corrupt anyone?s will. Should I add you get to play not just with X-Men but with a whole-lot bunch of them?

The really sad part is that it wasn?t provided with character biographies and such. This is ? from my point of view ? the salt and pepper of a game with so many comic book heroes.

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story 9
gameplay 8
concept 9
graphics 7
audio 9
multiplayer 8
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good