  Storm launches a shocking attack in 'X-Men Legends 2'.
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I think it’s fair to say that one of the most exciting things about playing an X-Men video game is tearing through enemies using your mutant abilities and feeling the power of controlling someone who is more ‘special’ than a regular human.
In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, you still get to use all of the mutants’ abilities, but you’re also given the task of deciding who to use and when, what armor they wear, and what abilities should become more powerful than the others. Just remember that before purchasing this game.
Although this gameplay style (at least in the X-Men world) wasn’t for me, I still found it to be an enjoyable game, and chances are that fans of X-Men will have a lot to keep them busy, right down to a trivia game and unlockable artwork.
In X-Men Legends II, a very scary bad dude named Apocalypse is out to take over the world (what else would you do if your name was ‘Apocalypse??’) so all mutants – both good and bad – join forces to stop Apocalypse from taking over the Earth.
Legends II is really very much a role-playing game. If you’ve ever played Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance (or its sequel), you’ll be right at home here. Many of the controls are shared between the two games and the look of the two are also very similar, right down to the map at the top of the screen that can be viewed in two sizes, or not at all.
Also similar to the aforementioned Baldur’s Gate games, in X-Men legends you walk around and will find hidden items that you can use on your characters, such as armour. Armour becomes stronger the further into the game you get. I wasn’t a big fan of this aspect of Legends II, but luckily you can turn this to ‘auto,’ so that the items picked up automatically go to the person who needs it the most. In fact, most people I’ve talked to who play this game turn the settings to ‘auto’ so this tells me that maybe this part of the game was all very unnecessary.
Aside from the items you pick up, there’s still a whole lot more going on in the game when it comes to powering up characters. You can choose to use the same four Mutant or Brotherhood players the entire game, or constantly mix and match as you see fit at any point in the game. Again, I would have rather had some guidance and just focussed on four characters from the get-go, but for RPG/X-Men fans, I suppose this will be heaven for them.
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Click here for the official 'X-men Legends 2' trailer. (Quick Time: 5.09 Meg) |
As is the case with so many GameCube titles, the gameplay probably would be helped out tenfold if there were online capabilities. There’s a four player online co-op mode on the Xbox version but only four people on the same ‘Cube will be able to play together at one time.
X-Men Legends II really is a solid game. It has tons of stuff to keep players busy for hours on end and has all kinds of replayability value if you want to really focus on only certain mutants each time through. It has pretty graphics, plenty of extras and an engaging storyline. I may have taken a whole lot more from it if I was a hardcore fan of the history of X-Men, but it still has enough going for it to keep all types of gamers happy.
