X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
Tags: good versus evil

Plot synopsis:
=== Setting ===
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse is not set in any particular Marvel Comics universe. The game takes place some time after the events of X-Men Legends. The mutant supervillain Apocalypse, having witnessed the X-Men's defeat of Magneto remotely, declares that the Age of Apocalypse is nigh. Prior to the game's campaign he kidnaps Professor X and Polaris for unknown purposes. Locations include a military prison in Greenland, the fictional mutant sanctuary of Genosha, the Savage Land and Egypt.
=== Plot ===
The game begins with the X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants uniting forces to save Professor X and Polaris. Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine meet up with Magneto, Mystique, and Sabretooth at a military prison outpost in Greenland to free Professor X. Upon freeing him, the teams relocate to the fictional mutant haven of Genosha. They find the island ravaged by Apocalypse's forces, and work through the wreckage and find out what he was searching for. They learn that Quicksilver was kidnapped by Apocalypse, who also kidnaps Beast from the X-Mansion. Beast manages to point the team in the direction of the Savage Land, a secret prehistoric preserve in Antarctica.
The teams work their way through the Savage Land, temporarily hindering Apocalypse's plans. Apocalypse then travels to conquer New York. The teams work at sabotaging his army and resources, but Emma Frost and Angel are kidnapped as well. Angel is unwillingly transformed by Apocalypse and Mister Sinister into Archangel, a Horsemen of Apocalypse. He is assigned as a sentry to Apocalypse's tower. The teams defeat Archangel and infiltrate the tower where they find Beast, now under the control of Mister Sinister; he kidnaps Sabretooth and escapes with Apocalypse and Mister Sinister to Egypt.
They learn that Apocalypse's plan is to use Polaris, Quicksilver, Emma Frost, and Sabretooth—four mutants with what he refers to as Harmonic DNA—as part of a machine to fuel an experiment to grant him massive amounts of power. The teams then follow Apocalypse to Egypt where they defeat Mister Sinister, freeing Beast from Sinister's control. After besting the final guard, the Living Monolith, the teams battle Apocalypse and defeat him by stealing the powers from his machine. In the final cutscene, Magneto and Professor X part once again as adversaries, noting that Apocalypse was defeated but not destroyed. Beast ponders why the machine did not work properly, wondering if sabotage was a factor. As the X-Jet flies away, Sinister is seen on top of the pyramid, laughing, hinting that he sabotaged the machine.
=== Characters ===
Several playable characters return from X-Men Legends,a and select members of the Brotherhood of Mutants are also playable. Some non-playable X-Men and Brotherhood characters appear during levels. In some instances dialogue throughout the game can be character-to-character specific, depending on the player character's alignment and relationship with the non-player character.
^a Jubilee, Magma, and Psylocke do not appear in X-Men Legends II. Beast and Emma Frost appear, but are not playable.^b Playable in the mobile version of the game^c Only appeared on PSP's extra mission^d Mentioned only

Review: I love this game!.
My mother bought me this game for my birthday and I have to say I'm glad she did.
The game was fun and exciting.
I don't think its that tuff like the first one, but the cool thing is the X-Men get to work with one of the Brotherhood.
Especially the all so powerful Magneto.
Whats good about the game is that you face a lot more enemies your probably not used to knowing.
The second best thing about the game is that the further you go along with it, the more powerful you get, which means more killer power moves.
Some original and some really knew and cool.
Its to the point where they have more powers that are so cool that you want to play the game over again just to see what it'll do to your enemies..
Really fun but the leveling up is a pain.
Well, I must be the only X-Men fan to hate on the first X-Men Legends game but this...
is a whole lot better.
No, really - the voice acting is so much better this time round, there is a way to play co-op FROM THE START!
and the Danger Room is easily by far and away the very best thing about this game.Apocalypse is about to wreck havoc which leads The Brotherhood and The X-Men on an alliance to stop Apocalypse as well as do the tasks at hand such as rescuing mutants and other such tasks.Okay, the biggest problem I have with this game is the power you will know the characters for, you have to work to get.
Nightcrawler can't teleport unless you level him up enough times, Rogue can't fly (actually, no-one can at the beginning) nor steal powers (in a beat-em-up, when you get it it's really fun to exploit) and do you think The Juggernaut can run so fast everything he touches gets knocked down?
Well - work your way up to Level 24 to get that power.The Danger Room, is probably so good - I want it to be a separate fighting game, all the character's powers are completely maxed out in this mode and beating up other members of the X-Men is actually much more fun then beating the enemies in the game.
Doing stuff like using Rogue's power to steal Nightcrawler's teleportation to evade for a minute, then using it to get The Juggernaut's power of knocking down things in momentum is one of the things you can do hypothetically.
Oh and speaking of - the combat is pretty much the same as in the original so no comment.At the end of the day - this can be a really fun game - I mean hell, it's no masterpiece but with what you have as the game goes on - is actually very much worth getting to.
I mean I know a lot of people prefer the original and while I only played the first couple of levels to both these games - this one is better of pulling you in.
If you like the idea of making your team of 4 X-Men or making X-Men beat each other up then this is for you..
An amazing game for X-men fans.
Sadly I couldn't play the first game since I don't have a gaming console, but I was absolutely excited when i found out that the second X-men Legends game would also be made for the PC.
Speaking as an X-men fan..this game is great!
About 20 playable characters (X-Men + The Brotherhood), cool powers (tho it did somewhat bother me that some we're not equal to the powers in the comics, for example Wolverine doesn't automatically heal), good voice-work (I really like the fact that they only used Patrick Stewart from the movies in this game), the story in the game is quite good (even tho a bit cliché, but it's obvious that Raven did try and succeed in creating a good comic-book story), the AI is OK i suppose (you only control one x-man at a time, the other 3 that are in your team are controlled by the computer but they really do seem to be able to take care of themselves quite well), the Danger Room (a cool thing, where you get to beat challenges and level up)..This part of the game is very well done and deserves praise.
But speaking as a gamer..The game is fairly easy and soon you get the feeling that it's all just a routine (a fun one tho) when you keep beating up zounds and zounds of enemies, most of the levels are quite well-done, but it's obvious that some parts are only there for you to kill a lot of enemies and Level Up. The graphics make up a good comic-book feel and are good, but nothing really special...I'd give this game a 7/10, it has plenty of action, the story/characters are good, X-men and the Brotherhood team up, fun and exciting boss fights and it's quite long.
Nice sequel with lots of characters to choose from.
I bought this game years ago out of a discount bin.
Played it minimally and then proceeded on to something else.
Well, I decided to play it again and I won it as well.
As far as the two X-men Legends games, I think I have a slight preference for the first one, but I think I like this one a bit more than the second Ultimate Alliance game.
The Marvel Ultimate Alliance games were sort of sequels to these games; however, at the end of this one a sequel is indicated as it showed a villain laughing maniacally, but this did not carry over to the Ultimate Alliance games.
Then again, at the end of the first Ultimate Alliance game it was indicated that Galactus would be the primary villain of the second game and that never materialized either.
That would have been cooler than the crap they did do as the second Alliance game would do the Civil War storyline (which I hated) and have a very weak villain at the end.
This one has a good villain fight at the end which is not usually present in these games.
Dr. Doom was alright, Magneto would have been cool, but he wasn't the true ending boss.
This one on the other hand as a great final fight and a great villain in Apocalypse.The story has the X-men and Brotherhood coming together to take on the evil Apocalypse who believes that only the strong shall survive.
He has kidnapped Polaris and also has his sight set on three other mutants for his scheme.
Along with other powerful mutants his nefarious plans take him to the mutant haven Genosha, the Savage Land, Canadian outposts, New York and finally Egypt.
It will take everything the X-men and the Brotherhood have to defeat this powerful foe.
They will also have to stop themselves from fighting each other.The game play is action based RPG.
You go through a level with a four person team you choose and there a are a lot of characters to choose from.
You control one of them, but you just need to push a button to switch out and control another.
I used Wolverine and Cyclops the entire way, but switched up the other two.
It is a bit annoying leveling up as I just think it began to take too long near the end.
Not to power up the main stats, but rather to power up your abilities.
You get four points to charge up the normal stuff, and only one for abilities so unless you work at it indefinitely, you are not going to charge too many things to max.
The fighting is rather cool, but the level design is kind of uninspired.
Kind of how like in the second UA game, the levels are kind of uninspired and very monotonous.The game is fun, just not anything all that great.
I realize it is PS2, but Final Fantasy X did not take this long to load and it had more voice acting and better graphics so really no excuse for such a long load, especially to just access the menu!
The voice acting here is okay; however, Charles Xavier was awesome as Patrick Stewart did his voice.
Kind of a bummer Ian didn't do Magneto, but pretty much the rest of the voices are very familiar sounding from countless anime cartoons I have watched.
Nice villain here and good story.
Make the levels more varied and this one could have been incredible.
Say more like the New York stage, its level was different and it was also the shortest, all others were like one hallway after another.
Still, the game at least has a nice variety of characters to control..
That ancient, evil dude is in *bad* need of a serious smack-down.
I'd like to, but I haven't played the first one.
This is a third-person action(meaning, not turn-based) role playing game(of which I've hardly played any, so bear with me for this), where you get to play as the X-Men. Apocalypse executes a plan to take over the world, and they reluctantly team up with The Brotherhood to take him to school.
However, of considerably greater importance, we get to utilize their awesome powers, most of them fantastically realized, and usually working out excellently in this.
You can throw enemies around(and without touching them if you use Telekinesis), pick up large objects, fly and even teleport, in this.
Then there are the abilities, and you're looking at a ton of stuff you can do(your opponents can do their share of nifty stuff, and that adds extra spark to beating them).
There are 18 different familiar faces to play as, and each has roughly around ten skills(yup...
The game-play consists of you running around with a team of four(all of them chosen specifically by the player; and co-op multi-player is possible, as well, allowing up to 4 friends at the same time), fighting lackeys and doing basic adventure game stuff, like searching for, and using, items.
Frankly, it can get kinda repetitive; it's clear that a lot of effort went into making that aspect fun(and it is), and thus they wound up with that being all you do.
It is entertaining, and it doesn't run out of steam(actually, it may be a little short for this kind of VG) before you've completed this.
The challenge of Boss battles(a couple of them creative and interesting) climbs at an uneven rate, with odd spikes up and, honestly, at times down.
To its credit, this has a well-done and easy to get into control interface(well, it could do with more commands to issue), that is impossible to get lost in, and keeping it simple to keep track of stuff.
The relatively dynamic camera does get in your way sometimes, so it's good that they made it so flexible, and the turning of it a mere press of the button away.
Conversations with NPC's have the finesse of there being several versions of some of them, and bringing certain mutants along with you trigger them, and apart from that, they're plain(and you'll often find yourself hearing the exact same pieces of information a second time), with the lack of any impact of you choose to say rendering it entirely obvious that they're there solely for the purpose of delivering exposition.
They try(too hard, perhaps?
It does arguably get to be excessive) to give us fans of the Marvel universe a real treat.
You get to visit tons of locations(did someone say Savage Lands?
What about Genosha?), face numerous famous foes(including Morlocks and Sentinels) in combat, and meet quite a few well-known characters.
It's really a shame that last-mentioned mainly act as a sort of stationary library chapter, where you can just ask each of them who they are and what they can do, and regardless of what their relationship is with who you're running around as, they'll spill the beans as if they've been granted a vocal chord that very instant.
The voice acting is fine(and casting can be spot-on), and there are strong and convincing moments here and there, in spite of every single accent and dialect being hideously overdone.
Dialog ranges somewhat, with many silly or otherwise poor ones(with that said, the majority of the taunts are well-done).
The briefings are not really about explaining what you are to do(with that said, you're seldom uncertain what is expected of you to make progress), they're arranged cut-scenes that display interactions between the two groups(I suspect they could think of nowhere else to put them in this; heck, there are impeccable ones between them, when they aren't over the top).
This has a well-done plot, with cool twists.
Among the story-telling tools are utterly, righteously bad-ass fully animated cinematics, one for the end of every act and also an intro one.
The mini-map is helpful enough, without taking away the mystery and fun of exploring.
Levels can at times be linear and/or monotonous; on the plus side, you can largely go wherever you want(whether or not it really makes sense), provided you've already been there, or made it to that area.
You get to visit nifty places, natural and science fiction ones, immediately recognizable ones and brand new ones.
The graphics are well-done, with gorgeous design work, almost always well-done effects, and everything that moves is done in an appropriate style that has them looking like something out of, yup, a comic book.
You can see how many there are of the things, so you'll know if you have it all or not.
There are also bugs and glitches, mainly smaller stuff.
The stability could be better.
I recommend this to all fans of the source material.
This game benefits greatly from an interesting roster and an even greater intro, however the level design alone almost turns this mutant romp into an ordeal.
Unlike the last game, which took us to interesting places like the Shadow King's domain and an arctic base(basically every x-locale you can think of along with the mansion and danger room), this game is a generic tomb/factory/cave fest, an idea that is hammered into your skull before you can even get to the somewhat interesting New York level.
Even though the plot leaves much to be desired(2 betrayals and a whole lot of shut this and that down), the boss fights can be amusing; the battle with the titular baddie lives up to expectations and the early throwdown with abyss is a the show stealer.
Recommended if the 1st game wasn't enough for you..
Good game with fatal glitch.
After a deeply confusing start were the brother hood and x men rescue xavier(didn't even know he'd been kidnapped )we discover apocalypse is to blame and has also kidnapped polaris ,a minor marvel character that we never really meet or care about.
After that we get a training mission and fight to liberate genosha from apocalypse and so on.
The bad guys, the levels and the heroes are quite varied and you'll need a varied team to do all of the puzzles (puzzles-lite) a super strength guy like colossus or rogue to move giant objects,a teleporter like deadpool or nightcrawlwer to take short cuts ,a fly guy like magneto or iron man to reach certain areas etc.
the levels of aggressiveness can be altered so they (AI) don't run about claiming all your kills.This is slightly more difficult with long range attack characters like cyc, gambit or ice man.
Over all the game is well done the in game graphics are the same as the first game.
The cut scenes are a lot better, meaning apocalypse looks completely different from game to game.
The last level and certain other temple based levels can be annoyingly long winded and certain other brilliant levels are relatively short.The only problem with this well done game is a major glitch you'll probably find discussed in message boards all over the net.
When replaying the game using old saves consoles tend to crash.It is entirely down to all the add ons you can attach to characters to boost their abilities.I rectified this by simply deleting them all and relying on gaining xp and boosting character bit by bit.
I would expect this kinda glitch from a PC game but not from a dedicated gaming console.perhaps they were too eager to cash in on their success.I still recommend buying this game the good far out weighs the bad.
Intense story along with incredible characters!.
This is, without a doubt, the best X-MEN game to date.
My favorite characters to use are Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Gambit, Iceman, Juggernaut, and Nightcrawler.
I am still stuck in the Madri Temple, but I will soon find a way out, if I'm lucky.Apocalypse has unleashed a new world threat that will destroy every human on earth.
But this won't happen on the X-MEN's watch.
The X-MEN are teaming up with the Brotherhood, along with Colossus, Sunfire, Scarlet Witch, and Bishop, to stop Apocalypse from unleashing his diabolical plan.
Choose from unimaginable teams including the X-MEN and evil Brotherhood characters.
Go through numerous levels to see what Apocalypse has in store for you on your journey to stop him.Alone, you are mighty!
Every superhero game should be like this.
I got this game for my thirteenth birthday, and it is much better than Spiderman 2 and Hulk.
I am on the second act right now, and it is very challenging.You can pick from 16 characters.
My favourite team is Wo,wolverine, Magneto, Iceman and Collosus.Graphics: 8 Sound: 7.5 Gameplay: 10 Replay value: 9I have not played the multilayer mode yet, but the Danger room mini missions are very good.Get this game, and you will not be disappointed.
I had never played it, and I'm loved every single minute of it.
The bosses are pretty challenging.