by: Dakota Grabowski

October 30, 2005

X-Men Legends II begins a few months (storyline wise of course) after the original and provides one hell of a ride. Apocalypse has invaded and Magneto’s best attacks against Apocalypse have all failed. The X-Men too couldn’t outwit or outfight Apocalypse in battle on their own. So the Brotherhood and X-Men have both together teamed up to put forth their best strategies to eliminate the threat of Apocalypse.

I am a huge fan of Marvel comics (owning three Marvel Encyclopedias to make sure I know all the info) and the X-Men are among my favorite from the universe that I believe puts forth the best comics. Marvel has done a great job as of late with licensing out its material to the right companies and making sure all of it is full of quality. From movies to video games, you can’t go wrong with a Marvel title. X-Men Legends II continues the string of great Marvel video games from Activision (Ultimate Spider-Man, X-Men Legends 1, Spider-Man 1 & 2: The Movie).

If you are curious to know about the upgrades over the original, there are a few perks that have been thrown in. A lot of questions with the last Legends title were with online play on Xbox Live. It has been addressed this time around and you can go online finally to play co-op if you can’t seem to find a friend to play with. Raven Software even spruced up the cast of characters you take control of (at the sacrifice of other X-men characters such as Psylocke) due to that you can control the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants now.

Playing as the Brotherhood is sort of odd at first but they begin to mesh quite well after awhile in your line-up. Magneto seemed a little under-powered at first (so did Cyclops) but they turn out for the better towards the end of the game with their Leadership skills. Toad is similar to Nightcrawler, Juggernaut rivals Colossus, and Mystique resembles Bishop in a way. Scarlet Witch is unique in her own particular way as she is a long range support that differs from the X-Men’s Iceman and Sunfire. Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, and Jean Grey are also present from the original. I am also fond that all the characters that you are going to use throughout the game, are available right from the get go. 16 characters that you can level up and begin your strategies on how you want to use them. There are three unlockable characters and to unlock them, it pretty much takes the entire game to do so. Who are they? Well one is bald, the other loves to talk and one is a rich billionaire that you’d never expect to show up in the X-Men series.