Some time back I shut myself off in a corner and played and played X-Men Legends till I determined it was about a 70% game.  Now the sequel has been released and I have been called upon again to risk wife and limb to save mutants and mankind from war and oblivion.  This time at the hands of Apocalypse and his armies.

If you played the first N-Gage game then much of what is present here is the same.  The game plays as a story-driven isometric beat 'em up with powers and parties.  It has many characters to choose from when populating your party of four, each with their own unique powers.  This simple and effective play mechanic is further adorned with some RPG elements like stats, character development and equipping, to create the complete gaming experience.

What's important here though is not so much what is the same, but what is different.  The characters available to players this time round are vastly increased in number and variety, as the Brotherhood of Mutants and the X-Men have teamed up against a common foe.  Combat, while fundamentally the same, benefits greatly from improved collision detection which also now prevents you from getting caught on invisible objects in the environment (I hated that last time around).  And on the subject of environments, let's cover a HUGE improvement: transparency.  Where gamers in X-Men Legends often became hidden behind the walls and elements of a level's environment, gamers playing X-Men Legends II will simply see their character's sprite through the walls or obstructions.

Other nice tweaks include a needed redesign of both the graphics for the items to make their function more clear and of the item types to simplify their usage (now there is a single Renewal Pack to cure all ailments).  Ten times more important is the restoration of tech bits which allows item buying and selling in the game through Beast and later on through Forge.

And what is most important of all?  Online play.  Barking Lizards have completed the game in true N-Gage style with unlockable, downloadable missions and online player-versus-player play.  The unlockable missions are neat but the real gem here is that online play.

As you play through the single player game and defeat opponents you will come across playing cards that, when collected, allow those enemies or player characters represented to be accessed in the online battles, thus growing your stable of fighters.  As that stable grows, the complexity of choosing and readying your team for combat also grows and so does the fun.  Should you spend your fight money on a beefed up Wolverine or a bunch of cheap lackeys to swarm over your opponent?  Would you be better off with a tank or someone who can poison and run?  It's all really interesting and immersing stuff and, since it plays turn-based instead of real time, allows a really nice strategy element to come to the fore.

All in all, X-Men Legends II Rise of Apocalypse shines as the perfect sequel.  It does everything the original did better than before and offers up so much more.  While it may sit in the shadow of mega-releases like Rifts: Promise of Power, it is still a great game that I happily rate 80%.