X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse expands the action RPG concept of the first installment by uniting the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants against a shared threat, Apocalypse, who wants to wipe out weaker mutants. The player assembles a four-member team from a wide roster of comic book characters – from Wolverine and Storm to Magneto or Gambit – and moves through isometric levels in real time full of combat, puzzles, and character interaction, switching between team members at will to use their different abilities to progress. Conversations between characters during missions further flesh out their relationships and the tension typical of the comic source material.

Gameplay is built on a combination of an action combat system and character development – each character has their own skill tree, unique mutant powers, and a steadily rising level, and abilities can be combined into synergistic combos between team members, where one hero sets up the enemy and another finishes with a flashy final blow. The Xbox version benefited from cooperative multiplayer for multiple players on one screen as well as online, which set the game apart from single-player action RPGs of the time. The graphical style faithfully mimics comic book aesthetics, and the voice acting features a number of characters voiced close to their movie and TV versions.

The game was praised at the time for its extensive selection of playable characters, enjoyable co-op, and faithfulness to the comic source material, though the repetitiveness of combat in longer stretches put off some players. For Marvel fans it was one of the best-received attempts to bring the X-Men's team dynamic into an action RPG, and it is still remembered today as one of the highlights of the superhero game genre of its era, especially thanks to cooperative play that let more friends go through the story together and experiment with different team lineups according to their favorite playstyle.

Why play it: For Marvel fans and multiplayer co-op with friends, it's one of the highlights of the superhero action RPG genre of its era, even though repetitive combat in longer stretches can wear you down.