"Long, monotonous, and fun."

Now, before I start I must say that this review is coming from the eyes of a die-hard X-Men and video game fan. I'm not so much a fan of RPGs, so I have not tried many, and therefore don't know how this game stacks up against other RPGs. I am reviewing it in the eyes of a dungeon hacker and a fast-paced adventure/action game. Anyway . . .

Story: 10/10

To some, the story might be a little cliched, a big bad-guy wants to take over the world and the only way the X-Men can defeat him is by grudgingly teaming up with their sworn rivals, the Brotherhood, but you gotta keep in mind that the X-Men comics date back to way back when, and basically created this much used basic plot. This being said, the game's story is very well done, and will please most X-Vets. It's very long, however, and might bore casual gamers who want to play it just for a good gaming experience. Which leads to the next section . . .

Controls: 8/10

Ah, the gameplay. What can I say? You press Y to jump, A and B to punch, X to grab and hold down R to activate your mutant abilities. Not very complicated. Sometimes, killing an enemy is TO easy, however, with the auto-lock feature, you will either completely obliterate your enemy or get your but kicked by him/her. It doesn't require much skill, however, which is good for casual gamers and X-Fans alike. No problems here.

Graphics: 8/10

Meh. Depends on how you look at it. At a realistic point of view or a comic book point of view? The graphics are not much different from X-Men Legends 1, but with one big difference. The creators made it feel more like a comic book, rather than having a bunch of bright, comic book looking characters floating around looking out of place on a realistic background, as they did in Legends 1. The cutscenes are pretty good, but most of the time the character's over do the motions and just look stupid. I'm talking about the briefing cutscenes, now, the movie cutscenes are spot-on. I also love the ability to change your character's costume. There's their more modern day ones, their classic ones, and more.

Music: 5/10

Music? What music? The music in this game is one of the worst of this game's traits. The only time it helped me get more into the game was in the Madri temple, where the music is an opera-like eerie melody that heightens the stress you're already feeling as you slice, shock, freeze or blast your way around it's halls.

Gameplay: 6/10

Not very good. A major problem I have repeatedly encountered as I played through this game was slow down, with an occasional freeze. That's when the game's disk gets jammed, and the only way to fix it is to turn your 'Cube off, losing any unsaved data. This has happened to me numerous times, especially when large groups of enemies are running around all over the place. That's another thing. The enemies are SO BORING! They are all the SAME (except the bosses, which I will get to in a moment.). There is probably, what, three types of enemies running around in each area? It may seem like a fair amount, but not when you encounter enemies at every turn and when the areas are MASSIVE.

The bosses, on the other hand, are very numerous and come right out of the X-Men universe. X-vets will recognize all of them, and pretty much all of the enemies that weren't in the first game are in this one, even when they don't have any good reason for being there at all. You will either find a boss ridiculously easy or insanely hard. (Sauron, The Living Monolith, Lady Deathstrike= ridiculously easy, Sugarman, Abyss, Apocalypse= insanely hard).

Sound: 5/10

The sounds effects in this game could of had a little more work put into them. The explosion when you throw a box of flammable material into a fire sounds just like a desk shattering when it hits a wall somehow. The voice acting is laughable, except when it's trying to be. The only voice acting I found good was, of course, Patrick Stuart's. When characters level up, they say something. These somethings are unbearably boring and flat out stupid sounding. "I feel as strong as a hurricane!" or "Yes! More power!". No. Failed to deliver. The only character I enjoyed hearing was the unlockable character *SPOILERS* DeadPool. *END SPOILERS*. This is not a very important section to me, so it didn't drag my overall score down . . . much . . .

Multiplayer: 2/10

Jeez. Terrible. There are two types of multi-player. Co-op and versus. They both are horrible. When you are playing the main story on Co-op, the screen doesn't split, and both characters need to be right next to each other to even move through the levels. This makes it hard to kill enemies just beyond your reach, and you have to yell at your partner to have him come over to were you are so you can move. You'll be much better off playing through the story by yourself with your friend watching . . .

Versus, on the other hand, is fun for about five minutes. It requires more luck than skill to win, and you will often feel like hitting that smug look off your opponent's face as they smear you with a lucky Cyclops beam attack. The multi-player menu is also pointlessly complicated.

Replayability: 9/10

There's just something about this game that keeps me coming back, despite my low scores on everything else. I have almost beaten it twice, and the secret characters are worth unlocking, especially if you are a fan of the X-Men.

Final verdict: 8/10
This game is great if you like to sit back and kill some bad-guys and if you are a huge fan of the X-Men comic books or movies. If you are looking for a good RPG and Muliplayer game, look elsewere. Fire Emblem or Super Smash Bros. are good ones for you.

Buy or Rent?: I would rent it first. You definitely won't beat it in the five days you have it, but you can see if you like it or not. I did. ;)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/06