The whole idea of X-Men came out back in the 1960’s, born from the mind of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They have created most of Marvel's greatest characters like ‘the Fantastic Four’ and ‘the Incredible Hulk’. The original X-Men look nothing like their modern day counterparts, yet they still hold all of their charm. The golden age for these bad boys was the 1980’s, and this was around the time of the ‘Age of Apocalypse’, which could be considered their crowning jewel.

As those years passed of course games were put out about them. Most of them were centred around Wolverine, one of the most popular characters of all time. Going through the paces of countless old games, the X-Men have teamed up with Spiderman to take on the Arcades, faced off with the Street Fighter gang and have even teamed up in a six player side scroll in the arcades. Activision's offering in the X-Men videogame saga, X-Men Legends II brings the popular mutant team back for an epic battle against an evil that threatens all of mutankind and does a good job of retelling the compelling comic book storyline.

The game starts out with you finding out that Apocalypse’s acolytes have invaded Genosha -- Magneto’s mutant country -- and laid waste to the land. Their order now lies in ruins, and there is only one person to blame... Apocalypse. What brings the game together is the capturing of Polaris (Lorna Dane), a member of Xavier’s team, and Magneto’s son Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff). An alliance is formed, in hopes to get these members back, and they are willing to do anything.

You start off on Genosha, and it is your job to try and save what little is left. There is an infestation of spidery creatures left behind, and they must be destroyed, or the area is doomed. You will find yourself quickly thrown into the game, getting used to the controls, and finding out which groups work best together. Along the way you find out what made it possible for Apocalypse to dominate the battle, and take many mutants prisoner.

The graphics are quite similar to the first X-Men Legends game. Again this takes the cell shaded Marvel characters and puts them into a 3D world. The graphics are moderately improved from the last game, and as good as they were it was difficult to top them - but Raven has managed to pull it all off.

I really liked the controls, as they felt smooth and easy to play with. There were a bunch of combos that were easy to execute, and it did matter if you used them. You could certainly score the extra damage that you need to ensure your victory. You could end up button mashing if you liked, but it could end up costing you a few more of your health packs in a level. To change between your characters, you would press a direction on the D-Pad, and that would allow you to play with those assigned characters.

Each character has unique special abilities, and it is nicely placed so that you could change those abilities depending on which situation you wanted to tackle. With a character like Gambit you can drop kinetically charged cards, then when enemies would approach them they explode, generally obliterating the opposition. Some characters would solve all problems through brute force like Wolverine, Juggernaut, or Colossus. Some characters take the mental route like Jean Grey, or Scarlet Witch. With Jean Grey you can mentally hold the enemy in the air, then throw them into other opponents.

Another interesting feature is that you could combo your team's moves together for additional experience and damage. This is a sure fire way to mow down fields of enemies with minimal effort. With their mutant power recharging over time, it is in your best interests to use the powers that the mutant Gods of Marvel have given you. The best part is you tailor the moves to suit your needs. Hate being a psychic? Level up your striking ability. Hate walking? Level up your flying. It’s your game, your choice, and your fun.

There was something that I did not like with the levels, and it is that they were a little long. Instead of having around twenty medium sized levels -- like in the first game -- they had five massive ones. These are also known as acts - each of these acts had multiple objectives and different routes that you could take. Mostly these extra objectives were done for the rewards and doing them allowed you to find more of the unlockable content.

Another issue in the game is that you would generally stick to a few of the characters, rather than using them all. This is not the game’s fault, but rather my inability to accept characters like Toad. Of course, nothing against green mutants, but I prefer not having Darth Maul on my team. Even if you do not use all the characters they will still gain experience.