X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse [PS2]

When it comes to making a sequel, there's a thin and sometimes indeterminate line between "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "more of the same." X-Men Legends II perches precariously on this line. This isn't necessarily a criticism, since the original game was a superlative action RPG/dungeon crawler that also did a great job of giving the X-Men their due. It created the sense of a team of superheroes working together, it involved you in some nifty character advancement, and it had great support for cooperative hack-and-slash with up to three friends in your living room.

Probably the biggest addition in this sequel is online support for multiplayer games. This makes it much easier to play the game in its most gratifying form: with four live players, each with a vested interest in managing a particular character. This also make it more gratifying to pull off the combo attacks, that just sort of happen by accident when you're playing with the AI controlling your other X-Men.

A new instant catch-up button lets you get characters unstuck by allowing them to teleport through walls. Yeah, sure, this is kind of like cheating and will probably hurt Nightcrawler's feelings, but it makes multiplayer games much smoother when you're not constantly saying, "Hey, guys, come back this way, I'm stuck."

There are also new mutant powers for many of the characters, which adds more of a sense of choice. In the last game, each character felt pretty straightjacketed into a narrow set of possible progressions. The new powers open this up more. X-Men Legends II is on the verge of getting too big for gamepad control. However, the new PC version, which will let those of you without a console system enjoy one of the best Diablo clones since Diablo II, is definitely engineered to be played with a gamepad instead of a mouse and keyboard.

There are also a handful of new mutants, using a twist which ties into the storyline. The plot is that typical moment in a series of comics when a superhero has to team up with his arch nemesis to defeat an even more terrible arch nemesis. So now you have a few mutants from the Brotherhood, including Magneto himself, on your team. This sort of "enemy detente'" angle is a great way to include popular new characters instead of plumbing the depths of lesser known X-Men. It's also a great way to ditch certain X-Men from the original game. Did anyone see what happened to Jubilee or Psylocke? We left them behind? Oh, well.

Now there are skins you can unlock for characters in the course the full game rather than only getting to enjoy them during retro missions. There are also certain bonuses you'll get for assembling the right four mutants, sometimes in the right outfits. Bring along all four Brotherhood mutants, for instance, and you'll get a bonus to earned experience.

The structure of the game is also new, but it's not necessarily a plus. On one hand, it's nice to progress through a five-act structure. Each act is split into fairly open-ended sets of goals scattered around a hub rather than stretched in a straight line from beginning to end. This means there's more backtracking and exploration, made much easier with a system of teleportation points on a map. There's even a "town portal" ability that lets you jump back and forth from any location to your hub.

But on the other hand, X-Men Legends II loses the original game's powerful sense of home. Without Professor Xavier's mansion and distinctive subbasement as your safe house, it's more like the X-Men are on an extended tour, living out of a suitcase, rather than working as a league of superheroes with a base of operations. This also means there's less leisurely time to stroll the grounds, talk to the X-Men, and look for little nods to the fans that the developers have left lying around.

The new areas also range a bit further creatively speaking, striking out into wildernesses and alternate dimensions. Some of the areas almost have a fantasy vibe. It's a lot less mundane throughout, with more weird areas like the dark ethereal cathedral in the first game in which Xavier got out of his wheelchair to kick butt, even if it was only psychically. For instance, you'll actually get sucked into one of the early bosses where you have to arrange a set of bombs in his soul. It's all still dungeon crawls and boss battles, but without being limited to bases, factories, and city streets, it's better disguised this time around.

There's are new AI settings to automate not just character advancement, but also inventory management, which was a big mess in the last game. You can keep the best items in a stash until you're ready to use them and let the computer optimize the minor items rather than futzing around with every last waistband you find. Unfortunately, the mutant powers screen is even less manageable than it was in the last game. While it may look slick, it's not very conducive to quickly checking something, which gets to be a big hassle in multiplayer games.

Unfortunately, one of X-Men Legends II's greatest strengths is also its greatest weakness. There is virtually nothing different about the actual gameplay. You'll quickly come to realize that although the areas look different, they play the same. You're tearing through swarms of enemies, either using a melee character to go toe-to-toe or hanging back with someone like Cyclops or Storm to light the room up, jamming on a couple of mutant power buttons and enjoying the swirl of activity, destruction, and loot (which you still don't really need). The challenge still relies too heavily on the number of health potions you've got, how far you are from the nearest save point, and how long it takes you to figure your way around the boss at the end of the act.

But it all comes down to what you're looking for in your sequel. If it's "more of the same" then X-Men Legends II will be just what you want. But if you're looking for the next innovation in superhero-themed Diablo-style action RPGs, you're just going to have to wait until someone makes something better. Right now, this is as good as it gets.