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A lot of good can be said for last years X-Men Legends. The title seemingly came out of no where and blew away unsuspecting gamers at how legitimately fun it was. X-Men dungeon crawling turned out to be one of the best ideas to ever grace the franchise, and it gained great reviews web and print-wide. After some new bells and whistles, Raven Software has unleashed X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. What’s better? What’s new? Is it worth your money all over again?

Hell yes. While the core mechanics of the game remain largely unchanged from last years version, Legends II offers it all on a bigger scale: more playable characters, more moves, more powers, more destruction, and online. This time around, the X-Men are working side by side with the Brotherhood in order to put a stop to Apocalypse and his plans for destruction and mayhem. Thanks to said alliance, players now get to choose from a hefty roster of both X-Men and Brotherhood mutants alike. Booya. This list includes fan favorites such as Wolverine, Cyclops, Sunfire, Jean Grey, Toad, Magneto, Juggernaut and Scarlet Witch. There’s plenty more where that came from, too. Also expect many cameo NPC appearances by the likes of Omega Red, Sabretooth and other big names.

As you play each character, you’ll have the ability to raise their stats to your liking and power up their mutant abilities. Just like the first game, Legends II really shines in it’s latter half when you gain some of the totally awesome special moves that offer up truly devastating results. Magneto? Oh man… How cool Magneto gets at higher levels…

As I said, the basic formula has remained the same. You’ll still take a team of 4 into the battlefield with you to pounce and slash away at numerous enemy types, you still upgrade your characters stats and powers as they level up, and the game still remains fun as hell from start to finish.

The story is told through both in-game dialogue as well as cinematic sequences. The cinematics are pretty cool, though far from awe inspiring, serving more to move the story forward than to be eye candy. The in-game dialogue is usually well written and to the point. The writers have a strong feel for the characters in the Xverse, and each personality really shines through.

While the game is a pretty straight forward hack ‘n’ slasher, there is a subtle strategy to selecting your party. You’ll want to balance out your team to make the best of any situation. If you throw 4 melee combatants into the fray against a bunch of melee-resistant enemies, well… that’s not going to turn out very well for you. It’s always good to have at least one magic user on board, but if you can find the extra that you like, and even 2 magic and 2 tank is usually more than enough to take care of even the biggest, baddest hordes of enemies. Once you hit the higher level regions of the game though, playing with 4 devastating magic users can be one heck of an experience.

Just like in the first game, Legends II allows you to use team combos, which means special moves that can be done when 2 specific characters perform their special move at the same time. It was a sweet addition to Legends, and it’s even cooler now, thanks to the larger roster of characters.

Of course, as anyone could attest to, one of the biggest improvements/additions to Legends is the brand new online mode. Online you’re able to choose from Story and Skirmish modes. Story mode is very simple; host a game, people join. If you start the game with less than 4 people playing, additional players can hop in at any time. Pretty sweet, huh? Skirmish mode is a simple one on one battle of characters level 16 or higher, and while entertaining in short bursts, not as much fun as story. The frame rate is usually steady, save a few hitches during larger scale battles.

Legends II borrows the very same visual style as the first game. The cell shaded characters are meant to convey a sense of watching comic book characters move around on your screen. The style works pretty well, and the characters are simple without being boring. The areas you will travel in your time with Legends II are pretty varied. You’ll go to the Weapon X facility, Egypt and even Genosha, to name a couple. The frame rate is steady throughout, even during larger scale fights.

Patrick Stewart lends his voice to Xavier again, which is a nice touch, especially for fans of the X-Men movies. The rest of the crew sounds great, too, all adding personality to the much loved characters. The background music is suitable to the action on-screen and the sound effects are sufficient. While not a feast for the ears, you won’t be reaching for the mute button, either.

X-Men Legends II takes everything that you loved about X-Men Legends and turns the dial to 11. More characters, more players at once, more powers. The game is at it’s best when played with friends, but even a solo romp is definitely worth a full play-through. Any self respecting X-fan would be ashamed to be caught without this gem on their shelf.