8.5 out of 10

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What was that promise? Unadulterated X-Men fiending to the first degree... Mutant hacking and slashing. Powering up to ridiculous levels and smashing the crap out of every wall, cave, jungle, enemy, or anything in your path. Playing with your friends online without a split-screen. Yes, indeed. For all those gamers, comic book fans, X-Men movie lovers, RPG fans, and action nuts, and all the crossover folks in between, Rise of the Apocalypse provides an abundant surplus of X-Men and Brotherhood characters to play as -- offline or online. You'll probably need about 15 hours to finish it, and to beat it completely and collect everything, add in another couple.

In the grand scheme of things, nothing major has changed here. Rise of Apocalypse is pure, familiar, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance-style dungeon crawling. The cool thing, however, is it's X-Men dungeon crawling. Which makes it different and refreshing in a very real sense; there are no orcs, elves, gnomes, or anything remotely D&D about the characters (though I admit, there are still quite a few caves). Instead it's all crazy X-Men madness. You and three AI team members (or, now, three other online buddies) huddle, enter environments, and proceed to bash the living daylights out of everything that moves. Sure, you collect stuff, find gear (belts, armor and gloves), upgrade and customize your characters. But it's all in the game of improving your hacking and slashing skills.

Who can you play? The list is long, though not full of many surprises. A lot of the characters you'd think are playable are indeed playable. The 11 playable X-Men include Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Bishop, Colossus, Gambit, Rogue, Jean Grey, Iceman, Nightcrawler, and Sunfire. The four playable Brotherhood characters include Scarlet Witch (yes, she's been on both sides), Magneto, Juggernaut, and Toad. There are two other playable characters that we've been asked not to reveal, so we'll leave those to surprise you. Oh yeah, no Magma? Gone. There are a slew of other characters that make cameo appearances as either NPCs or bosses, including Xavier, Archangel, Sabretooth, Blink, Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, Omega Red, Bastion, Lady Deathstrike, Zealot, Sauron, Deadpool, Sugerman, Mikhail, Grizzly, Abyss, and many more.

[INFO PROVIDED BY IGN.COM]

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Internet Reviews:

While the biggest and most obvious addition is the spectacular inclusion of four-player-cooperative online play, the doubled super powers, the playable evil mutants, the streamlined menus and more interactive environments make this sequel a worthy sequel in all respects.
Raven doesn't lose sight of its fans, either. This game is hopping with cool Marvel characters, NPCs cameos, and the ability to change outfits, strap on hundreds of gear types, and more. It's a giant treasure chest of X-Men goodness including unlockable comic book covers, art, screens, movies, and more. It's easily one of the top ranking comic books games of the year.
~IGN.COM

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