88
If you like X-Men and hack/slash games then buy this game. It's only $30. Loading times are little bit too long but I can live with it. This game is suprisingly deep (battle system, story and etc). I wish the graphics were a little better or more cel shaded.
91
The best way to describe X-Men Lengends II is that it's as if Baulder's Gate: Dark Alliance and Kingdom Hearts had a child. The game features a fitting mix of elements from both games to create a unique blend that is something very entertaining to play.
When I first started playing the game, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had never played X-Men Legends, so I had no clue. Once I figured out that the game was mission based (didn't take long), the pieces fell into place.
The controls for the game seemed slightly off the first time I played it. I kept picking up boxes when I meant to slash them to ribbons, but after about five minutes, I found the controls to be a perfect fit for the PSP. They manage to keep a highly evolved, intuitive set of commands at your disposal, without requring too much effort.
The graphics for the game are pretty good, but I can be honest and say I have little to compare it to, since this is the only PSP game I own (now). However, I was quite impressed with how clear things were. I remember playing Dark Alliance on my friend's PS2, and quite often being unable to figure out which person was my character. No problems like that here. Even in the darkest of areas, finding out which character is my own is no problem. Finding enemies is a little more difficult. Not because they're hidden in some obscure way, but mostly because the areas tend to be a bit darker, and the enemies aren't exactly all sunshine and lollipops with big orange stipes painted on them. Still, this isn't completeley a detriment. I mean, if I released a race of large, carniverous insects, I'd expect them to blend in with their environment, not be a blazing hot pink.
The sound was alright. It wasn't very intrusive, but it added to the ambiance of the game. I have a little trouble with the voice acting, however. The only original X-Men actor to reprise his role was Patrick Stewart, taking on Professor X, something he did as well in the portable version as he did on the big screen. Wolverine and Sabertooth weren't exactly impressive, but not exactly awful either. Can't say I liked their Gambit either, but he did the job. The writing for some of the bit phrases, however, can be hit and miss. While Storm shouting "I'm as strong as a hurricane" makes me wonder what age range the game was intended for, Wolverine's "Aww, look at you, all busted up," and Magneto's "Once again, I am victorious" are quite fitting.
Can't speak for multi-player mode yet, though. I'm the only one of my friends who owns a PSP, so no Ad-Hoc, and my WiFi AP happens to be encrypted with WPA, which is a cypher that X-Men Legends II doesn't support.
One of the things I found annoying was that I'd find and unlock things like comic book missions, and I'd literally find items called Comic Books, but as to what I can do with the Comic Books, isn't exactly easy to figure out. It would be helpful if the game could have a savable option to remember if I want my leveling up to be handled automatically or manually, though.
Finally, the fabled load time. Load times are so long you could put down your PSP, make a sandwich, eat it, come back, wash up, and then play. Alright, so it's not that bad. The load screens take longer than I would like, but they're far from making me hate the game. At least I get some good X-Men artwork to look at. Resuming the game can be slightly annoying as well. Turn on the PSP, give it a second to retreive the save RAM state, game starts running, you move, game hiccups, loads, resumes, you try to jump, hiccups, resumes, no more loading. However, some of the on-the-fly loaded items aren't too bad. In Kingdom Hearts, when an AI character starts shouting for help, the load time is pretty snappy. In Dark Alliance, however, my mage will be complaining he is "Out of Mana!" about five minutes after I restored my mana, and the time when a reminder like that would have been useful is long gone.
Dark Alliance was never a game that impressed me too much, but I loved Kingdom Hearts. When I picked up X-Men Legends II, it seemed like a compromise between the two, one I could live with. Entertaining action, a good plot, decent voice acting, and a multi-player mode. What more could you ask for in a game like this?
91
Ok so I finally broke down and bought X-men. Im really turned off by the $50 price tag of PSP games but I found it on sale for a much more reasonable $40.
I have to say this game is great. From the start, lots of action, lots of familiar characters, story is fantastic. You can customize the hell out of the characters. It sort of reminds me of Untold Legends with a plot and decent character setup.
You can't adjust the camera angle but for once on the PSP the camera seems to put you at the correct angle almost every time. It's easy to jump between the 4 available characters at any given time and the camera intellegently adjusts accordingly.
Ad Hoc & Infrastructure are available. No problems hooking up to the internet, I have had a great time playing online without problems that I had with other online games.
My only complaint is that the load times between areas are a bit long and sometimes there are brief "hiccups" right before action starts. Although it's rare and in no way is close to the hiccup problems I had with Madden for PSP. The Save feature is easy to use as well.
This game is a great port of the PS2 version and doesn't really seem like its geared towards minigames. However, it's easy to save and then jump right back into your game. Also, the game is LONG, well long for people like me that still haven't finished GTA and can only play a few hours a week. Either way, X-Men is a must have for PSP, I think the replayability of this game is comparable to GTA. Definitely an A game in my book. Certainly in my top 3 PSP games to date.
80
With the lack of any good RPG's on the PSP, I bought this game hoping that it would fill that void. Now, this game isn't a true RPG, it is more like Gauntlet. You basically choose a team of four characters and you roam around dungeons completing little missions. The amount of characters that you can choose from is pretty big. Most of the main X-Men such as Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey and Wolverine are in the roster. The twist in this game is that the Brotherhood have teamed up with the X-men to battle against Apocalypse. You can create a team consisting of both X-men and the Brotherhood. It's a novel idea and actually adds to the replayability of the game. You will spend a lot of time trying to build up your characters and creating the perfect team.
There are unlockable skins and characters as well which will keep you playing the game. As the characters level up, you can distribute skill and stat points to make you characters stronger. Now that we have the good aspects out of the way, onto the bad. This game has a couple of nuisances that really got me frustrated. First of all, the loading times are TERRIBLE! Everytime you go into the menu, the game has to load. You will have to constantly go into the menu to tweak you characters. It gets very annoying when everytime I want to change teams or level up, I have to wait 10 seconds. It got so bad, I just let the computer distribute my equipment and stat points automatically.
As you progress through the game, you will pick up a lot of equipment. When you fill up all of your storage space and item slots, you will either have to leave some of the equipment behind or go back to your base and sell of some of the equipment. This gets very annoying because to go back to your base, you have to use this blink portal, which means more loading times. Also, to equip on each character, you have to change the character out which means more loading times.
Besides the loading times, the gameplay gets quite repetitive. There are a couple of comic book missions, danger room training missions and trivia games, but other than that, the game is pretty much hacking and slashing. The unlockables are great but they don't really add too much to the replayability because you pretty much find everything the first time around. The game is quite easy and short also. There are only five acts and each one can be completed in about a day. Once you beat the game, there is no reason to play it again. My final verdict for this game: This is a good game... for a rental.
90
Over the last few months of owning my PSP I have heard many complaints about PS2 games being ported to the handheld. Complaints that often ended in lower scores because the PSP version wasn't quite as good as the PS2 version. Well, I have no such bias against ports. After all, what is wrong being able to play a PS2 game on the go? That is why I bought my PSP and I got what I signed up for.
All of this brings me to X-Men Legends II, a port of a PS2 game. I have to say though, that if there is any type of game that needs to be ported to Sony's little handheld masterpiece, it has to be the action RPG. This game screams portability and is one of the better action RPGs of late. It is the perfect game to pick up and play a while, then put my PSP into sleep mode as I trudge through a day at work, only to pick up where I left off on my lunch break.
Controls and gameplay go hand in hand for any game, so I will just lump these together. The game controls about as good as you are going to get. It took me a while at first to get used to using the L or are buttons as a pseudo-"shift" key but once you get further into the game it truly becomes second nature. Which is why the game slowly ramps up the difficulty. Had the game been difficult at the beginning I probably would have tossed my PSP in frustration over forgetting which "shift" key to hit when.
Gameplay boils down to simple special attacks, hacking and slashing your enemies. There is overall strategy as you typically need to have the correct balance of which four characters you will use at any given time. You don't want to have only long range "spell casting" characters or you will die a quick death. You also don't want to just try to have melee characters because some of the larger enemies will stun you leaving you totally vulnerable to attack. Larger brute like characters are slow but super powerful. So the idea is to keep balance with the characters you play with.
This all brings me to my biggest complaint, load times. The load times between levels isn't bad, but the loading of menus can be frustrating. I still have not played with all of the characters only because I didn't want to have to load out to the character select menu just to try them out. One piece of advice...set character upgrades to Auto. If you have to jump out of the action, wait 20 seconds to upgrade Wolverine's attack to be slightly more powerful, then wait another 20 seconds to get back into the action, repeating this action with each character every few minutes you will quickly become irritated with this game. So just let the PSP decide what to upgrade it will save you a lot of headaches.
My other complaint pertaining to Load times is the fact that you can only carry a few items at a time. This typically wouldn't be a problem except that you have carry more items you either have to drop the items or load back to the start of the level unload your weapons into your item box, then load back to where you were. For the PSP version they could have just made you able to carry more items relieving you of these annoying troubles.
Graphics, the very reason the PSP is superior to all other handheld systems. In a word, nice. Nothing special but not much to complain about. There is a bit of slowdown when lots of effects are happening or when you just come out of sleep mode (am I the only one experiencing that?). Typically, however, the game is pretty. The effects are awe-inspiring the further you get and characters are easy to recognize desptie being fairly small on the screen.
Sound, the other thing that makes the PSP great. Overall I have yet to complain about the sound in a PSP game. Again it is PS2 quality sound on the go. One minor complaint, which could be logged under load times, is the fact that voices some times take a few seconds to load when there is character dialog.
Like I said earlier, this is the perfect game to port to the PSP. It is quick action that you can jump in and out of at an moment. The PSP version loses a little luster by making character customization more of a chore (read: load times) than of a benefit. But the action is all good. You don't have to be a fan of X-men, either, to enjoy this game. There is enough character variation and brutal action to make this game a fun romp for any action RPG fan. If you liked Baldurs Gate, Untold Legends or others like it, X-men II outdoes them all with more characters and more varied abilities and strategy. While it isn't perfect it is pure simple fun on the go.
93
X-Men Legends II ushers in a new day for PSP gaming! The fact that the PSP can handle a 100% port of a new console release is AMAZING!
Exactly the same as the PS2 and other console versions. All cutscenes, voice overs and elements are included. You take 4 characters (either X-Men or Brotherhood) around with you at all times. Characters will be allocated skill points upon leveling up that can be distributed either manually or automatically. Items drop off kills that can be equipped by your characters. Plays like a true hack n slash in every way shape or form. The best aspect for me was that certain quest's could be accomplished in a number of different ways, but it begs you to mix up who you run with to get a feel for all the different skills the mutants bring to the table. I personally have a newfound love of Bishop and Gambit, 2 X-Men I had never appreciated befor. This game is dripping with quality and is what Untold Legends should have been.
AMAZING! The cutscenes are incredible ... Just as good as their console counterparts. The in-game graphis are very well done as well. My buddy has the X-Box version and he was shocked at how nice they looked. One negative is there are occasional hiccups every now and than where the game stalls for a second or two, but was not an issue for me! PSP owners are finding that load times may be the Achillies heel for the PSP. The load times are not as bad as say Madden or Midnight Club, but they are noticeable after you have played for a while.
HUGE! As I mentioned above the game begs you to try new combinations. There are also comic book missions you can unlock and play at any time as well as going into the training computer to test out the skills of any of your mutants. Not to mention MULTI-PLAYER options. You can hook up with a friend and play 2 of the 4 players co-op! Huge bonus for that alone!
As you can tell I love this game! I believe this should be a GREAT day for all PSP gamers because this game shows perfectly what the potential of the PSP really is! I hope GTA: LCS can pull off what Activision did with this title. This game I absolutely a MUST have for anyone who likes a good quasi-RPG hack n slash or anyone who wants a good 30+ hour romp through the X-Men Universe! I so wanted to give this game a perfect score but the hiccups and load times dropped it a notch or two. Definitely not deal breakers though!
96
Never having played X-Men Legends, I wasn't sure what to expect from this game when I picked it up, but judging from what I've seen so far I should have.
The attention to detail, the quality of the voice-acting and the sheer number of playable characters (two of which do not appear in the console version) is uncanny. Not only are the graphics stunning, but they run at a smooth frame rate. No two characters sound the same, even if they are similar [e.g: Grizzly and Sabretooth]. As far as character selection goes, the opportunity to throw Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Magneto and Juggernaut (four characters out of ten or so available at the outset) together is enough to have me hooked.
The gameplay is simple, with buttons for normal and strong attacks, jumping and throwing. The d-pad, when pressed in conjunction with the L button allows you to swtich characters on-the-fly. There are other buttons to learn, but the presence of quick-tips makes learning them all simple. The RPG elements most resemble Diablo, but also have elements of Untold Legends thrown in (minus the item hoarding of both games).
For the sake of simplicity, I'm not going to catalog all the great features of this game. I'm just floored by the attention to detail (in terms of graphics and source material). My only gripe is load times. In reality, they aren't very long. But when you know waiting for that pause menu or character management screen is the only thing keeping you from smashing up soldiers with Colossus in Genosha, it seems twice as long. X-traordinary fun you shouldn't miss.
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3