It can be better designed

When I first got X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse I thought "Wow! What a great game." And it was. It’s just that after you play it for about an hour and get to the end, you say, "That’s it?" or, "Wow, that was pretty redundant and not very interesting." Because that’s exactly true.

The story line in X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse goes basically like this: Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, and Cyclops have all come back from a journey and are almost home, when they see a run down Xavier institute instead of a nice shiny standing building. They land and go inside, and there is Cyclops laying on the ground, dead. But Cyclops is right there with them, so they assume that they are in another world, and they are. They’re in the world of Apocalypse, evil ruler and long-time enemy. There are eleven levels on Reign of Apocalypse. In the first one, you fight very easy enemies and at the end you go up against a main enemy that’s usually on the good side in the comic, with the exception of Magneto, Juggernaut and Apocalypse. They are all hard to beat, each one getting harder as you go along, and at the end there is a pretty impressive fight with Apocalypse. There are eleven levels, as I already said, but I think there should be more or better variety in the plot. All you do is walk into a new scene three or four times, battle mostly insignificant enemies, and then go up against a big guy. It gets monotonous after a while.

Wolverine (he was the first one I completed the mission with) has great graphics and some cool attacks, but Cyclops is pretty pitiful. He moves weird, and the graphics are less than great. Rogue walks with one hand on her hip, and when she dashes, you see white speed lines on the ground behind, which looks pretty cool. Storm and Wolverine have great mutant power attacks, and Wolverine’s looks a bit like the arcade game’s. The main enemies – Gambit, Nightcrawler, Archangel, Phoenix, Juggernaut, Magneto, Beast, Cable, Bishop, Colossus, Apocalypse, have great attacks and are pretty hard to beat, especially the ones with the huge psychic and charging-up powers, like Cable, Bishop, Magneto, and Apocalypse. Jean Grey or ‘Phoenix’ is really easy to beat, even though she has amazing psychic powers, but Magneto is hard, even though he’s only the sixth level. In my opinion, Wolverine is the easiest to finish the game with, and perhaps it’s because of his claws. They reach farther out than any other character’s attack, and I think his mutant attack is more powerful. It was easy to beat Magneto and even with Apocalypse I had a life left, but with Rogue it’s really hard to beat Magneto. The enemies are not that interesting. There are your basic ones that only punch, ones that spit a beam of energy, ones that shoot flame, huge ones that come in two varieties: ones that pound on your head (red and blue costumes) and ones that pound on your head and shoot energy beams (red and purple costumes). Then there are Apocalypse’s main lackeys that hit you with energy sticks and shoot you with a type of gun. Each one I mentioned was harder to beat than the last, but no too difficult.

The controls are very easy. Right on the control pad is forward, twice is dash, left is back, down is sidestep to the right (yes, you can sidestep and dodge fire in this side-scrolling game) and up is sidestep to the left. R is to jump, L is to use your special mutant power after it’s power bar is totally full. If you want to knock down an enemy in one blow, press B, but it leaves you more vulnerable because you pause before attacking, and if you are trying to perform a combo or throw someone, press A repeatedly, or is just a punch if you don’t. A way to get more points is to juggle, or perform the punch combo until the bad guy is knocked up into the air, then dash forward and get under him, the right before he reaches you, punch again. Keep doing this until he is out of sight. Points can be used to raise either strength, vitality, or mutant power. There are also power-ups that you have to get: A clock for extended time, a half-cross for half life, a full cross for full life, and an X-Men logo for full mutant strength.


Overall, this game is OK. The animation, graphics, and main enemies are great, but the story line, low-class enemies, and interest factor could be much improved.

I suggest you get it if you can't find any other games that are quite like this (just fighting but actually going somewhere without any other objectives) or you're a big X-Men fan. If not, get another game. I would rate it a 2.5 out of five, just because I'm not that experienced and I don't know exactly what to look for.