X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse is an action role-playing game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision.

X-Men Legends II is now playable online again on the replacement Xbox Live servers called Insignia.

They felt that the inclusion of online play, additional mutant powers, and a larger cast made the game an improvement over its predecessor.

Characters can combine attacks to create a combo, in which two or more players punch or kick a single enemy at the same time.

[5] The character's special abilities can also be used in the same manner to create a Super Combo which inflicts massive damage on enemies.

[5] X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse features a central hub that players return to between missions.

Here players can view loading screen art, cinematics, and comic book covers acquired during gameplay.

Players can also participate in an X-Men trivia game which awards experience points for correct answers.

Locations include a military prison in Greenland, the fictional mutant sanctuary of Genosha, the Savage Land, and Egypt.

[9] The game begins with members of the X-Men (Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine) meeting up with members of the Brotherhood (Magneto, Mystique, and Sabretooth) at a military prison outpost in Greenland to free Professor X. Magneto reveals that his son, Quicksilver, was also captured by Apocalypse.

They briefly encounter Mister Sinister, who was experimenting on Genoshan mutants, and fight Lady Deathstrike and Zealot as they free captive citizens and collect information.

Beast manages to point the team in the direction of the Savage Land, a secret prehistoric preserve in Antarctica.

The teams work their way through the Savage Land, temporarily hindering Apocalypse's plans while also defeating Grizzly, Garokk, Mikhail Rasputin, and Sauron.

The teams work at helping Nick Fury regain control of the Sentinels from Bastion, sabotaging Apocalypse's army and resources, and defeating Holocaust and the Stepford Cuckoos, Stryfe, and a mind-controlled Deadpool, but Emma Frost and Angel are kidnapped as well.

They learn that Apocalypse's plan is to use Polaris, Quicksilver, Emma Frost, and Sabretooth—four mutants with what he refers to as Harmonic DNA—as part of a machine to fuel an experiment to grant him massive amounts of power.

After besting the final guard Living Monolith, the teams battle Apocalypse and defeat him by stealing the powers from his machine.

In the final cutscene, Magneto and Professor X part once again as adversaries, noting that Apocalypse was defeated but not destroyed.

"With the environments we tried to create [something] more exotic and organic" stated Dan Vondrak, Project Lead on X-Men Legends II.

[5] Locations span from the fictional mutant haven of Genosha, to the Marvel Comics jungle known as the Savage Land, to ancient temples in Egypt.

Man of Action, a group of former Marvel writers who were responsible for the previous game's story, were not involved.

[49] PALGN's Jeremy Jastrzab felt that Rise of Apocalypse "caters for X-Men fans and if you can gather three others, you're going to have a great time".

[4] GameSpot's Greg Mueller praised the game's vast cast of characters, destructible environments and unlockable content, but felt that the user interface was awkward.

[55] Reviewers have high marks on the game's cast of characters, but were divided in their opinions of the choice of voice actors.

The reviewer from GameTrailers noted that the game's visuals had improved greatly, citing the effects, environments and cinematics as some of the largest upgrades.

[55] Steve Steinberg of GameSpy conceded that while the visuals were generally improved over the game's predecessor, it still lacked in quality and variation.