Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Game: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Format: XBox 360
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Publisher: Activision
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a comic book enthusiast’s game through and through, with a heavy focus on D list characters, like Justice and Prodigy, that most people would never have heard of. Unlike the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance, this game is bereft of A list villains to fight against. For the most part you will not be fighting the likes of Doctor Doom, Magneto, or the Red Skull, but will instead be facing lesser known villains such as The Wizard and The Scorcher. If you are not well versed in the Marvel Universe, then you may well find yourself shrugging your shoulders as you pummel villains like Equinox, or the Molten Man. That is until the story leads to the Marvel Super Heroes forming two warring factions, and you start to beat up more famous heroes, as well as a few more well known villains.
The story is fairly dark, straight forward, and takes itself very seriously. Following a series of attacks on US soil by technologically powered super villains, Nick Fury discovers that the attacks are being backed by the nation of Latveria, home of Doctor Doom. When the US government refuses to act, Fury assembles his own team consisting of a number of super heroes, to take out the Latverian Government without officially being sanctioned. This comes back to haunt the heroes, as the Latverians launch an all out strike on New York in retaliation. Fury heads in to exile for his part in this Secret War, and the heroes begin to lose the trust of the people. Following a super hero related disaster, in which hundreds of people are killed, the US government rushes through a Super Human Registration Act, which requires all super heroes to reveal their identity to the government and take their orders or face imprisonment. This splits the super hero community in two, with Captain America leading a resistance movement against registration, while Iron Man is the public face of the Registration Act. It is a story ripped straight from the comic books, at least until the conclusion of the second act, where the game deviates significantly from the source material.
You won't discover that any big villain is behind everything in this game
The game itself is a top down adventure game, where you control a team of four heroes, wandering around levels, fighting enemies, smashing crates to collect loot, and completing various objectives. You can switch between characters with a simple button press, or play online/local co-op with up to three other players. There are two primary attacks, the quick punch, and the heavy punch, as well as grabs. Holding the right trigger and pressing either X, B, A, or Y will perform character specific special moves. Defeating enemies grants you experience points which you can spend on upgrading each hero’s numerous abilities. As you defeat more enemies a meter at the bottom of the screen fills up. When it reaches capacity you can perform a super move by holding the left trigger and pressing one of the face buttons. The main feature of this game focuses on said super moves, called fusions, which allow you to blend two super heroes’ special abilities – for instance, performing a fusion of Iron Man and Wolverine has Iron Man fire his repulsion blasts, and reflect them off of Wolverine’s adamantium claws. There are three types of fusion moves, guided, clearing, and targeted moves, which all have huge devastating potential.
Your team of heroes spends much of the game fighting generic soldier types.
It is difficult to review this game without comparing it to it’s predecessors (Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Legends, and X-Men Legends 2) as it still plays almost exactly the same as them, although without many of the whimsical elements of the older games. The main change in gameplay has been a reduction of the RPG elements in the game. Rather than customising every aspect of each individual hero, you earn boosts which are applicable to your entire team. Each hero still has a number of abilities that are upgradable, but not as many as the heroes has in previous games. Also gone are the number of alternate costumes with different abilities attached to them. Now you can earn one single new costume by defeating 50 enemies after having made your choice regarding whether you support the Super Hero Registration Act or not. As you progress through the game you unlock more characters as you meet/defeat them, while three others are unlocked through picking up 5 of the corresponding collectables for each of them. There are 24 characters in total, although on your first play through you will only have access to a limited number of them. For instance, if you choose to be Pro Registration, you will not be able to play as Captain America or any other anti registration hero again until the issues with Iron Man are resolved. On subsequent play throughs of the game access to heroes is not restricted. Likewise, choosing Anti Registration removes Iron Man and other Pro Registration heroes from your team. Having said that, on numerous occasions your team is accompanied by a non playable character, like Bishop or Cable, for a mission or two.
Your desired team is often accompanied by non playable heroes
During your missions you will come across a number of collectables, such as audio logs, concept art, and combat challenges. There are 12 combat challenges in total, offering fairly diverse challenges ranging from defeating a set number of enemies within a certain time limit, to finding as many hidden ducks as you can in a sea of crates before the time runs out. A number of these challenges are fairly difficult to perfect in single player, but become much easier in multiplayer. This is primarily because in single player the enemies focus their attacks on the character you are playing as and tend to ignore the computer controlled colleagues, which is a little disappointing to see in a game released in 2009. There are also a number of mildly irritating bugs in the game. In one level I was unable to proceed because a door that was supposed to open after a cut scene had remained closed. I was forced to load up a previous save to resolve the issue. It is not the end of the world, but that does not change the fact that it is annoying. Other issues involve characters getting stuck on the scenery, and characters becoming stuck when they perform a fusion attack, unable to do any damage to your foes.
Once again Deadpool returns, breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the player.
It’s clear that Vicarious Visions wanted to make this game more accessible than the previous games, as they reduced the complicated RPG elements, gave you fewer options for clothing and costumes, and made the levels much shorter. In the previous Ultimate Alliance I may well have clocked in about 100 hours play time, where as Ultimate Alliance 2 has taken me about 15 hours to complete twice. While you do find yourself in famous Marvel locations, such as Wakanda and Latveria, you will not be travelling to the more fantastical locations from the previous games, such as Asgard, or Atlantis. The overall tone of the game is far more serious and as such comes across as a little less fun. Having sad that, it is very faithful to the comics for the first half of the game, before conforming to the comic book cliché of warring heroes teaming up to face a common enemy that the Civil War comic was so keen to avoid. As such when the game ends our heroes are in the same place that they started. So much for progression.
OVERVIEW:
GRAPHICS: 4/5 The character models are very detailed and fairly realistic looking, but the scenery is fairly bland for the most part. There are some decent lighting effects, although at times the game is a little too dark. The camera sometimes pans out too far which makes discerning between heroes a little challenging at times.
SOUND: 3/5 Some excellent voice acting, particularly Armin Shimerman as the Green Goblin, but at the same time whoever cast Jim Cummings as Thor needs to be fired. His voice is completely inappropriate for the Norse god of Thunder. The music is competent, and has a high production value, as are the sound effects, but not exceptional.
GAMEPLAY: 3/5 A reduction of the more in depth RPG elements is a shame, as is the removal of multiple costumes. I imagine that if the game is popular enough they will be offering costumes as DLC, which is a shame. The gameplay itself can get a little repetitive, and rarely offers a challenge in single player.
LONGEVITY: 3/5 There are two separate storylines in the game, Pro Registration and Anti Registration. However, the levels are not all that different on either side of the conflict, you just tend to play the levels from a different perspective. There are a decent number of collectables, and the 12 challenge maps do add something to the game. If you miss anything you can choose to replay a level from the simulator room, which is a nice bonus.
OVERALL: 3 Civil Rights out of 5. A fairly entertaining game that takes itself very seriously, although is a little shallow. There are a number of irritating little glitches in the game, although they will probably soon be patched out. If you are a huge Marvel comics fan then you will enjoy yourself. The rest of the world may be left scratching their head as they try to discern the difference between your Mark Raxtons and your Johnny Storms.
Price guide (correct as of 30th September 09)
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Great review.
I always considered these Ultimate Alliance type games simply for multiplayer but on the few short goes I’ve had on them I really don’t see myself being able to play more than a couple of hours as they look very repetitive and not very satisfying.
Might rent it.