Being a super hero would be awesome, wouldn’t it? I think so at least.Having super powers, being able to fly would be nice, but they’dprobably end up corrupting me. Thankfully Marvel has created somethingthat will let me get my kicks and giggles without becoming some corruptpower hungry freak, hell-bent on destroying the world. Marvel: UltimateAlliance is a top down hack and slash RPG, we’ve seen tons of thembefore, but exactly how does this one stand up to the others?
The story starts off with Dr. Doom attacking the Helicarrier ofSHIELD. Thankfully this story also starts off with one of the best CGintro’s I’ve seen that appeals to both my visual and nerd aspects.Seeing Spiderman in such high detailed chaos was such a treat. You’llsee Thor, Wolverine, and Captain America in the intro movie as well.They’ll be in almost all of the CG movies focusing on your group, soyou might as well use them through the game if you don’t want to wonderwhere your party is at.
With all the other hack and slash RPG games out there that Isnarled at, you’d think I’d snarl at this one too. I was wrong,horribly wrong. I’ll be the first to stand on my couch and say loudly,“I did not like the Dark Alliance or X-men Legends games”. Some may sayI am far from “qualified” to even play this game. You’re wrong, to bequalified for this game you must love super heroes, and I love superheroes. I wear glasses for a reason, you know.
With over one-hundred characters to the cast, any fan of themarvel comics will be able to clap their hands with glee when they pickup the controller, or just a few hours after they do. With over twentypeople to your name to start off with, your chances of being a happycamper from hour zero and up is pretty good.
But who cares about story, from there on out you’ll do somemissions within the carrier itself before you gain a base inside ofStark Enterprises. From here on out you’ll have people you can talk towithin the base and obtain missions there. It was kind of nice to havea bit of roam and free time between missions to talk to characters asthe story progressed.
Onething I should mention though is that if you get this for the PC, likethe one I had, go get a controller and plug it in. I personally snaggedmy extra 360 controller and used that. In fact the game likes that,because it’ll recognize the controller and adjust all of the on screenbutton commands to represent the 360 buttons, exactly as you’d see itif you were playing it on a 360. If you have this for the pc, I can’tstress it enough, use a controller. It is much easier that way, andmore enjoyable to boot.
I digress though; let’s get back to what this game is all about.The beatings you can hand out in this game are something glorious.Especially when each and every character does indeed feel a bitdifferent from the rest, the fact they have their own little verbalquips helps a lot as well. I always gave a chuckle when Captain Americawould level up and say “This is better than a super soldier serum”.That is gold right there people, gold. All of the characters I used hadtheir own little phrase they’d spit out on the occasion as well.
Each character has their own set of powers of course, and you’llslowly unlock these as you level up. Usually they include a shield orbarrier type move to take some of the damage for you, which is verynice to use. Most people will move in the same way, fliers fly thesame, people run the same jump the same, but on the occasion you’ll getsomeone with a unique form of double jump movement. Spiderman willswing around if you hold the jump button, and Dreadlock will teleport.Just to let you know, teleporting is fun.
It doesn’t end their either, when you grapple with the average badguys, most people will have different grapple moves if you use yourhard punch button. For example, Spider Man will web them to the ceilingfor a short time and Captain America will jump up and bash them intothe ground with a ton of glory.
Most characters will have a form of long range attack as well; this isgood because some bosses or situations will call for a long rangedattack or possibly a flier. Most ranged attacks will be either a fastmulti shot attack or a charged up one. Captain American has one of thebest though, you toss his shield out and you can do more or less whatyou want with it. Bouncing that thing around the room, off people, itworks so well.
It wasn’t until someone told me that they read somewhere thatapparently the enemies focus more on the player than they will the AIcontrolled characters. It was from then on out that it seemed to be avery accurate comment, I just hadn’t noticed. This is really nice forone main reason; you don’t have to worry so much about the othercharacters. Heck, I rarely paid attention to them at all, and they wereall usually at full health most of the time.
While the AI is decent enough as far as I’m concerned, it wasn’tanything I was astonished at either. The good and bad AI people seemedto dislike one another enough to go to blows, and occasionally dosomething neat, but not very often. It is rather comical though to seethem do the smart thing and throw an enemy over the railing whenpossible. I do it myself as well. Sure you won’t get anything from theenemy, but it is so satisfying.
Some of the things you can get from enemies are health, abilitypower, or money. The power and health are done in a very smart way,something I was extremely happy to see. When you run over one of theorbs that’ll grant health or power, if you are full, it will go to amember in need. It is about time. Game after game has been made whereit is wasted on you by sheer accidental step, or at best you would runthrough it. Since your companions rarely pick anything up, and if theydo it is accidental, you will be the main item grabber as far as thesedrops are concerned. Only during one boss fight did I really careenough about my team to go snag some health orbs for them though. Igenerally let them die, losers.
With games like this though, your need friends to truly enjoy it. Notonly because they are smarter than the puppies of AI that normallyfollow you, but because they’ll fight you tooth and nail over cameracontrol power. That and it is always fun to work together with afriend, he throws them and you try to blast them in the air orsomething. Games like these are not meant to be played alone, butthankfully it still is fun played alone. That’s how I did most of myplaying, alone, because I have no friends.
Some of the things you’ll notice as you play through the game isthat you’ll get bonuses for putting certain people together, mainlyresistance bonuses. Based on who I picked, I guess I would have been aNew Avengers fan, because I kept getting that bonus to pop up.
What for me was a real draw to this game was the fact eachcharacter has three different outfits. Seeing as how rabid half of thecomic fans are, I could only guess what cries of anger would have comefrom the swarms of us nerds if they didn’t pick the three coolest suitsfor each character.
Each outfit, even your original, have different bonuses you canupgrade with the loot you find in your adventures. While one suit maybe able to reflect some damage back at the enemy, one might give morehealth. But we all know you could care less about that, you just wantto look sweet as you’re taking it to them. Even though I wasn’t a fanof the power the symbiotic suit for Spider Man had, I used it becauseit was darn cool. With the upgrades for each suit, you can customizeyour favorite hero to be pretty much unstoppable. In general though, Ifelt their picks for the other costumes were well placed.
In the end, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was a game in a genre I hadnot liked since the day it was born on consoles, but due to the amountof heroes and detail in those heroes, it has won a place in my heart.With the increased AI and distribution of health and power pickups, itmeans you won’t have to worry and micromanage so much, you are freer toenjoy the game and experience that is the Ultimate Alliance.
