Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 | Review

Troy Benedict Says Growing up, I enjoyed the stories of comic book superheroes, and the epic battles of good versus evil. We all had our favorites heroes. Mine were Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman. Some of my more brainy friends enjoyed The Uncanny X-Men (do they even call them that anymore?). My wife swears by the 80’s Incredible Hulk television show. While the stories were generally predictable, we all loved seeing how Superman would out-do Lex Luthor for the one-hundredth time, or how Batman would yet again, save Gotham City from the likes of The Joker, The Penguin, and The Riddler.

However, as we all grew older, one only had to turn on the evening news to see that defining the world's "good" and "bad" wasn't always easy. Sometimes bad things happened to good people, or people who were considered good did horrible and shocking things. The distinction between good and bad wasn't quite so clear. Your parents, teachers, coaches, etc. probably gave you positive reinforcement by telling you to believe in yourself and strive for your goals.

But what if those goals, beliefs, or methods were considered wrong or evil by others?

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 takes place during Marvel's Civil War story line, where there is no "good superhero." Heroes and villains are working together believing that their side is right and good. Civil War begins after a horrific disaster, caused by a battle between heroes and villains, kills hundreds of innocent civilians. The government attempts to ease the public's fearful outcrys by controlling the superhuman population by creating the Superhuman Registration Act. This act essentially requires all superhumans to publically reveal their true identity and undergo proper training.

Of course, revealing a superhero's true identity doesn't go over well when Captain America finds himself forced to register. He rebels and becomes the leader of the Anti-Registration movement. Iron Man, attempts to arrest the rogue superheroes, and leads the Pro-Registration side.

The game takes place before, during, and after the events in the Civil War comic miniseries, and is separated into three Acts. While choosing a side becomes an important decision, it doesn't actually come into play until Act II, where you're forced to choose whether to register or resist.

The gameplay is a glorified beat-em-up with some RPG elements thrown in for good measure. As you beat up the "bad guys," break crates, and smash up all sorts of expensive-looking equipment and set pieces, you can earn points with which to upgrade your team of superheroes. The upgrades increase different elements of the heroes' attributes.

There are over 20 playable superheroes (and villains) that you'll unlock throughout the storyline, and each one has it's own unique set of attacks and powerups. Superheroes can also work together for massive power attacks called fusion attacks. Certain powerups are only accessible after you have chosen a side in the Civil War.

Along the way, you'll find hidden items like audio logs, biographies, artwork, and other collectables that might encourage you to explore the levels rather than simply brute-forcing your way from point A to Z.

Once you make it to Act II, you can unlock alternate hero outfits by defeating 50 enemies with each character. Some outfits harken back to an older comic book style, while others give a nod to Hollywood's influence on superhero costume design.

You can also choose to play online with three additional players, which makes for a better experience considering the game's A.I. for your teammates is very passive.

The game took me just over 7.5 hours to complete on the default difficulty. In all honesty, I was ready for the game to be over at about the 2-hour mark. If it hadn't been for this review, I probably would not have played through the game to completion. While the game offers an interesting storyline, the gameplay quickly becomes painfully repetitive. Each Act consists of about three levels, and each level is broken down into approximately three "chapters." Each chapter pretty much goes like this: Heroes arrive. Heroes battle an endless horde or bad guys while trying to fulfill their mission objective. Heroes finish the objective and conveniently find themself in a large and open, boss-friendly room. Heroes are introduced to a hero or villian who acts as the boss character. Heroes beat the boss and move on.

Rinse and repeat.

For 7.5 hours.

I've always thought that the world was better off with just a handful of superheroes, but the story of Civil War introduces SO many Marvel characters, that I found it to be overwhelming. There were too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. Hardcore Marvel fans might appreciate some of the obscure superheroes (and painfully unoriginally-named, in my opinion) like Titanium Man, Wonder Man (really?!!), Multiple Man, Molten Man, and Wizard. The main story revolves primarily around Nick Fury, Captain America, and Iron Man. The other cast of characters really seems to offer very little quality content and are there to act as NPCs, to talk to between missions, to unlock and play, and/or are there for you to beat the living crap out of.

While I didn't care much for the large ensemble cast of superheroes, Vicarious Visions certainly played up the fan service for the Marvel enthusiasts.

The game is heavy on the button-mashing. My main choice of hero was Wolverine, primarily because he regenerated health over time. He also had a very cool and powerful attack that I found myself using over, and over, and over, and over. You get the point. I know there is more strategy that can or should have been used, but button-mashing worked wonderfully while using Wolverine, and I hardly found myself depleated of health.

I didn't necessarily dislike the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, but I certainly didn't like it either. Fans of the Marvel universe might appreciate the insane amounts of obscure characters, character history, and artwork that can be accessed. The gameplay, and it's insanely repetitive nature, was my biggest issue with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. The game might be best enjoyed in small doses, where the repetition isn't as noticeable, and/or while playing with a friend online. I'd recommend renting this game, buying it used, or better yet requesting it through Goozex. If you were to buy it, I'd wait until it drops to about $40.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 | First Impressions

Troy Benedict Says It seems that you can't throw a rock very far today without hitting a news story relating in some way to Marvel and its superheroes. Whether it's the hotly-anticipated movies, like Iron Man 2, or the jokes about Disney's recent acquisition of the Marvel license: like how you're going to see Mickey Mouse battling crime with Spider-Man.

Activision just released Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and I had the opportunity to sit down with a copy of the PlayStation 3 version. The game takes place during Marvel's very popular Civil War story arc. For those who do not follow comic books and are unfamiliar with Marvel's Civil War series, I will attempt to explain it very quickly in layman's terms.

In my opinion, the Civil War is a more realistic approach to the existence of superheroes and villains, especially focusing on the consequences of the battles between good and evil. The graphic novel (and recent movie) Watchmen and Pixar's The Incredibles, touched on this more realistic portrayal of superheroes.

"Civil War" begins when over 600 civilians are killed by a massive explosion during a battle between superheroes and villains. The public is horrified and angry and no longer feels safe living under the protective wing of superhumans. In response to the outcry, the government issues the Superhuman Registration Act, requiring all superhumans to give up their secret identities, to be labeled as a weapon of mass destruction, and undergo "formal training." This registration act causes a rift between many of Marvel's popular superheroes. Some are for the act ("Pro-Registration") while others are against it ("Anti-Registration"). Those who are against it are immediately considered rogue and are labeled as threats. No longer are there good guys and bad guys, it's now a matter of ideals and beliefs.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 plays a lot like the first game, which is essentially a suped-up brawler, allowing you to control one of four superheroes. Each superhero has his own set of unique actions and superpowers, and you can quickly jump between characters with a directional press on the D-pad. New Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 are fusion moves, which allows two superheroes to combine their powers for one massive superpower attack.

As you work your way through the game, smashing boxes and defeating enemies, you'll gain points with which you can upgrade each character's superpowers and unlock new ones. You will eventually gain access to additional heroes. You swap out team members at any time from the menu screen. That is the basic explanation of the game.

I'll have to admit, that I had issues with the game from the start. For one, I had to immediately update the game--not a big deal, as games are patched all the time, even "Day One" patches--but the update was slow to download. I'm not sure if that was a PS3 network issue, as the file size was only about 35 MB. Upon completing that game patch/update, I was then presented with a countdown screen, that I had no control over. Essential parts of the game were being installed to the PS3 HDD. While the countdown gave about an 8-minute countdown, it was a fast countdown and probably only took about 5 minutes. Like I said, there was also no option to skip this installation. I'm assuming that this is exclusive only to the PS3 version, as required game installs often are. While it wasn't necessarily a bad impression, it makes me wonder why you can't "just play" the game from disc without installing these files. Chalk this up to being one of the necessary evils of game installations with certain PlayStation 3 titles.

During the first hour, I found myself not quite enjoying the gameplay as much as I had hoped. It took me awhile to adjust to the control scheme and at times the action on the screen became so cluttered and was zoomed-out too far that I lost track of the character I was controlling. Even now my biggest issue with the controls is accidentally wasting my healing abilities when I'm trying to do my superpower attacks. To enable a superpower attack, you have to hold down the R2 trigger and press one of the face buttons. To heal one of your characters, you have to hold down the R1 bumper and press the face buttons that corresponds to one of the four heroes. This may be an instance of me "just not getting it" but I feel that a better implementation of using super power attacks vs. normal attacks could have been done better.

After the first hour, I started getting a better feel for the game, and actually found myself really enjoying it. I'll probably get hateful comments about the comparison I'm about to make, but Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 reminded me of Too Human, especially it's cooperative mode. That is meant as a compliment. Too Human had this Diablo way of pitting you against a large group of enemies and letting you go to town on them. While there aren't any loot drops, you do gain experience to level up your characters, and there are some pretty impressive superpower attacks that can be used to subdue large groups of enemies.

While I haven't experienced the game's online mode, I can only imagine that it is pretty fun, especially if you're playing with a friend. A lot of people claim to favor the Xbox 360 version of a multiplatform game over the PlayStation 3 version simply for the achievement points, and while not all PS3 games don't have trophies, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 does have them. I'm also really becoming a fan of the trend, in more recent games, where your achievement/trophy progress is displayed occasionally via pop-ups to give you an idea of how close you are to getting the much sought after "nerd points."

At this time, I'm having a pretty good time with this game. The action seems well-paced, the objectives are pretty straight-forward, and the puzzle-solving aspects don't detract from the action. Look for my official review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 in the near future, after I've completed the game.