You knew a game like Marvel Ultimate Alliance was bound to happen sooner or later from game developer Raven. Raven success on X-Men Legends series featuring characters from the X-Men Universe was so popular that it was just a matter of time before Raven stepped outside the X-Men Universe to tackle on the entire Marvel Universe itself. With that goal in mind, Marvel Ultimate Alliance was created featuring an all star cast of Marvel greatest heroes and villains in the game. Is this game the next revolution in super hero action rpg games? We're going to take a look at one of the most anticipated rpg games for the fall of 2006 to find an answer to that question.
STORY
We need to form an Alliance.
Master of Evil will rule the
world.
High above the sky, S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier is being invaded by Doombots led by certain notorious super villains hired by Dr. Doom. With the situation becoming grimmer each minute, Nick Fury, leader of S.H.I.E.L.D Organization, called on all super heroes to come to the aid of the Helicarrier. Enter four of earth greatest heroes, Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor to the rescue of the Helicarrier. The four heroes were successful in driving off the Doombots and super villains known as Bullseye, Winter Soldier, and Radioactive Man but not before the villains were able to steal certain secret information that S.H.I.E.L.D held. With the Helicarrier damaged, Nick Fury gathered the four heroes at Stark Tower, home of the super hero known as Iron Man. Here Nick Fury informed the four heroes that with the help of Iron Man, he had called upon other heroes to join Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor to form a team of super heroes to fight against Dr. Doom and his evil plans. While it is unclear what Dr. Doom objective is at the moment, he has managed to gather the most powerful group of super villains together to form a new Master of Evil to carry out his evil plans. This latest development has required S.H.I.E.L.D to do the same with the super heroes to combat the Master of Evil. The alliance of super heroes' mission is to track down the Master of Evil and to stop them at all cost before they can carry out their plan of conquest over Earth.
Sadly the one thing that hasn't seen any improvement on is the storytelling from these action super hero rpg games from developer Raven. This game is pure gameplay versus in-depth rpg story. What little story developments there are in here is left to small mission briefing scenes describing what your objectives are and some Q & A dialogues with various Marvel characters. You have an idea on what the plot is about base on the mission briefing scenes and some of the Q & A dialogues where Marvel characters answer your concerns on the state of the missions and how things are going but you really don't see the story unfold in the game base on a story telling stand point. It's more like you fight your way to complete your mission objectives and defeat any game bosses. And once those are done, you gather together for a briefing on the result of what had transpired after you defeated the bosses. That's basically the entire gist of your story cut scenes. Villains and heroes standing or sitting around discussing current events as oppose to showing us current events on things that are happening. The CG movies at the beginning of each chapter is nice but they serve more of a showcase on glimpses of current events as oppose to using those CG movies as actual story telling events. When you finish the game, you have no sense of gratification of having successfully witness a good story being told from beginning to end. It's like you finish the game and enjoy the game but have an empty feeling in terms of the actual outcome of having finished an rpg game. Usually when you finished an rpg game it's like "wow, that was a great adventure" or "I'm exhausted. I need a break to digest everything and all my experiences from that story." You don't get that at all here. It's more like you finish the game and what's next to play because there's no depth of a story for you to digest after. The story has a lot of promise of a big bang adventure with all these Marvel heroes together for one big fight to save the universe but instead of a big bang, you have a wimpy puff of a big disappointment.
Score 6/10
CHARACTERS
Marvel Universe Greatest Heroes
Clearly the main and biggest attraction of this game is being able to play and see some of Marvel
Universe greatest collection of heroes and villains in one game. From that stand point the game doesn't disappoint. You have up to 20 different Marvel heroes to play from as well as dozens of other heroes that make cameo appearances. This doesn't include the villains too. With so many heroes or characters, the game is going to have a hard time giving a decent screen time to all of them so the game mainly focuses on the big four heroes of Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor. Any sort of character development or background biography is done through a short dialogue summary through the Hero Mission stage or by talking to other various Marvel characters in the game through a Questions and Answers dialogue. It's not the best in-depth way of giving out a background history of these Marvel characters but it is the best way to do it with so many characters around. And these short summaries that you get from the game on each Marvel character are pretty good and straight to the point on who they are and how they became a super hero. The only drawback I have is that even though this is a large collection of Marvel heroes, there are still some heroes that are missing versus some heroes that were better off not being feature in the game. A good example of this is the absent of the Hulk. The universe is supposedly in danger and Marvel strongest fighter, the Hulk, is missing in action while a weak Marvel hero like the Blade is feature in this game instead. It's a bit unbalance there in terms of what heroes are feature in this game and what heroes aren't. But this is more nick picking than anything else. A great job here overall.
Score: 8/10
GRAPHICS
Mighty Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
The graphics this time around is an improvement than what was feature in the X-Men Legends games. Going from cel-shading to fully render 3-D models really helps with the improvement of the graphics. Each of the mission stage background environments are done with excellent details to them regardless if you're on an alien ship or underwater in Atlantis. Seeing bits and pieces of broken glassed or scrap metals getting blown up and flying around as you fight the villains around you shows just how much details the designers put into ensuring things look realistic as possible. The 3-D render models of each of the heroes and villains are done nicely with a bit of a cartoonish look but yet manage to capture the essences of what these characters are suppose to look like with their various costumes on. If you manage to zoom in with the camera angle, you can clearly appreciate just how authentic the hero's costumes are compare to their counterparts in the comic books. Now in terms of the story cut scenes and CG movies, things aren't as good as can be. First the story cut scenes are a bit too dark in most areas and the designs of the character models aren't as good. The CG movies are a treat to watch but unfortunately they are too few and far between. Not to mention the quality of the CG movies aren't as sharp, smooth, and clear as with most pure CG scenes. Most of the time they are a bit choppy and grainy. It's the same kind of problem that plagued the CG in the X-Men Legends series. I guess you can honestly say that Raven developers still has a way to go before they can make the kind of CG that SquareEnix makes.
Score: 7/10
MUSIC
Team, we need some music here.
The musical score for this game is about above average to good. Each of the locations or stage missions have a different track from one another that gave them a unique sound and there are even character tracks but none of them really stand out in your mind while you are playing this game. If you look at X-Men Legends II there are a few tracks that do stand out as you play the game. Unfortunately that's not the case here as there isn't one track that I could find that stood out. Well there is the main title track that plays at the introduction of the game or at the start of the title menu screen that signified that this is Marvel Ultimate Alliance but it doesn't really play too much during the actual game. The voice acting in this game is decent but not captivating since most of the voice acting is limited to dialogue in a Q & A format or in brief mission summaries. By the end of the game you probably won't recall much of the music & sound in this game and it's definitely not the best feature in this game too. The fact that it's even hard for me to write a summary of the music feature in this game is a good indication as I can't recall much of the music here outside of the main title track.
Score: 6/10
GAMEPLAY
Customizing your powers.
Feel the might of cosmic power.
Game Information
Genre: Action RPG
Publisher: Activision
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 315 KB
Players: 1-4 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Online: Ethernet Broadband
Network Adaptor: 2-4 Players
Rating: Teen
Release: October 2006
Regardless of whether or not you've played X-Men Legends II, you shouldn't have any problems getting used to the mechanics of this game as it is very easy to learn right away.
For those that have played X-Men Legends II than you should be very familiar with the style and concept of the gameplay since Marvel Ultimate Alliance is identical to X-Men Legends II gameplay mechanics. This action rpg gameplay is broken up into mission stages with objectives that you need to complete. As with all action rpg game, this is basically your smash and bash rpg game but for magic usage you will be using super powers instead. The concept of the gameplay is broken down into 5 story chapters. Each story chapter of course will have various mission stages with objectives that you need to complete before moving onto the next mission stage. All of the objectives are very simple that normally evolve around freeing a fellow super hero from captivity or just finding the mission super villain or villains and defeating them in combat. At the beginning of each story chapter you will normally get a small mission briefing story cut scene that pretty much details on what the chapter objectives are and how they affect current events. As you start your mission and make your way through your mission by defeating various enemies, you will gain experience points and credits (money) that randomly drops from defeating enemies or from destroyed objects during your battles with them. Note that some of the mission stages do have a small bit of puzzle solving element to them but nothing too big or hard for you to figure out. Even some of the bigger boss fights requires more of a puzzle solving win situation than simply trying to bash away at the bosses. This is a 1-4 player game so at the most you can only have up to 4 heroes in your team of super heroes. You can switch heroes in and out of your team at a save point. In 1 player mode you can choose which hero to manually control while the AI controls the other 3 heroes. But the good part is that you can switch to manually control any of the other 3 heroes at any time in the game. The leveling and experience points distribution is also very balance in this game for all your heroes. With up to 20 possible heroes for you to play, you're not going to be able to play all of those heroes evenly so the game balance it by allowing heroes that are in reserve to gain the exact same amount of experience points as those in action. Thus your entire team of super heroes will be on the same level evenly most of the time. This is great for gamers allowing them to try out new and different heroes without having to worry about being too under level with heroes they don't normally use. Outside of this, the game is pretty simple with some familiar key features that we will go into details now.
Superpowers: Superpowers are back and each Marvel hero have about 7-8 powers broken down into different categories for various effect usage. The categories are Melee, Projectile, Radial, Special, Charge, Boost, Debuff, and Xtreme. Just like with X-Men Legends, you can customize each of the hero powers to be stronger by leveling the power up by distributing stat points onto the super power that you want to level up. Your heroes acquire stat points each time they level up. Xtreme Powers: Like with X-Men Legends II, each hero have an Xtreme Power that does major damage to every thing and everyone on screen. The difference here is that Xtreme Power only comes in 1 level so you can't customize it to a higher level. Another difference is that Xtreme Powers can now be used in a combine team Xtreme Powers. In X-Men Legends II if two or more heroes have Xtreme Power ready for usage and one hero uses their Xtreme Power the other heroes will still have their Xtreme Power ready for usage next time. This is not the case here. If two or more heroes have Xtreme Power ready for usage and if one hero uses their Xtreme Power than all the heroes that have Xtreme Power ready for usage will use their Xtreme Powers too back to back to give off a chain Xtreme Power usage. At a glance this might be a problem in terms of wasting extra Xtreme Powers but it's not that bad since Xtreme Powers are less effective in this game than in X-Men Legends II. You rarely need to use your Xtreme Powers at all and most of the time the Xtreme Powers are more or less just AOE damage powers to get rid of swarming enemies at once than really boss fight usage. Team Tactics: Team Tactics is mostly for single players as all it does is assign the overall aggressiveness on how the entire team should be played by the AI. If you want the AI to conserve MP and be defensive then you would select Team Tactic Defensive mode. If you want the AI to go all out and consume a lot of MP and use super powers than you would select Team Tactic Aggressive. You get the idea. Combos: Combos are broken down into melee combo and super power combo. They work in the same way as in X-Men Legends. Melee combo is basically just hitting certain buttons on your controller in the right order to set off a combo. Super power combo is when you and the AI or a partner uses the heroes super powers on an enemy at the exact same time to give off a devastating power attack or extra damage attack. Costumes: Each super hero has four costumes they can wear. The first costume is the default costume that the heroes wear. Two additional costumes can be unlocked base on the number of enemy kills that the hero has achieved but this only counts if the hero is being controlled by an active player and not the AI. The last costume can be unlocked by completing the Hero Mission Disc for each hero. The interesting thing about the costumes outside of seeing your heroes in new and different cool outfits is that each costume has their own three different stats boosting effect that you can customize to a higher level. For example Spider-Man Black and White costume have Max Health, Critical Web, and Defense stat boosts. Now you can customize each of these stat boosts by purchasing a level up with the credits you have to further increase the effect of a particular stat boost. A nice new addition to the game. Your Team: The newest key feature in this game is the introduction of creating your own special team of super powers. This is known as Your Team. Early in the beginning of the game you can create your own customize team of super heroes and the rosters of those that can be on Your Team. What is the point of this? Well it's really simple. Each hero that is on the roster of Your Team will have addition benefits that Your Team gives. The heroes that aren't on the roster of Your Team will not receive those addition benefits. The additional benefit comes in Team Skill Bonuses. Your Team have Team Skill Bonuses such as 5% more HP and MP, greater damage output, 4% more experience points earn, and greater chance of achieving Xtreme Powers faster for all super heroes on the roster of Your Team. You can customize which Team Bonus Skill you want to level up by distributing a Team Skill Point to that Team Bonus Skill. You get a Team Skill Point each time Your Team Reputation level up. Your Team earn reputation base on the completion of each mission objectives. Once you have reach 100 Reputation points, your Reputation Level will go up, thus resulting in a Team Skill Points. This is a great new incentive in creating your very own team of super heroes. Online Play: Like with X-Men Legends II, Marvel Ultimate Alliance has online playability. This comes in two modes, Cooperative Mode and Arcade Mode. In Cooperative Mode you share credits, gear, and health & energy orbs with other players. In Arcade Mode you don't share anything. At the end of each mission which player did the most will receive the most rewards period. On the surface online play looks like a nice feature to have but there's a few problems here. The first noticeable problem is the fact in order to start an online game, you need to have 2 players ready to play. A 2 player mode is a must for online play. If you are a single player you can't start an online game. This is going to rule out a lot of players out there. The work around this problem is that even if you don't have a friend to start online play with, you can join an already online game that is hosted by someone else and their friend. This again leaves to the first problem as you will be having a hard time finding a game to join as most people out there can't start an online game without another second player ready to go. Laughs. The end result of all this is that as a single player not only will you not be able to create an online game but you be hard press to even find an online game to join because most of everyone out there are single players too. This restriction of enforcing having at least 2 players to start an online game takes away the whole purpose of people meeting up with others online to play games. We not even talking about after the first 3 months of the game release and people had their filled with Marvel Ultimate Alliance that they will move on to other games at which point no one is going to be bother with playing online with Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I found the whole online play to be pointless.
I enjoyed this game and most of you will enjoy this game too. The main attraction of this game is of course playing your favorite super heroes and using their powers to fight against some of Marvel most known and famous villains. The fun factor is still there but despite that, there's a bit of a disappointment too. The game is too easy even on the Hard Mode and the fact that the game didn't offer anything really big in terms of new features that weren't seen in X-Men Legends II. I guess you can say that you sort of expected something more from this game but the game never delivers on the more except for maybe more heroes than what was presented in the X-Men Legends series. Still a good game but just need some newer and more innovative stuff to keep the gameplay from looking too outdated.
Score: 8/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Taking on the hero missions.
The extras and replay value is nothing different than what you have seen in the X-Men Legends series. You have your Trivia Questions, Sketch Books, Action Figures, and Comic Book/Simulator Discs.
Each chapter has a set number of Trivia Questions that you can access on the Trivia Computer. Answering each trivia correctly will reward all your heroes a small amount of extra experience points. Finding Sketch Books during some stages of the missions will unlock various Concept Artworks that you can view at the Review Computer back at headquarters. Collecting and finding pieces of Action Figures will eventually allow you to unlock two hidden super heroes by the name of Daredevil and the Black Panther. The biggest extra is of course like in the past X-Men Legends games are the simulator discs or extra mission discs that you can have access to by finding them. This time around the Comic Book and the Simulator Discs are one of the same unlike before where when you find a Comic Book you just unlock the artwork comic book of a character and you still have to look for a Simulator Disc. In this game however if you find the Comic Book of a hero it also unlock the extra mission of that hero. There are a total of 30 extra missions that you can find and unlock to play. The difficulties of each of the hero mission various depending on the hero that you are playing. Completing each of these hero missions will net you extra experience points with stats boost as well as unlocking an extra hero costume for each hero. These hero missions will give you about 10 to 15 extra hours of gameplay depending on whether or not you want to retain a gold reward from them.
For replay, the Hard Mode is unlocked with the character Nick Fury becoming a playable character on your second time through. In Hard Mode all your money and some of the gear will be carried through. Even all the power and costume stats boosts with your team reputation are carried over to the Hard Mode as well. This time around the limits of your power and costume stat boosts have been increased slightly to allow you to even further customize your heroes to an all powerful fighter. The drawback that I found is that even in Hard Mode the game didn't give much of a challenge at all.
The overall package is a great value of extra and replays for any gamer to enjoy. Just a bit disappointed that they didn't introduce anything new in this game in terms of extras that we haven't seen before.
Score: 9/10
Now let's look at the good and bad of this game overall. The good part is that the game is still very fun and cool to play with gameplay that are very similar to X-Men Legends series. So for those that love the X-Men Legends series they will be able to jump right in and enjoy this game immediately. The bad part is that outside the attraction of being able to play and see most of Marvel Universe greatest heroes and villains, the game itself is too similar to X-Men Legends that it doesn't really offer anything new for fans. You would hope and expect that with each new year and new game introduce, there would be some modification in the gameplay to offer something new to entice new fans to the game more. But that's not the case here. I guess you could say if it's not broke than don't fix it. However that's not to say the game couldn't have been done better or can used some better improvements on some of its weaker points which were pointed out in this review. Overall a good buy and one that you can't be disappointed in but don't expect it to be some massive great rpg game due to its many Marvel Super Heroes in the game.
