Marvel Ultimate Alliance

I’m sure that 4 out of 5 kids would love to be super heroes. Who could say no to incredible powers like invisibility or the strength of ten men? When weighed against them the fighting crime part sounds like a minor annoyance at most. Things go awry awfully fast when the villains start working together though, especially when they all have super powers just like you. This is the premise of Ultimate Alliance and it’s up to your team of heroes to stop a diabolical master plan that could have dire consequences.

The Fantastic 4 Avengers League

Fans of Marvel comics will undoubtedly love the game story. While it is full of clichés and it rarely strays away from being a straight on, no nonsense action hero title the variety of heroes and villains featured is certainly impressive. To name just a few heroes featured in the game: Spiderman, Wolverine, Captain America, Thor, Electra, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The Black Panther and the Ghost Rider. More can be unlocked by progressing through the story mode. The assortment of villains is just as varied with famous criminals like Ultimo or Scorpion making company to less recognized trouble makers. You will fight (and inevitably defeat) several of them in each level, which is quite unusual for a heroic game where we usually only fight bosses at the end of chapters. Still, their constant appearances help break up the monotony and provide a nice challenge throughout the entire game.

Hand in hand with fighting the Masters of Evil (the name of the villain team) is the ability to create your own team of superheroes. At the start of the game your choices are limited and you always start playing with Thor, Capitan America, Spiderman and Wolverine. After a mission or two you get the option to form your own team however. The catch here is that you only gain reputation when you play with the 4 (later on 10) heroes that make up your team. You can freely play with any 4 heroes that you have unlocked, but your reputation will drop when one or more of the heroes don’t belong to your team. This is important because you use reputation to raise the stats of your team such as the team synergy and other beneficial abilities. This may sound like a big limitation but it turns out to be a good way to make you focus more on certain heroes, leaving room for additional playthroughs.

Action RPG

If you somehow manage to look past the flashy exterior of Ultimate Alliance you can see that the game is very similar to classic action RPGs such as Dungeon Siege. The similarities continue with 3 of the player’s 4-man team being controlled by the AI while the player fights as 4th member. You can change who you control at any time via the directional buttons and you can use those same buttons while pressing the left shoulder button to tell the rest of the team how to behave (aggressive, defensive, stay close, help out). The AI is not going to win competitions, but it does its job most of the time. You’ll occasionally have your team mates stand in your way and many a foe will survive a few seconds longer because you’ll be unable to get to him. This is very noticeable because your teammates do significantly less damage than you (I’d say you do roughly 4 times their damage). They also get stuck on geometry quite often, but because the game “cheats” a bit they usually teleport to you if you get far enough.

You control your character with the left analog stick while you control the camera with the right stick. Some of the levels have their camera angles locked and you can only zoom in and out on such occasions. It should be pointed out that the camera is not exactly bright, so you’ll have to move it around manually from time to time if you wish to see what’s going on with your team. Combat is handled via the 4 face buttons – you can perform a quick attack, a charged attack, a grab (followed by a throw or some serious ass-whooping) and a regular jump. Combo moves can be performed by different combinations of the two attack buttons. Holding down the right shoulder button gives access to super powers such as fire attacks, extra powerful stun attacks and other signature moves. Each hero has several different power moves and most of them fit the gameplay quite well. Some of the characters are even capable of flight, which adds another dimension to combat.

Defeating enemies earns the team experience, which causes the individual heroes to level up from time to time. Leveling up earns you attribute points that you can use to unlock or upgrade abilities (you can let the game manage this for you). You also earn money during your adventures and you can use it to buy different suits for your heroes, which provide different bonuses and represent the various versions of the heroes. It’s not D&D, but it is still a nice feature.

Controls

Having only two different standard attacks may sound like a major drawback, but it actually helps make the game more accessible and lets you focus more on your team and the hero moves. Several of the enemies you’ll encounter also require specific approaches such as being stunned or knocked down first. Getting access to new super powers on a regular basis also helps and the already mentioned villains spice things up quite nicely. Boss fights which take place at the end of missions often require some quick thinking. For example, one of the boss fights has you answering questions from various fields (computers, chemistry, physics, etc.) before you can close enough to actually harm him.

A PS3 exclusive is the Six-Axis control scheme which allows you to use controller movements to achieve various things in the game. You can grab an enemy and then tilt the controller in the direction you wish to throw the enemy. You can also tilt the controller in the direction you with to dodge before hitting the button. Parts of the game actually require you to use the motion sensing capabilities of the controller – one of the boss encounters forces you to tilt the controller in the direction shown on the screen. This approach works in theory, but practically there are some issues. Sometimes the game will misinterpret your movements, which inevitably leads to trouble especially during boss fights. As a whole the system is pretty solid, but you’ll probably stick to regular controls whenever possible.

HD at 1080p

The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions look identical. Both display an amazing amount of detail both on the character and on the levels themselves. Bump-mapping, pixel shaders, high polygon counts – you name it. The first few levels look bland because they take place in high-tech environments, but after that the levels just keep getting prettier and prettier. Underwater cities, old temples and alien worlds are all full of life with dynamic shadows dancing around light sources and dastardly enemies just waiting to get beaten up. At 720p both systems are capable of handling almost every scene with little to no effort, however when playing at 1080p (only available on the PS3) the framerate often drops to the point when the stuttering becomes noticeable and causes the controls to become a bit unresponsive.

The sound is top notch however with thematic music fitting perfectly into the action and professionally voiced characters speaking during every cutscene or in-game conversation. Sound effects are mostly limited to grunts, taunts and combat sounds such as punches, explosions and the occasional scream of pain. It’s not the best game sound we’ve ever heard, but it’s still very good.

Conclusion

The game is filled with unlockable content – comic scenarios, artwork and additional hero characters can be unlocked by collecting hidden items throughout the levels. That alone is enough to keep people busy for weeks and the lengthy singleplayer experience can be extended a lot by playing online with a friend (the game uses the GameSpy service for online matchmaking). The combat system is very satisfying, but not very deep. Performance is not stellar, but it’s good enough to not cause major issues.

The main selling point is the Marvel universe however. While I’m not a big comic fan myself I enjoyed playing with all the well known heroes found in this game and I’m sure I’d have enjoyed the experience a lot more if I was an avid comic reader. For people like me, Ultimate Alliance is the consoles counterpart to Dungeon Siege on the PC – a team based action RPG with an interesting story that just goes on and on.