FASHIONABLY LATE REVIEW
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
By Shaun Hatton - November 24th, 2009
The all-star comic cast in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 features some impressive talent and a gamut of super powers. My two favourite characters to play as, however, are Wolverine and Deadpool. It’s not that I don’t think the rest of Marvel’s superstars are cool – It’s just that once you have Wolverine and Deadpool on your team, you don’t quite need anyone else. So the other two dudes you choose to round out your team of four? Who cares who they might be?
Beat-’em-ups are meant to be just that – good, old-fashioned beat downs at the touch of a button (or in most cases, at the repeated mashing of a button – but that’s just semantics). So my preference for these short-range characters has some sort of sense to it. Apart from allowing for some up close and personal fisticuffs, Wolverine and Deadpool have some of the best banter found in the game. Because the banter can get repetitive during extended play sessions, it’s a good idea to pick characters you can stand.
Comic fans and those that respect the medium know that it’s capable of some excellent storytelling. Games derived from comics, however, don’t always come through in this regard. It’s not something to hold against comics-related games so much as it’s something to hold against games in general. While in recent years games with narrative have become a big movement for the industry, not all of them have great stories. It’s a forgivable offense, as games themselves are a) still a very new medium and b) much more than just a story anyway and can be appreciated on many levels.
With this in mind, the plot of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is decent, if still highly derivative of the recurring theme in the Marvel Universe of mutant/superhero registration. After an incident wherein civilians are killed during a fight between heroes and villains, the government imposes a Superhuman Registration Act. This act becomes divisive force within the mutant hero community, with many rebelling against it. In what determines much of the course of subsequent stages, players are prompted to decide whether or not to go along with the act or to become a fugitive.
Interestingly, Captain America leads the rebellion; Tony Stark (AKA Iron Man) supports the act, and it is through Stark Industries’ help that S.H.I.E.L.D. begins rounding up those opposed to the act. Supervillains get in on the law-abiding side of debate, though not on their own accord – they’re being controlled by nanites. Eventually the two factions set aside their differences when they discover that an unforeseen force that now threatens to destroy the world is controlling the nanites.
Apart from this story, the game also includes mission briefing areas wherein you can access character bios, collect bonus items such as audio clips of news broadcasts and other transmissions, or interact with other heroes. These somewhat canned moments allow for some variety in how you choose to respond to the conversation, with bonus points awarded toward diplomacy or aggression depending on how you end the chat. Unfortunately not all NPCs are available for chatting, and when they are they give you the cold shoulder once you’ve already talked to them.
It’s during these conversations that we get to see the character models up close, and some of them, such as Captain America and Wolverine, look amazing. Sadly the same cannot be said for all characters. Most female heroes have very poor hairdo rendering, and Mr. Fantastic is way too top-heavy for a guy that doesn’t have man-boobs. Overall, the characters look excellent, so this just makes these minor flaws stand out more.
The bulk of the game, as you might have guessed, involves a lot of fighting. Thankfully although there is much of it, the fighting doesn’t necessarily get repetitive. In the single-player campaign, you’re put in charge of a team of four heroes and can switch freely between them. When you’re controlling one character, the computer controls the other three – and not too badly, either. Keeping an eye on the health of each team member is a good practice to get into, as they typically only complain about their health when they’re just about to pass out.
The main attacks are hand-to-hand and melee combat, but since this is a superhero game, the characters also have their own powerful special attacks that they can unleash. Special attacks drain the special attack metre, which is somewhat slow to refill, so you can’t just blast your way through everyone all the time. While this does negate a lot of what makes superheroes super, it offers a good element of balance. If it was too easy to slice through opponents, the game wouldn’t be as fun. These same powers can be upgraded using an extensive leveling up system wherein attribute points can go toward strengthening different special attacks.
Leveling up is more important in earlier stages, where choosing which attacks to upgrade seems like a tricky matter due to the low number of attribute points initially awarded (the better you are at beating up on baddies, the more points you get). Since different special attacks take different lengths of time to recharge, it’s best to stick with the simpler ones at first. Towards the end of the game, however, the leveling up becomes somewhat useless, as your characters are likely to be at maximum power. For those gamers not interested in this light RPG element, there’s also an auto-leveling option, which takes care of things automatically. Truthfully I was really into manually upgrading my characters before I realized the auto-level feature picked the best things to upgrade all the time anyway.
In addition to special attacks, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 also introduces Fusion attacks. These are often powerful enough to clear all enemies on the screen and are especially effective against bosses. Once the Fusion metre is charged up, you can choose to pair your current character’s powers with those of one of the other teammates. Each combination of characters has a unique Fusion attack. For instance, Iron Man and Wolverine can clear enemies from the screen by having Iron Man shoot an energy beam that Wolverine then uses his claws to deflect all over the place. Some Fusion attacks are more targeted while others involve having to control the character duo as they frantically run around the screen, tearing apart enemies.
Fusion attacks, while best used on crowded screens, also caused my Xbox 360 to crash on several occasions, leaving me with a static screenshot until I got up to power off the console manually. If the game didn’t have a decent auto-save feature, this would be a deal breaker. It could just be that the system was getting too hot, but it’s very suspicious that this game caused it to happen so much.
Despite its flaws, however, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a joy to play. It’s one of the nicest licensed superhero games around, right down to its propaganda-like interface and title design. The fight with Yellowjacket alone is one of the coolest gaming moments I’ve had in a while.
