Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Review

There’s nothing more fun than watching superheroes battling it out against the forces of evil. Whether it’s Spiderman swinging from the rooftops, the Fantastic Four swooping in to save the day, or watching Storm conjuring up tornadoes, one thing is for sure – we all love the superhero who saves the day. But what if the superheroes were made to turn on each other? Who’d come to our rescue then? Well, this is the question being asked in Ultimate Alliance 2, the follow up to the 2006 game of the same name.

In the original Ultimate Alliance game, players took control of a team of four superheroes, and battled through countless levels of bad guys to save the earth from impending doom (or was that Doom?). While the same gameplay style has been carried over into Ultimate Alliance 2, a lot of things have been polished up to make the game a marked improvement over the last one. Even if you haven’t played the first game, you won’t miss out on anything as there is no continuing storyline, and the game smoothly introduces you to all the controls and moves you can pull off. Even though the first few missions are really just the training levels in disguise, you still get quite a lot of action thrown in. But once you’ve familiarized yourself with the game, the real storyline begins – a massive explosion triggered by two warring superheroes has cased the “Superhero Registration Act” to come into effect, which calls for all superheroes to be registered with the government, and therefore be of service to their country. Of course, this is met with mixed reactions from the superheroes, with some opting to register, while others rebel and right against their former allies. At a crucial point in the game you will have to make this decision as well – either side with the government and register yourself, or reject the act and have your team hunted down as vigilantes. While this decision not only affects the storyline of the game, it also narrows down the characters you get to choose from in the game – side with the government and you can choose to have the likes of Iron Man and Mr Fantastic on your team, or reject the act and pair up with Captain America and Luke Cage.

As mentioned before, you control a team of up to four characters, each with a basic melee attack, a more powerful charge attack, and the ability to (wait for it) throw things. Some characters also have the ability to teleport or fly, which surely beats plodding around on foot. You also get access to special attacks, which use up a portion of your energy – thankfully this recharges swiftly over time, rather than collecting orbs which you had to do in the first game. Initially you have access to only two powers, but as you progress through the game and level up your character, you can unlock a total of four powers, which can be executed by simply holding the R1 button and tapping one of the face buttons. New to this instalment of the game is Fusion Powers, which lets you team up with anyone in your party to pull off one of three special attacks. A Clearing attack will allow you to pull off a devastating move that will clear the room of your enemies, a Targeted attack will let you focus on one enemy, and a Guided attack will let you charge around an area with your buddy. To pull off one of these Fusion attacks, you have to whack around enough enemies (and there are plenty to run into) in order to charge up a bar – you can store up to two Fusion attacks, so use them wisely. The only downside to the Fusion attacks is that after a while you discover that some of them are just slight variations rather than being completely new attacks. For example, when Storm and Human Torch pair up, they create a fiery tornado, while Storm and Iceman create a freezing one – hardly much of a difference if you ask me. The one awkward omission is this version is that you can never figure out which special attack has been mapped to which face button – while the previous instalment had icons on screen for each special attack, you now have to memorize which button does what, which is very bizarre.

As you pound away at enemies and collect experience points, you also earn medals that can apply several buffs to your entire team, such as boosting your health, adding fire to your attacks, or bulking up your defence. But earning all that experience means that you’ll have to spend it at some time, and this is where the most improvement has been done. Previously when you wanted to upgrade a character, you had to hit the Start button to go into the character’s options, and then cycle through the various available powers to level them all up. This was not only utterly boring, but would be extremely frustrating during co-op mode, when you would have to twiddle your thumbs as your points-hogging co-player cycled through every single power and upgrade available. Now you can simply hit the Select button to access a mini-menu to quickly power up your character, or swap around your team medals, which is a true blessing. Another helpful addition to this game is the objective marker – if you get lost or are unsure of where to go, a simply tap of the R3 button and a helpful arrow will point you in the right direction.

If you tire of plodding through the game as a single player, you can have a friend jump in locally, or connect with a player online. Online playing is fairly solid, with trophy management and progress being handled smoothly. Graphically the game is a few notches better than the previous version, but by far it’s the cut scenes that steal the show, offering a much more dramatic telling of the story than plain dialogue. There is some great voice-acting present as well, and characters that talk to you can be replied with an aggressive, diplomatic, or defensive answer, thus also changing your stats and influence in the game.

Unfortunately, like the previous instalment this game has its fair share of issues. There are still countless issues with the camera, which often doesn’t do what you need it to do, so you end up losing your character on screen, or being unable to pan around an area to get a better handle on the action – this gets especially worse in areas where the camera is fixed to a side-scrolling level. There is also a ridiculous amount of clipping in the game, with enemies getting stuck in the roof after a tornado attack, or dying and disappearing halfway into the floor. Your team mates also tend to be quite thick when it comes to path-finding, and sometimes get stuck on another area or behind an obstacle.

Despite the occasional technical flaw, Ultimate Alliance 2 is a decent follow up, though it doesn’t sport much to make it a must-buy game. If you’ve played the first game you’re not going to find a lot of new content here, but if you’ve always wanted to rally your team of superheroes, this is the game to try.

About Nick Rego

Nick is a Senior Games Journalist for MEGamers and will play any game besides a sports one or FPS, because he'll either run in the wrong direction or blow off his foot.