Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects

"It lives up to its name"

Against my better knowledge, I took the chance to get Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects yesterday, thinking that it simply had to be better than what everyone else had said about it. By that time, obviously, I had already read all the reviews giving Marvel Nemesis a two out of ten, or a one out of five. This did not bode well for my comic geek soul -- in fact, it proved to be my downfall, as I waited in line and bought Marvel Nemesis, hoping -- just hoping -- that I, with my better disposition, could somehow MAKE Marvel Nemesis better with my will.

Somehow, I don't think I succeeded.

The game starts out with a nice film noir-inspired full-motion video, and it's really not that bad, to say the least. Although some characters sound quite a bit more unemotional than they usually are -- really, I don't wish to hear The Thing say "It's clobbering time" ever again, with that monotone that he has in Marvel Nemesis -- the ambience of it all is quite well done. Then again, the story is a little cliched (the usual "aliens coming down to attack Earth" plot) -- so cliched, in fact, that I cannot believe that Marvel worked on this game alongside EA. The very fact that the storyline, along with some of the cutscenes, are so extremely...well, moronic...almost made me want to stop playing this game. But, as I saw with the skillful obliteration of Captain America, the "missing in combat" Punisher, and the massive beatdown of the Hulk, a little bit of hope began to gather in my body. With such eliminations of such high caliber, I thought Marvel Nemesis really was better than everyone had said it was.

I lost again.

Each level consists of one goal and one goal only -- destroy everything that tries to blast you into smithereens. Sure, some of the missions claim that you have to "destroy everything in two minutes" or "destroy the force fields" or "blast open The Wink so her guts spill out all over the floor", but you simply must realize that what the game really wants you to do is run around and kill things. That's it. You've got your little Marvel character (from those of Spider-man, Elektra, Wolverine, and a few others). With that hero, you run around, kill a bunch of pretty ugly baddies a la Static Shock, and then eliminate a couple of bosses. Then you move on to the next level.

Actually, let me rephrase that last statement. You kill a bunch of baddies and then TRY to eliminate a couple of bosses -- if you do, you get to move on to a similarly boring level. The key words are "try" and "if". With such easy stages, you'd think that a boss would be suited for the character that you're playing to at least offer a chance for your character to beat the thing down. But alas, these thoughts are in vain. The first boss of the game, a rather uninspired teleporter known as The Wink, can beat down Wolverine in a space of about seven or eight seconds. Wolverine, as you may recall, is apparently agility incarnate. The Wink -- well, The Wink seems to be agility's mistress. Against a slowpoke like Wolverine, The Wink easily prevails, with her uberfast moves and (for some stupid reason) extremely fast hit point regeneration. In fact, for some reason, all of the villains in the game seem to regenerate faster than Wolverine himself -- and remember, he's the one who heals himself from knife blows to the head. This is just a small sample of how the characters in Marvel Nemesis aren't so equal -- and how Ninja Gaiden this silly game can get. Because this isn't the only time you'll get matched up with a overpowered villain that'll take at least a half hour to beat down. No siree, you'll have to fight ranged attackers with puny little hand-to-hand combat fighters, and believe me, you won't have an ounce of fun doing it.

The reason for that is simple. Unlike most other brawlers -- say, Street Fighter or King of Fighters -- each character really has no more than six attacks. Two grounders, two aerials, and two throws -- whoop dee FRIGGIN' doo. Truly, all The Thing can do is punch, punch harder, smash, smash harder, throw and (you guessed it) throw harder. "But that's all The Thing can do anyway!" Nope, Elektra gets to slash, stab, throw, twist, and, uh, mangle. Sure, it sounds varied, but all the attacks for Elektra -- and actually, most of the characters -- look exactly the same. I'm sure no adolescent male will care (because Elektra is easy to ogle if you're that kind of person), but I'm doubtful as to whether or not an adolescent male would even care to get to that stage (Elektra is unlocked after you beat down The Wink, which you may recall was a extremely hostile woman). "Well...well, it doesn't matter if you can only do six different things! This isn't a fighter!" Damn straight it's not -- Marvel Nemesis doesn't deserve to be labelled with such a moniker. Look at X-Men Legends, one of the ideal superhero games. Varied characters (check), nice backgrounds (check), and pretty darn awesome attacks (oooooooooh, Nemesis FAILS on that one). Against such an awesome game, EA and Marvel fail miserably. Seriously now -- variety is good. Not bad, as EA seems to think.

Sometimes, the graphics of a game can help the overall value of it. I am delighted to say that the graphics of Marvel Nemesis do, in fact, help out with the satisfaction value, if not the gameplay itself. The game is placed in a sort of film noir-ish type of setting, with the city lights shining down mutely and the Avengers Mansion lending itself to such games as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The characters themselves are rather well-designed for such a game (you can see my distaste for Marvel Nemesis already, most likely) as well -- and that is a good thing, when almost everything else in the game is not that great at all. But the graphics don't make up for what Marvel Nemesis has lost -- they don't even come close.

Overall, Marvel Nemesis is truly what the people say. Does it really deserve a two out of ten? Maybe not. But what Marvel Nemesis truly deserves are more than few things -- varied locales, myriads of attacks, and at least some decent voiceovers (gawd). EA and Marvel seemed to be doing so well in the beginning -- I suppose the whole thing was just too good to be true. It's sad how Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects fails to live up to its name (well, actually, it does live up to its name) -- but that's just how the world goes. Maybe today I'll play it again, and have a better time with it. But maybe not. It's all a matter of opinion, after all.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/05