Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

"Ultimate Alliance = Expectations = Dissapointments"

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a pathetic action game, featuring repetitive combat and a poorly designed story and levelling system. It's almost as if the game company, Activision, decided to line-up all the superheroes close together for the firing squad.

STORY- You play as a group of superheroes from the Marvel universe, to aid Nick Fury and the SHIELD organization. The Masters of Evil are preparing a trap to destroy SHIELD and the earth itself. Be prepared to fight to your old-age death after too much repetitive combat.

(+) Compared to the Marvel comics, the story is a "pass."

(-) In-game character dialogue is stalling and boring. The game would run faster if there was no story at all. Skipping the dialogue is a great way to continue the game without losing attention.

GAMEPLAY- The game allows up to 4 players to fight off armies and power up. Each player is capable of performing weak attacks, strong attacks, grapples and jumps. Superheroes can also block enemy attacks, activate doors and switches, talk to other story-based characters and fight, fight and fight some more. Depending on the superhero, some players can fly while others can lift larger objects and throw them at enemies. The superheroes are unbalanced.

The best feature of the game is the super powers, which are activated by holding the right trigger and pressing a corresponding superpower button. These powers will drain the character's blue power meter, which can be replenished by grabbing orbs or waiting. As a character takes damage, they'll lose life from their red power meter, which can be replenished by grabbing orbs or waiting if the hero has regeneration. Fallen characters can rejoin the party after a certain amount of time and a revisit to the HQ.

As the superheroes defeat enemies, they'll gain experience and obtain different/stronger powers as they level up. Fallen enemies will give orbs and money, which can be spent to upgrade heroes as well. Sometimes, rare accessories can be found to upgrade heroes too.

(+) Each hero has unique super powers. There's a high amount of customization allowed.

(-) Some popular superheroes are not available for players to use, like the Hulk or Punisher. Customizing can only be done with one character at a time, which is a major stall during 4 player games. Auto-level and auto-equip is stupid. Even the most powerful superheroes, which are notorious for being indestructible, can die from standing in a puddle of fire for too long (Silver Surfer).

(-) Single player is unbalanced, since the other 3 superheroes are controlled by poor artificial intelligence. Combat quickly becomes extremely repetitive. Moving the camera is a great way to mess up the other player's movements in multiplayer.

GRAPHICS- The game uses an overhead view that looks upon the superheroes and enemies throughout the game. Each figure looks small and undefined. The super powers definitely release the biggest sparks in the game, but overall the colours (especially for the floors and walls) are reused too often. Sometimes you'll notice the superheroes will have the same movements (like the grapple punch). Some movements are down-right pathetic (like the helicopter getting shot down by a gun-turret).

(+) Cinematics and super powers have the best graphics. Especially the Xtreme moves performed by solo superheroes.

(-) Characters are small during combat. Some movements looks awkward/pathetic/unnoticeable. Graphics will stutter horribly in combat, making the system look slow. Small enemies are difficult to distinguish.

SOUND- The voice acting from the superheroes is quite possibly the best feature of this pitiful game. People will laugh whenever Spider Man or Deadpool talk. People will love the freelance Wolverine and his disobedient script. It's worth noting that the voice-acted script reflects the superheroes perfectly, with the only letdown being the repetition during combat.

(+) Superheroes sound authentic to their Marvel Universe counterparts.

(-) Voice acting becomes annoying, like when the superheroes complain they've run out of energy for a super power. The music is not memorable and mediocre at best.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06