Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

""It's go time team!""

I bought Marvel: Ultimate Alliance originally for just one reason. You could play as Ghost Rider! The joy of igniting enemies with hell fire, of beating them to death with a chain... so as soon as I could, I went out and bought a copy. The moment I started playing it I realised two things. First, the game play was similar to the X-men legends 1 and 2 which gave me an instant degree of familiarity with the controls and second, it actually sunk in just how much of the Marvel world was packed into the game!

Story: 10/10
The story begins with Doctor Doom attacking a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier commanded by Colonel Nick Fury. After a few moments of threats and counter threats Fury messages all available heroes to aid the carrier. A simple start that begins an intricate dance through the furthest reaches of the Marvel universe from Stark Towers to the Norse gods' home of Asgard. As each stage is completed Doom's power reaches new heights and the player constantly feels the urge to advance through each stage as quickly as possible in order to stop him.

Graphics: 10/10
On the Xbox 360 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance looks beautiful. The environments are large and varied making the scenery un-repetitive and enjoyable to look on. The characters are shown in all their glory from Spider-man in his blue and red costume to Thor's Asgard armour.

Camera Angles: 10/10
The camera is controlled by the right thumb stick and is fully rotational, so if the camera accidentally goes into a loop and ends up inside a wall, a few quick changes and everything is visible again. Just the way any player likes it.

Voice acting: 10/10
Each character in the game is well voiced and sounds exactly like you would imagine them to sound. Spider-man's sarcastic wisecracks to Captain America's sense of patriotic duty to Wolverine's feral nature, once again voiced by respected voice actor Steven Jay Blum returning to the role from the previous X-men Legends games. However the stand out voice is without a doubt Deadpool, the insanely hilarious 'Merc with a Mouth' who's often random phrases will have players rolling around on the floor in tears. Particularly my favourite... "I want my lawyer! I want my mommy! I want my lawyer's mommy!"

Characters: 10/10
The main point of the game though is quite simply the characters. More than 140 characters from the Marvel Universe appear in the game from the famous (Wolverine) to the barely heard of (Luke Cage). However each character is true to their original source material and the designers have gone to great pains to include sub-missions detailing each characters history and allowing unique conversations with NPC to decrease repeating the same old conversations.

In conclusion Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a brilliant contribution to anyone's Xbox 360 collection and particularly a fan of Marvel.

Rent or buy: Buy.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/07