MARVEL Ultimate Alliance begins the same way it ends – chaotically. As you are forced to take control of a clandestine group of Marvels’ most beloved heroes and misfits. With over two dozen of these heroes from present and past to choose from (and a few villains offered through DLC), you’ll find yourself investing countless hours into just testing each character's attributes and abilities. In essence, that is really what this game is about – leveling up, tweaking and customizing your favorite characters, so you can bring them together under your own customized zeal (think of it as your own A-Team) to defeat the evil lord, Victor Von Doom.
Ultimate Alliance is definitely targeted toward its base of power-hungry fans, and though it lacks in production values, this game clearly takes its history seriously. Every nook and cranny of Ultimate Alliance is jam-packed with Marvel back-story, trivia and lore. Even the characters themselves are based upon their comic incarnations rather than their dumbed-down TV or movie cousins. Even the story is based upon original comic origins (some for the better – but others for the worse), and the game features computer terminals that allow you to take quizzes on Marvel trivia or participate in ‘Comics’ – which are mostly solo missions, where each hero must overcome a stage tailored to them. These Comics yield rewards such as Stat Boosts and Unlockable Costumes.
The gameplay here is straight out of the pages of a Dungeons & Dragons handbook – and the similarities there-on are striking. Everything from the lighting, to the sounds effects and controls, to the HUD Map and even the design of the final level, seems to be mirrored from the Baulder’s Gate/Champions of Norrath games. Sadly though, the developers didn’t manage to encompass either the pacing or charm that made those games such a hit. While the dungeon crawling can be quit enjoyable at times, it often (and quickly) devolves into blind button-mashing and frustration. The fact is that combat-wise, Ultimate Alliance just doesn’t have enough variety or enough moves to ward of the horrible repetitiveness brought on by the slap-together environments and countless swarms of never-ending generic enemies. Don’t look for the story to make up for the slack – it never seems to takeoff and suffers from lazy writing and a predicable plot that is far from interesting.
While Ultimate Alliance is currently available for a host of different consoles, both the XBOX 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 versions seem to be the best value as far as content and graphics go. Though the game itself is nearly identical regardless of which home console version you decide to own, you will find that these next-gen versions run faster and offer online multiplayer and a slew of features available via DLC.
My only complaint as far as these versions go, is that for all the great things that you gain – the visual and control differences are all but mute. The controls themselves are noticeable similar to the PS2 and XBOX versions, and though the textures and lighting are acceptably better on the big-brother versions, the base game is still the same. By that; the next-gen games actually reuse the same framework as the last-gen versions, and it shows in some of the most horribly outdated visuals on the current systems. Yes, some of the environments have been remodeled, textured, and mapped for the XB360/PS3, but the characters still use the same models, which suffer from some of the lowest polygon-counts in any game since the Sega Dreamcast.
The soundtrack thankfully mimics that energetic mixture of cheekiness and cheesiness, helping to inject a bit of upbeat fun and to the otherwise dull battles. The downside here, is the shallowness of the music selection – the game only features a handful of tracks. Not everything here in the sounds department is well -- this game features probably the worst SFX ever in a 3D video game. The game practically reuses the same 3 noises - a blast sound, thud noise ,and a Clang. Please use caution with this game, if you happen to be one of those people who cant stand horrible voice acting. ACTIVISION copped out with the voicing here – they actually used a fan-based contest to find amateur voicing, where they allowed fans to mail-in clips of themselves voicing their favorite heroes. Then, to make matters worse, they actually picked some of the worst (Tone-def anyone?) contenders possible. Almost every character, friend or fiend, seems to be voiced by the same four guys – who robotically voice lines with about as much inspiration as a wine-o. I found the best medicine for this problem was to cut-off the ‘Battle Dialogue’.
It is true; MARVEL Ultimate Alliance is certainly about as flawed as a game can get, and also suffers from a few of audio glitches. But what saves it is it’s attention to detail – the gameplay may be broken, but no one can deny that the prospect of forming your own dreamteam consisting of four of your favorite Marvel characters; dressing them up, equipping items and moves, and leveling them – is definitely a great use of the Fan-cannon. Given the amount of heroes you have to work with, this game quickly becomes a ‘Marvel Sims’ game long after all the actual gameplay has overstayed its welcome. As a bargain title, Ultimate Alliance is worth at least a rental if only for the Achievement points (XB360 only) and the opportunity to play dress up -- but does the addictive character system makeup for bad gameplay? Hardcore fan-boys will definitely get a kick out of this game, but this is one MARVEL game that is better left as a rental for everyone else.
