It’s good to be a Marvel fan these days. With some of the best superhero movies out in theaters and a slew of great titles in the comic shops, it’s no wonder geeks are walking around with smiles on their pale faces. On top of that, we’ve got Raven Software working hard to keep the gamer happy on the comic front as well. With two solid offerings in the X-Men Legends franchise under their belts, the Wisconsin based developer is entering the next gen in good form with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Be assured that it’s another solid offering for the Marvel Universe.

If you’ve played any of the X-Men Legends games you know what you’re getting here as the formula has been taken straight from those titles. You pick a team of four superhero characters from a long list of favorites. Captain America, Reed Richards, The Thing, Daredevil, Spiderman, Blade, Ghost Rider and Iron Man are all here for you to play. And that’s not even half the roster of available heroes. Each of the heroes comes outfitted with a list of powers that are able to be earned and used by the player in battle throughout the course of the game. Each of these characters is then mapped to one of the four directions on the D-Pad and you can select from them at any time during the fighting.

Gameplay consists of your characters traveling to various locations and battling through waves of enemies as you travel to a boss battle. It’s a beat ‘em up in the truest sense of the word but it works very well as you have the variety of all the diverse heroes and their collections of powers to offset the monotony of killing waves of similar type enemies. The storyline is typical comic book fantasy, with Dr. Doom once again marshalling super villains in his quest for ultimate power. Along the way, our heroes must battle the forces of the under water world of Atlantis, the gods of Asgaard and the members of Hydra as they try to stop Dr. Doom from abusing the powers of Odin. Not exactly realistic but it fits the Marvel Universe to a tee and fans of the comic books will love the over the top plot. You also get the chance to tackle all of your favorite villains in Ultimate Alliance, many of them being featured as mini bosses at various points throughout the levels.

The game is divided into four Acts and each of these takes place in a different series of locals. You can go back at anytime and try the areas again for added bonuses, which I’ll talk about in a bit. The stages are well designed, stylishly created and offer the player some nice settings that will be familiar to long time Marvel fans. The levels were smartly created to provide an ample supply of both close quarters and large areas in which to wage battle and use the various super powers at your disposal. There is nothing like launching Captain America’s shield at enemies, but it wouldn’t have nearly the kick if you were always stuck in some small hallway. All the stages are connected via a hub area (one for each Act) where you can save, change characters and learn about new objectives.

Control is tight and very responsive, faring even better than it did in the Legends games. Switching your characters on the fly is as easy as ever and you can do so with very little effort or distraction from the main game. You have two attack buttons that can be used in various combinations to do a variety of combos that earn you more stat points. In addition you have a jump/fly button that you can use in combination with attacks for aerial moves as well. The two triggers pull up your super power and group control menus and allow you to remap the buttons on the fly for using up to four super powers or four commands to your teammates. These menus can also be customized so that you have the ability to put whatever power you want onto any button. The shoulder buttons are used for defensive purposes and also work quite well. With all the complicated moves that you can do, the arsenal of super powers at your disposal and the ability to control four different characters you would think the controls would be complicated and daunting. The fact that the control scheme handles it all effortlessly is a testament to its great design.

The graphics are very well done on the 360 and while they don’t represent the best on the system, they sure do look good. The cinematics are very impressive, especially if you have the luxury of viewing them on an HDTV setup. The game is presented in an isometric perspective for the majority of the game, with a few sections going into an almost top down perspective. Some of the bosses that you must fight take up well over two screens, so the view shits to different angles in order to accommodate them. The isometric view is very well done and rarely did I struggle with the camera. There were a few times where moving the camera further out or closer was helpful but for the majority of the time the standard view worked just fine. Some of the bigger boss battles did provide some frustrating camera angles that made fighting hard but they were a definite exception to the rule.

Ultimate Alliance also provides some light RPG elements that some gamers have grown to hate. These elements were also present in the Legends series, but Raven was smart to include an auto leveling mechanic should you choose not to build your characters up yourself. As you kill enemies, little circular icons are left behind that you can collect and use as currency for leveling up your characters. There are many different things spend these points on from making aspects of your character stronger (such as attack and defense) to adding powers that your hero can use in battle. You can also develop the powers your character has to make them even stronger and more effective in battle. While it can be a pain in the ass to check in and level up your character, I find the customization element to be a very neat element to the gameplay. I found that being able to make my team members have various strengths and weaknesses helps make the levels easier to get through and gave each character a significant role to play. Leveling up your character also unlocks different costumes from the characters history which is fun, especially for Marvel fans that may have a favorite look for their hero. In addition, the different costumes also provide different strengths and weaknesses for your character.

The game also has lots of items to collect as fun bonuses for players. Scattered throughout the levels are comic book covers for players to view, concept artwork from the game and special CD icons that provide you with additional levels that are based off of situation/storylines from Marvel comics. These single mission based levels are very fun and give you a glimpse into the history of the characters in the game. In addition, going through these bonus missions gives you more experience which will make your characters stronger. All of these single missions have a reward attached based on how well you do in them. With many of the missions being clocked, the various levels of Bronze through Gold are often linked to how fast and effectively you complete the missions. You’ll find yourself going through most of the character based missions as completing them in the set time gives you access to a fourth costume for your character.

One of the best features of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is the ability to play multiplayer co-op via Xbox Live. Playing by yourself is great but playing with up to three other players gives the game a whole new element of fun and is very reminiscent of the classic four player arcade brawlers from the late 90’s. I would go so far as to say that Ultimate Alliance should be played with friends as the true spirit of the game is one of working together. If you have no Live connection, you can also hook up 4 controllers locally and play through the levels with your friends. This is a great feature and the fact that you can play online is testament to both the quality of the game and the worthiness of the 360 version of the game.

The 360 Achievements are well done, but the vast majority of them fall into the “you’ve made it to this level, here’s an Achievement” category. However, the other half of them fall under the “it’ll take you the rest of your life to get these” category. Some of the later Achievements are so time consuming that you’ll be playing the game for quite some time and may not be worth your time and effort. I like that it’s there, but do I really want to take time and throw 150 enemies off a cliff? Maybe, but I’m not sure a measly 30 points is worth it. At any rate, the Achievements do what I believe they are supposed to do on a 360 game, and that is to provide replay value. And this game certainly has it.





Article By: Hilden