Pandemonium's Full Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance for Xbox
When I was younger I did read quite a bit of comic book back in the day. I have never been a die-hard fan but, the different stories with so many superheroes always intrigued me. I was into the X-Men myself but, have knowledge about some of the Marvel characters as well. After playing the two X-Men: Legends games, that came out first and enjoyed them, I had to give this one a try. The game advertised having the biggest collection of superheroes and villains and, that is exactly what you get in this game. I was pleasantly surprised as to what this game had to offer. There are some bits and pieces that could be improved, but as a whole, this is a well put together hack-n-slash superhero game.
Story: The story-line takes right off with a team of four super heroes (Wolverine, Capt. America, Thor, and Spider-Man) on board a S.H.E.I.L.D helicarrier. Dr. Doom has put together a large force of super villains in a plot that is unclear at first. All you know when you start is, he is attacking this helicarrier which is S.H.E.I.L.D's base of operations and they must be stopped before they can sink it. A group of superheroes join to help fight Dr. Doom and his villains and Nick Fury (leader of S.H.E.I.L.D) quickly take charge and directs the team in what they need to do. The main plot behind everything is well hidden and as you go from mission to mission you only get little tidbits into the story. Dr. Doom has you running around to different places, and even different worlds, trying to figure out what his main objective is. There are some side stories, which are what the side quests are in the game, you can complete if you wish while your playing through the main plot. There are a couple of spots where you are given a choice on what you want to do for the story. These can be fun to play with but, don't have any real bearing on the main story which is not too in-depth anyway. There is nothing in these choices that would really make you want to come back and just try the other choice to see what happens. Still, if you do play through the game on the other difficulty level, you should go ahead and choose differently for the fun of it.
What is truly staggering about this game, and stands out the most is, the amount of different superheroes and villains. You can play a well diverse and put together group and will run into a wide variety of different villains as you progress through the game. You start with about 17 heroes ranging from high profile names like Wolverine, Capt America, and Spider-man to fan favorites like all of the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Blade and Ghost Rider. Not everyone is available at first (like Ghost Rider and Blade) but, most of the unlockable characters don't require you to do anything but, just play through the story to unlock them. Even the sheer amount of different comic villains you will face is also just staggering. Of course if you don't follow the comic books you won't recognize a lot of the villains but, that won't matter. They range from high profile villains to even the lesser known and there is never a long period of time you have to wait before you run into one (or more) of these villains. The Ultimate Alliance is true to it's name as this is, by far, the biggest collection of comic names.
Game Play: The game is a very straight foreword brawler and is done very well. You start off on Normal mode with everyone at level one and once you finish the game you can play again on hard mode. You can keep all of your heroes where they are when you finished the game on Normal or start a new game on hard with the characters predetermined for you. You move from location to location fighting your way through enemies, looking for your certain objectives, and maybe having to complete a quick puzzle here and there. The AI plays well and your enemies will defend themselves so they are not just easy targets walking around. Even though as a whole the game is not too challenging but, playing on hard you will notice a big difference in damage taken and the enemies defenses. The puzzles throughout are quick an fairly easy. There is not too many of them, which I liked, and they are not overly challenging. I don't really understand why they are even in the game actually. They mainly consists of moving something around to get to an area of having to have two of your teammates use different controls at the same time. Still, they don't slow the game too much. The game itself is pretty much your typical dungeon crawler using superheroes.
If you have played X-Men: Legends 2, then you will be very familiar with the gameplay and will be able to pretty much put this game in and play. You control a party of four super heroes/mutants, of your choosing, throughout the entire game. You directly control one of these characters yourself but, changing between each one in the middle of the mayhem is fast and easy with a touch of the directional pad. This is a straight foreword hack-n-slash style of game. You can put any party together you wish with your available heroes and fight your way through hordes of enemies in many different environments. To start with, your heroes don't have a lot of abilities but, everyone has basic 2 and 3 button combos they can perform. The different combos are completed with a finisher move such as stunning or tripping your enemy. However, to accompany these basic combos you can perform other actions as well. For example, you can disarm certain enemies (some you can use the weapon against them until it breaks), you can grab them and just go to town for a short time, or just through them into each other or into the breakable environment. It is pretty fun to disarm an enemy and use it against them or just toss enemies around like rag dolls into one another stunning them. Another reason to use your fists and legs instead of your heroes powers is to build up momentum. Once a character has a full momentum they can unleash a super power. These super powers will hit any enemy in a large radius and sometimes doing a negative effect as well as damage like stunning or slowing them down for a long period of time. The difference in this game than the previous X-Men games is, if more than one hero has full momentum when you use there super power they will be linked together adding even more damage. This was a nice change and gave more of a team feeling to your different heroes. If you study your different heroes, some of there powers work very well together. For example, some characters have powers that will stun your enemies and Blade has a power that will almost give him a critical hit every time he hits a stunned enemy. It is fun to just look at the different heroes and try and match ones that work well together. Also, certain combinations of 4 heroes will give them a team bonus. If you put all four of the Fantastic Four characters together (or Avengers) they are given a bonus of 20 health per kill. Playing around with different combinations is fun and you will find yourself doing this quite often.
As you defeat enemies, and complete objectives, you gain experience to level your different characters up. While you move through the game everyone gains experience so even if your not using one at all, they will still gain levels. However, this is not like a the game Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic where everyone gains levels at the same time. The ones that are not being used will gain levels at a much slower pace. The customization is not the same as other games like this either. You don't have direct control over your characters power, health, or focus (how often they can use their powers). Once a hero gains a level these go up automatically and you are given a point to spend in one of their different powers. The higher these powers get the more points they will cost to upgrade. Each character has several powers to choose from. These powers can very from straight damange attacks, buffs for them or your team, or in someway manipulating others. The thing I liked the most about this game was, the ability to take points off and move them around as you wanted. In the other X-Men games, once you used a point it was stuck on that power unless you paid money to remove them. You are free to move these points around anywhere you want which gives you much more freedom to just try their different abilities and finding the ones you like the most. There are a few other ways to boost your powers and abilities. Each hero has 4 costumes (you need to unlock the others by just playing with the character). These costumes will give that hero different upgrades like defense, more health, damage bonus to their powers or attacks, more experience gained, and more. This was another nice upgrade from games past that their costumes plays a roll in the game. You can also find gear to use as you play. Some super villains will drop a gear. Most of these are only used by one hero but, there are others that are universal. This gear will give that hero an upgrade in maybe free power points making that specific power at a higher level, more defense, more damage, and more . Instead of buying this gear at a shop, or from someone, you have to find them as you defeat certain foes. Money in the game is used for just two purposes. You need money to upgrade all of your different heroes costumes or you can spend your money on upgrading their different powers (which is very expensive). That is the only use for money in this game which was just fine with me considering how many different costumes their are.
There are a couple of further notes on the game play worth mentioning. The save system is good as there are several Extraction points throughout each act. These are where you save your game or you change team members on the fly when you find one. You can also extract to different locations faster this way if you need to back for anything. There is also a teleport system that you can use anytime you want to get back to your base. You will have to wait 5:00 in between uses but, that really means nothing. There is also a couple of fun additions that you can play around with. One is, a training room simulator. You can find simulator disks scattered throughout the environment as you play. Most of these are tied to each of your heroes (a few are extra side missions that 4 heroes can fight a specific villain) that you can play a side mission with them a lone. They give you a little more story about each one and you gain experience and money as you go through them. When you complete one you are kind of judged on your gameplay which, if you do well enough, can gain extra stats or even unlock a costume for that specific hero. Some of these disks are extremely difficult for some of your heroes which is fun. The other is a trivia game. Each act you play through has a different trivia game. You gain experience for your team with each correct multiple-choice answer. Some of the questions are pretty basic but, there are quit a few that hard. They require some good knowlege of the comics, character it is asking about, in order to get it right. These are just added bonuses that are rather fun to play around with.
Controls: The controls are straight foreword and very easy to get down which is something I really liked about the game. The first thing you have to get down is using your powers. The powers are divided into four slots on your controller, two straight damage powers, a pump up, and an Extreme power. These are each quick and easy to use as you just hold down the right trigger and press the appropriate button. There are quite a few combos as well for just straight up fist fighting. These are the same as other games just hitting different button combos like AAB, or BABB which perform different attacks. A nice thing here is, different combos effect the enemy different. You can stun, trip, knock into the air, and more. The right thumb-stick is used to rotate the camera for a better view. Once in a blue moon I had some camera issues but, nothing major at all and I never died or anything as a result. You can call your teammates over to help with the white button and they will use one of their powers on your target. This is good for team combos which adds extra damage. There are no health or energy potions in the game. Most enemies when you defeat them will give off some heath or energy that floats in the air until one of your team goes near. The harder the enemy defeated, the more they will release. Just getting down the different hand-to-hand combos and your right trigger for powers will get you through this game. There are only few occasions (certain villains) that you will need to really worry about blocking. I like the control scheme and have no complaints.
Graphics: The gameplay graphics are just average with nothing too special that stands out. If you have played the other 2 X-men games then you know basically what the graphics look like. They have made some improvements to the character models as they don't look exactly as if they came of a comic strip. They are not quite as bulky and there is a little more depth to the different characters and enemies you will face. You have the option to move the camera in closer or farther away (you will probably want to play at a distance) and they both look the same. The graphics don't get better if you get closer like a WarCraft game for example. The amount of environments you travel too, and fight in, are vary quite nice with their own pretty unique style. You will fight in futuristic complexes, outside in a forest with paths, even in snow. However, they are rather linear with out much depth or lighting. The difference in each environment keeps the graphics interesting enough that you don't really notice that they are just average at best.
With that said, what the game sacrifices in overall graphics, it makes up for in fast gameplay with no hiccups. A lot of times there are many enemies on screen at once, things being broken and flying through the air, your characters and enemies using their powers, and explosions (basic mayhem on screen) with no slow down in the gameplay what-so-ever. I would gladly sacrifice some graphics if the gameplay stays true and never is an issue with slow downs or freezing. That is what this game does extremely well. Even though none of the graphics I just mentioned stand out in anyway, with so much happening on screen at once you can see they made more of an effort in the gameplay than graphics. However, the cut-scenes in the game push the Xbox to it's limits. They all look excellent and there is enough of them as you push through the story to be rather amazed. I may not rate the overall graphics too high but, it helps me rate the overall gameplay higher.
Sound: The sound effects in the game are not much more than you would expect. Mostly all you here are the "tinks" and "grunts" of things you break in this open word and as you beat up on your enemies. There are occasional explosions (especially if you use a hero that has a power like grenade tossing) or glass breaking. Nothing really stands out when it comes to the effect of these sounds. Still, nothing sounds bad either. You can hear footsteps as you walk around, and every action you do has some sound attached to it. Where it is a hero's power of wind that "swooshes" or a lightning attack that spreads throughout the room. No matter what, the dominating sound will be everything in the environment being broken. The music throughout the game is nothing spectacular but, nothing you would hit the "mute" button over. You really don't hear much of the music anyway unless you are doing a trivia game or on one of the menus. The only other time I really noticed any music is when your team gets done fighting (which always brings up a faster sound track) then has a docile moment just moving around. There is a quick change from the faster track to usually no soundtrack at all. The music is just something is pretty non-existent.
Even though the sound effects, and music, might be just average, the voice acting is really good. With the amount of super heroes and villains in the game, I was rather impressed with all of the different voices you here throughout. I can't think of one character that didn't sound like you would expect. Whether it's Wolverine's dark and cold voice, Iron Man speaking through a mask, or the seductive Spider Woman using her power of pheromones. They are all spot on and really help give each and every character a life of their own. Another nice aspect is the way certain hero's react to others. If you know certain super heroes, and have read some comics and understand who they know, they will have certain dialogs with NPC's and villains that others won't. Another way of getting some inside story with some of the heroes and villains and how they react together. The game did an excellent job with the voice acting which was a nice surprise and even though the sound effects and music where just all right, I was impressed with the over all effort of authenticity.
Reply Value It is the type of game that you can just pick up and play so you just maybe in a mood to pick some super heroes and bash some bad guys. The co-op in the game is where the real replay value comes into play. You can just put the game in, and with friends go at it. Or, if you are in the middle of a campaign you can have someone join in at anytime. This where you will probably get your replay value from with co-op. Also, once you complete a game, you can always just go back and load it up and play some of the simulator disks that you found. This is just another way you can just put the game in, pick four heroes, and play. This can also be done co-op. I give this section 4 out of 5 because of the put in and play (with co-op if you want) aspect. I also suggest playing this game again on the hard difficulty level cause it also adds some more fun because the game is harder.
Conclusion This game is a very worth while action/RPG that really put effort into being authentic to the Marvel Universe. With a huge cast of playable characters, lots of known villains, lots of action, solid gameplay, and a story-line that just gives you enough makes this a very enjoyable game. The game takes around 12-15 hours to complete and there just enough to maybe bring you back for more. I would lean towards rating this game 4 1/2 stars. For anyone that enjoys the Marvel Universe should pick this game up and enjoy playing as some of your favorite heroes. Even just a casual fan that likes the dungeon crawler style of gameplay would enjoy the overall aspects and leveling up of your many characters. This is a game that should not be over looked and I would not be surprised if there is a sequel in the near future.
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