The comic book genre of videogames is easily stepping up as one of the better crossover creations for hardcore fans. Activision has made sure that it is no different with Raven Software’s upcoming unofficial “sequel” to X-Men Legends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I got a chance to visit the Activision offices this past week out in Los Angeles for a press event that included hands on time with Marvel, Call of Duty 3, and Tony Hawk’s Project 8 (more on those 2 later this week) for the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii consoles. First up was Ultimate Alliance and to be honest I went into the event not that excited about what appeared to be a graphically enhanced rehash with new characters, boy was I in for a surprise.
After loading up the game you come face to face with the team selection menu, this is where you choose a team of 4 super heroes from a pool of around 20. All the characters are not unlocked from the start, but after a few levels of gameplay you have a good diverse selection to create that fantasy team from. A few of the more notable characters are Wolverine, Spiderman, Thor, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Captain America, Iron Man, and many, many more. A really cool feature of Marvel Ultimate Alliance is if you decide to go with a classic team (the Fantastic Four, or X-Men) you are rewarded with bonus power-ups and special moves that only can be pulled off in team mode. Each hero has their own set up powers, attributes, and costumes (that’s right each character has around 4 costumes from classic to new age). Putting Wolverine in his classic comic book uniform (blue and yellow) adds something to the game that you just have to see to understand. Don’t spend too much time selecting your team though because you can easily swap out the weakest link for someone more powerful at any point throughout the game.
Once your world-saving team is chosen it is time to start the game, first up is an intro type level called the Hellicarrier which is literally a massive ship in the air. The first thing I noticed when playing Marvel was the great graphics that it features. More on that later. Like I said before all of the characters have their own moves so learning these is key to having a successful adventure, you can also use power ups and other goodies that are scattered throughout the levels to increase your players stats. Hot swapping between heroes on the fly is a feature that really adds to the fun factor of the game. Going from Wolverine to Ghost Rider or Spiderman gives the player the ability to plan out attacks or routes through the dungeon style levels. The game is broken down into seventeen different levels each consisting of five stages. The level variety includes everything from the depths of hell to the inside of a lifesize pinball machine. Each level has a boss battle that includes many instantly recognizable badguys from the comics.
The gameplay style is one that anyone who has played Legends or Hunter: The Reckoning will easily get a hold of, and if this is your first RPG/Action game it will still be no problem to master within the first hour or so. Controls are simple enough and include a light attack, heavy attack, jump, special moves, and swap characters. Using these simple controls you can also pull off more insane moves that include using your teammates to power up for more damage intensive attacks. The action elements are definitely there but Ultimate Alliance is not without RPG elements as well. Besides the obvious dungeon type level design the story is also very in-depth, even though the folks at Activision are keeping the details of it under lock and key until the game launches; but what we do know is that Dr. Doom is threatening the earth and it is our job to stop him. The option to use “points” to upgrade your character’s attributes is also very prevalent in Marvel. Everything from your health, to speed, a heroes costume, to your attack strength can be increased and eventually leveled up for maximum use of all the characters. After playing level 8 without leveling up first I can see that the developers wanted to make sure that gamers pay attention to this feature of the game as it is very hard, if not impossible, to complete the game without leveling up your characters.
