You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry...

The X-men Legends series paved the way for the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance which I was a pretty big fan of. The story was well constructed, it looked good and there were so many characters and costumes to choose from that there was something for everyone. Then something terrible happened. The job of developing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 was taken from Raven and instead given to Vicarious Visions.

I’m going to be blunt. This seems to have been a bad move. Getting the technical stuff out of the way first: It’s not as good looking as people claim it is, it’s full of glitches and there seems to have been very little effort put into the unlockable costumes and simulator stages. This all makes for a pretty poor game.

My main complaint however doesn’t come completely from a gaming perspective. The story of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was meant to be lifted directly from the Marvel Civil War. I was expecting, quite excitedly, to be able to play through the entire story, choosing a side and becoming involved in the events that gripped me when I read the original material. But no. The writers obviously felt that they had been robbed of their creativity and decided to take rewrite the story, taking it down a road so ridiculous that it manages to ruin the entire game.

My other major criticism is a lack of development beyond the original concept. In fact, in places it’s actually been simplified. It’s almost as if they don’t think the modern audience can handle extensive choices in the development of their characters and so they give you very little scope for improvement. And on top of that, the allocated stat-points aren’t even permanent and so if you don’t like what you’ve done you can just reset them and try again! It’s role-playing for idiots...

The only new addition are the fusions, which basically involve two characters in the team ‘fusing’ their abilities. The developers claim that every combination of character creates a different move. This is absolute rubbish. Half the characters basically run around holding hands, hitting enemies on the head. It’s fantastically unsatisfying.

As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan, and this means a lot coming from someone who adored the last game. Normally at this point in such a negative review, I would say something like ‘but it’s not all bad…’. I’m not going to. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 has very little going for it. Save yourself some time and play the first one.