Marvel Ultimate Alliance

I’ve completed both Marvel Ultimate Alliance games now for a while and had quite my fill of spandex and special power button spamming.  For this review I decided to talk about both games in one post.  For one, they’re too similar to really need two posts and for two, it’s efficient!  So let’s get to it.

Graphics

Both games look pretty good.  UA2 did look like it had a little more polish on the graphics.  Like there was some additional post processing effects or something going on. Both games were pretty simple graphically but looked good enough for an action/rpg’ish style game.  That’s to be expected I suppose as developers get better at optimizing for a given console.  Neither game are really out to set a new bar in graphics but it’s good enough.

Sound

Honestly, there’s the standard fair of web slinging noises and wolverine claws.  The voice over work is decent on some characters while a little painful on others.  Music wasn’t particularly memorable.

Story

Well, I actually kind of liked the first game’s story more.  Maybe it was better characters as the villains or something, I’m not really sure.  Both games are pretty simple for the story and neither are great.  The second game also seemed much more linear while the first one seemed like it had more side quests and things to go do.  The second game however added some decision making points throughout which affect the story slightly.

Gameplay

The gameplay of the Ultimate Alliance series is pretty much exactly the same.  You’re a little super hero on the screen fighting swarms of bad guys and bosses.  They drop in tons of Marvel characters in both games so if you like comics, one of your favorite characters are bound to show up somewhere in the game.  My biggest beef with the gameplay and the same issue every one of my friends had when playing multi player in both games was it’s very hard to keep track of where your character is on the screen.  There’s just so many characters and things flying all over the place the screen is so busy it gets a little disorientating.

The multi-player is pretty fun regardless and while both games are pretty short, it’s a decent co-op series to dump 6-8 hours into a piece.

Conclusion

Fun little games, if you can pick them up on the cheap and/or want a fun co-op game, go for it.  Paying $60 though for such a short game with simple gameplay and not great storytelling, probably not in the cards.

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