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Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Review

Raven improves upon the great work it did with the X-Men Legends games, with a lengthy adventure that touches upon nearly every last corner of the Marvel Universe.

The Good

• Huge, eclectic cast of Marvel heroes and villains  
• deep yet largely optional character customization system  
• great variety of environments  
• seamless local and online co-op play.

The Bad

• Presentation a little technically uneven  
• some customization options seem contradictory.

In 2004, Raven Software surprised a lot of people with X-Men Legends, an action RPG focusing on the exploits of Marvel's mutant superheroes. The Diablo-style gameplay was a significant departure for Raven, a developer best known for its extensive work on first-person shooters. Perhaps more surprising was the game's success in introducing action RPG conventions to the world of superheroes, a fairly novel combination at the time. It proved to be a winning formula, one that Raven further refined with last year's X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. Not content with the localized struggles of the X-Men, the concept has been blown out to an intergalactic, interdimensional scale with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. With well over 20 unique playable heroes, a massive campaign that features a wide variety of well-known Marvel Universe villains, supporting characters, and locations, as well as plenty of hidden extras, it's the biggest piece of Marvel fan service seen in a video game. It also builds upon a lot of the gameplay systems established in the X-Men Legends games, making for an experience that's deeper, longer-lasting, and generally more satisfying.

The stars of the world's greatest comics join forces in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

Ominous things are afoot right from the start in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Dr. Doom has brought together a coalition of supervillains under the Masters of Evil name, whose first act is to attack a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. An opposing coalition of superheroes quickly comes to the aid of S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury, who takes command of the situation and coordinates the superheroes as they continue to track Doom and his minions across the universe and into different dimensions. The sheer quantity of Marvel supervillains you'll face on your quest to defeat Dr. Doom is genuinely staggering. Heavy hitters like Ultron, the Mandarin, Mephisto, Loki, and Galactus all play major roles, but there's still room for lower-profile villains like M.O.D.O.K., Fin Fang Foom, Arcade, Grey Gargoyle, Blackheart, Super Skrull, and literally dozens of others. There are a couple of truly excellent twists and turns, and the story does a good job of concealing the true nature of Dr. Doom's plans until just the right moment. Some of the finer points, such as the excess of long-winded expository speeches in between levels, don't stand up to close scrutiny so well, but the narrative is successful in keeping the game moving at a fast clip.
Your starting lineup in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance consists of Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, but after a few levels playing with these heroes, you're given the option to create your own custom team. At first you'll have about 18 different heroes to choose from, and they represent a good cross-section of high-profile heroes and more obscure fan favorites. Old-schoolers like the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and several X-Men are there, as are a number of heroes who are likely unknown to those who don't keep up with comics, such as Moon Knight, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and Deadpool. As you progress you'll run into other heroes such as Blade, Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, and the Silver Surfer, who will in turn join the cause. Part of the fun of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is the sheer variety of places the game takes you. While the X-Men Legends games seemed stuck mostly in dungeonlike corridors and sewers and such, here you'll visit some of the most spectacular and mythical locations in the Marvel Universe, including Mephisto's Realm, Asgard, Mandarin's palace, the Skrull homeworld, and, finally, Dr. Doom's sinister Latverian castle. The lush environments really do look as if they came straight out of a comic book, and the game's overall look is enhanced with loads of dramatic lighting and crazy particle effects. The heroes and villains look good from afar, but up close they lack detail and have been bump-mapped to the point that they look like action figures. There are other inconsistencies, such as a few distractingly large, blurry background textures and the ravine of difference in quality among some of the prerendered cinematic sequences. It's also unfortunate that the frame rate isn't more stable. Too many special effects can make the game stutter a little when running at 720p. It's a bit worse when you run the game at 1080p, though when it's running smoothly, it's by far as good as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance looks on any platform. The sound design is also a little uneven, with some overly chatty characters and environmental sound loops, but it more than makes up for this with a soundtrack that's just fantastic, capably shifting gears to keep up with the game's near-constant, dramatic scenery changes.
The basics of the gameplay should be perfectly familiar by now to fans of hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers like Diablo, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, or Raven's own X-Men Legends games. Commanding a group of four superheroes, you'll fight your way through swarms of enemies, becoming more powerful and gaining new abilities and the occasional piece of gear along the way. From the get-go, everyone can perform a handful of straight-up melee combos. There are a few details that give the basic combat some depth beyond simple button mashing, such as the ability to disarm enemies and grapple with them and enemies that are only susceptible to specific attacks. Pulling the right trigger gives you access to a number of your hero's special powers, and these special powers, along with stuff like the ability of flight when appropriate, play a big part in giving each hero a unique feel. As different as the abilities can look and feel, most can be easily slotted into a handful of categories. There are melee attacks, radial attacks, projectile attacks, beam attacks, individual as well as team boosts, and high-powered "xtreme" attacks that you can only trigger after your usually slow-filling momentum meter reaches capacity. Save for the Silver Surfer, who seems stymied by the terranean nature of the gameplay, the heroes feel quite comparable to their ink-and-paper counterparts. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the PlayStation 3 makes occasional use of the gyroscopic features in the Sixaxis controller, and the implementation can be inconsistent. It works pretty well for puzzles, such as when you have to follow a series of on-screen tilt commands to disarm a bomb. Sometimes it just adds unnecessary steps, such as when you have to hold the left shoulder button and then tilt the controller to perform a roll, when just tapping the left shoulder button produces the same results.

Character customization runs deep, though you can choose to automate it if it's too much for you.

Though you have little control over how your hero's basic stats like health and energy increase as you reach new experience levels, with each new level you're given skill points that you can put toward special powers. Each hero has eight or more special powers in an arsenal, though many of them are inaccessible until you reach certain experience plateaus. You can also use cold, hard cash that you pick up by beating enemies and smashing crates to purchase points, though they start off pricey and become exponentially more so as you progress. Each hero also has three alternate costumes that you can unlock, which not only can drastically affect the hero's appearance, but also comes with a unique set of bonuses that you can pay to increase. Defeating significant villains and finding special treasure chests will usually net you a piece of performance-enhancing equipment. Usually any hero can use any gear you happen upon, though it never shows up on their person, and there are also lots of rare pieces of gear that only specific heroes can use.