Marvel Ultimate Alliance Review

Having established the X-Men: Legends brand of action-RPGs over the past couple of years, Activision has turned to something much more epic for their third, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Originally announced as Marvel Legends, Ultimate Alliance sees a band of forty of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's super hero creations battle some of greatest adversaries in the Marvel Universe, such as Doctor Doom, MODOK, Mandarin, and Scorpion (collectively, the Masters of Evil). Currently available on a number of platforms including Xbox 360 (Wii and PlayStation3 versions are due in the coming weeks and months), Ultimate Alliance is very much a compendium of characters with over 140 from across the Marvel Universe. Whilst not all of them feature in a playable form, most are in fact just NPC cameo appearances, they do lay the groundwork for the story of good versus evil told through the course of the game. Further scope is added by the fact that the ending of Ultimate Alliance depends on the actions of the player, whether they've completed certain side-missions or not.

All of the big players from the Marvel Universe make it into the game on the side of the Ultimate Alliance, such as Spider-Man, several members of the X-Men (Storm, Ice Man, Colossus and Wolverine), all of the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the vampire-hunter Blade. Forty are available in total in the game, though many are unlocked as the story progresses such as Doctor Strange and Nick Fury. Filling the four slots to create their team of course allows players to mix and match favourites, though the ability to re-create famous teams like the Fantastic Four or the New Avengers (announced with the appropriate audio announcement) is pretty exciting - even if you're not a big comic book fan. Playing as a recognised team not only creates a level of variety missing in X-Men, but also adds various attributes to the foursome, such as an extra five Resistance Points (New Avengers) or Twenty Health Points for every knock-out (Fantastic Four). Gamers can also create their own band of four, and take them out to face Doctor Doom in order to build a reputation of their own.

A dungeon-crawler in every sense of the word, Ultimate Alliance is set across seventeen different locations from Atlantis, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Stark Tower, and Castle Doom, with several hub environments acting as safe havens for the team. So-called 'Critical Missions', which progress the story itself, are further complimented with optional side-missions, such as rescuing a captured Senator Kelly or discovering the whereabouts of Tony Stark's lost cufflinks (!). The story is further expanded by the continued rumours or conspiracy of a traitor from within the Alliance itself...Very much constricted and linear in terms of level design, Ultimate Alliance does feel like an old-fashioned RPG, especially on Xbox 360, but it does allow players to focus on the task in hand and grind out the objectives. In that respect, the gameplay does become a little too bogged down at times, with seemingly endless fairly straightforward encounters with generic looking foot soldiers before the more interesting set piece boss encounters. Enjoying such a raft of characters means that every boss and sub-boss features a notable adversary from Marvel both past and present, right up to genius metal mastermind, Doctor Doom. Whilst sub-bosses such as Daredevil's nemesis Bullseye or Spider-Man's Scorpion offer similar encounters, it's the fights against some of the main bosses that really offer something quite different. In the lead up to the battle against MODOK for instance, the player's band of super heroes are held captive by a force field until a number of correct questions are answered (the Earth is 149.6 million kilometres, just for you to know). Players will also have to figure out other ways to kill the likes of the Kraken, Mysterio, and Fin Fang Foom.

Taking place across five Acts, each broken up into a number of missions, there's a lot of game to Ultimate Alliance. But whilst the story of the forces of good against the Masters of Evil and Doctor Doom forms the significant sections of gameplay to be had, it's far from the be all and end all. There are also a large number of Comic Book Missions, in which characters such as Iron Man and Mr Fantastic look back at some of their key conflicts from the past, such as The Thing defeating Rhino whilst protecting a frozen Mr Fantastic or Dr. Strange defeating Baron Mordo. Much more of a challenge compared to the regular missions, thanks mainly because of the lack of any party support, players will find themselves having to complete the key objectives within the twenty minute time limit, though with rewards running character skins to new Talent Point. Like so much of the game, the missions are a real draw for fans of the Marvel Universe, besides offering a change of pace for general gamers. Gaining access to the individual Comic Missions is achieved by collecting the various discs, hidden around the seventeen locations in the game that encourages exploration.

Key to an action-RPG, or any RPG for that matter, is the feeling of character progression, and that's something that is definitely achieved with Ultimate Alliance. Countless super powers are available to be unlocked for each of the super heroes, together with new costumes (such as the black suit for Spider-Man and the Classic Iron Man Suit) with their own unique attributes. All of the powers that you'd expect the characters to possess are here, either available from the start or to be unlocked, including Captain America's Shield Throw, Mr Fantastic's various stretching abilities, and Storm's Lightning Strikes. As with X-Men Legends, team members can be swapped at the various save points dotted throughout the gameworld, enabling defeated heroes to be swapped with the significant back-up of characters on offer. Exceptionally familiar to anybody who has played the X-Men: Legends series, Ultimate Alliance allow includes combination attacks between team members for greater damage. Executing the team attacks is more of a lucky occurance however, especially when playing through the Campaign solo. A basic level of squad command is also featured, allowing players to call for assistance, or to direct the team to take an Aggressive, Defensive, or Normal stance. It's just enough to allow gamers to feel like they've some sort of control over the AI-members of the team.

Beyond playing the Campaign solo, gamers are also able to experience the full story online (if you play on certain platforms such as Xbox 360) with up to three others. For the most part, progressing through the story with other gamers lifts the experience to something with a little more depth, thanks mainly to the fact that you then do play as part of an actual team - rather than fighting with a group of AI characters. The Co-operative mode (and the Arcade mode, which doesn't fill empty slots with AI-controlled characters) is certainly a worthwhile addition to the game, and one that's surely welcomed by fans...though waiting for the Host to tap through the conversions held between characters can a bit frustrating if you're playing with somebody who'd like to read slowly and methodically.