Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review [360]



£38.99

£28.98

£38.99

It must be baffling for the guys at Marvel. They've got a decades old treasure trove of characters that are known intimately by people who couldn't even name their country's leader (myself for instance. It's Gordon Bennett or something, right?) and yet no matter how hard and how often they try, rarely do those amazing comic book characters translate to other entertainment mediums.

Comics to films, comics to games, films to comics, games to comics - it's an exceptional fluke when those characters survive the transition. And the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance did little to break that trend; offering a mish-mash of off-the-shelf gameplay in an effort to wring the same characteristics from the Hulk as it did from Gambit.

The sequel follows a very similar pattern, throwing together a small collective of characters from within the Marvel universe in an effort to capitalise on as many beloved licenses as possible. This time, however, the RPG elements are actually noticeable, and the storyline is as worthy as anything Marvel turned out during the 90s. Admittedly that's not great, but it still punches most contemporary game's storylines into custard.

You take command of four of Mavel's finest (and, more importantly, most Hollywood friendly) heroes; Iron Man, Spider Man, Wolverine and Captain America, with a CPU controlled Nick Fury tagging along for the sake of exposition. But boiled down into its raw components, regardless of the famous costumes on show, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is very familiar grounds. It's a fighting game, with RPG elements - Diablo without the swords or sorcery.

We won't begin with the fighting aspects, however. Yes, that's the essential crux of the gameplay, but the veneer on that beat-‘em-up boulder at the heart of the game is actually more interesting. Thestoryline is far more prevalent here, but manages not to shepherd you around the game too ham-fistedly. It borrows quite heavily from the Civil War plot in the comic cross-over extravaganza, but is solid enough of structure throughout the game to keep you inching ever forward just to get a tantalising taste of the next inevitable plot point.

It's here where Marvel has failed in its licenses. Comics, like most forms of entertainment, rely on story, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 evidently realises that fact. The story takes rough tumbles and turns, throwing you into all kinds of action in very different locations, and though we won't threaten you with spoilers, suffice to say it still manages to pack a decent twist and satisfying resolution into the third act. There are also small variations in the experience depending on which characters you side with regarding the super hero regulation plot from Civil War, which is another interesting development to the storytelling. This, if anything, is the saviour of the game.