| Marvel Ultimate Alliance Gold Edition -Xbox 360 Posted: First off, I'm no hardcore gamer. I just happened to be browsing some gaming magazine when the ad got me. Being a big fan of the comics, I decided to give it a try. I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to be able to pair up Spidey with Iceman and The Human Torch and whoever catches your fancy? And the game delivers a lot of punch in many ways. The difference between this game and the normal edition is this edition comes with 8 extra characters that are already available as xb live downloadable content.
GAMEPLAY: Campaign mode is pretty straightforward. You can walk through the entire thing and it makes for a lot of gametime. It is kind of reminiscient of the Ninja Turtle series from back in the 90's where you pretty much follow a straight map (except in this case, there are some side rooms that you can explore in each level), kill some enemies, get to a minor boss, kill more enemies, then get to the final boss. Obviously, you have to expect the occasional roadblock - 'What am I going to do to get past this flaming doorblock?' situations where simple puzzles can come in play, but overall, getting through levels is a sort of linear kind of thing. The whole game probably takes about 18-25hrs to beat on normal. But then you won't necessarily unlock all the superheroes and costumes and whatnot. The side simulator missions are also a lot of fun and add an extra leveling up element to the game, so I guess that's what keeps you going. You unlock hard mode after beating normal once. Very replayable game, I've already beaten the story at least 4 times across three difficulty levels. GRADE: A
THE RPG ELEMENT: Activision markets this as an action/rpg game, and while there is lots of action (as I mentioned, the Ninja Turtle game flashback it brought me), there are elements of RPG. Whenever you pick up 'money' on the map and level up, you can spend points leveling up character skills and abilities. The items you equip your characters with will also matter in the same way. The system is rather straightforward and being my first game from the 'series' (apparently this is the successor to some XMen Legends game?), it did not take me long to learn about where this element kicks in. GRADE: A
THE CO-OP ELEMENT: Co-op is awesome and I definitely prefer that to playing alone. You can team up with 1-3 of your friends for some 2-4 player co-op. xb Live allows for some smooth gameplay even while online. While camera views can be annoying at times, you can easily tell that the programmers put a lot of time into making co-op gameplay here really smooth. One weird thing about this though, with comic missions, the main character is controlled by one player and enemies which are, surprise surprise, not controlled by the AI if you've been playing co-op. Kind of eliminates that whole challenge feel to it if you look at it in one way. GRADE: A+
GRAPHICS: Almost comical. Not as in funny comical, but as in like the comic books. Graphics looked much better than on a PS2, but still there were some problems. Heck, the cinematics looked awesome. But for the most part, gameplay graphics were pretty tight. I found some of the animations rather sorry, like the lime green-ness, almost-to-the-state-of-previous-gen-ness of the Fin Fang Foom, but other than that, I really don't have much complaints. So don't expect Gears of War graphics here. GRADE: B+
STORY: Any game that can capture the essence of every superhero's personality while at the same time painting this captivating story as it unravels gets my props. Although sometimes, in the middle of a mission, the small things that go wrong that you and your group must fix up, these things can make you lose sight of the big picture. GRADE: B+
COMPLAINTS:
- Dialogue is kind of key in this game for the most part. At times dialogue pops up in the worst time (immediately after a fight) such that I found me or one of my friends mistakenly hitting the 'continue' button (A) right through the dialogue as if the fight was still going on (A = the attack button).
- Reviving characters: So in battle, if one of your group gets KO'ed, there's a resting period. When the resting period is over, a message pops up saying that the character of interest is fully rested, but instead of letting him/her pop out just as if to rejoin the group, you always have to get to some save point to activate that character again.
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Once again, being not that hardcore of a gamer, I can't really say much in the way of in-depth game reviews. But here's the bottom line:
- This game is definitely one to be played co-op. My brother and I grew up playing these types of games and having hours and hours of fun together with these (heh... Ninja Turtles).
- Don't get this if you're looking for straight RPG. True, there is an RPG element, but not as much in the way of world-exploration and stuff that have surrounded some of the world's best RPGs.
- This game is mission-based, with different levels separated into 5 acts that will load from your home base. Think Splinter Cell or soldier FPS games where you have one level, side missions that pop up when things screw up, and then an overall mission goal that must be beaten for you to return to home base. |
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