Well every game has its run in the backlog at one time or another. Rarely do I play a game from beginning to end, with a rare exception being the occasional Resident Evil 7 or God of War. Most games get about a week of game time before I either check out something else for a bit, or just slide it into a regular rotation of games I’m playing. Every once in a while a game gets pushed back, time and again, over a span of years.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance is one of those games. I purchased MUA brand new; it was one of those cross-generation games that released both on Xbox and Xbox 360 simultaneously. The 360 version was obviously the superior game, but it still had its roots planted in the previous generation. The character models and texture work was mediocre, and admittedly looked better when the camera was zoomed out as far as they could go. Zoom in on them, and they start resembling third party knockoff action figures you’d find in a flea market.
Still, the game was fun, but long, and somewhat repetitive. I played it for a good while, until it eventually got pushed to the side in favor of something newer and more exciting. And to be fair, it would’ve stayed there had Activision not re-released an HD “remaster” for current gen consoles. I was able to get the two-pack bundle of MUA and MUA2 for about $15, so I figured it was as good an excuse as any to revisit the Ultimate of Marvel Alliances.
So I’ve been cranking away at it off and on for the last few weeks, and last night I finally put Ghost Rider’s steel toed boot up Dr. Doom’s steel ass in what has got to be one of the most aggravating boss fights of recent memory. It took me three tries as he endlessly re-spawned “dark” Fantastic Four clones and repeatedly threw me across the room. The fight took me roughly 20 minutes to finally defeat him, which was probably five minutes worth of wailing on Doom and about fifteen trying to actually get to him from across the room before he sent me flying again.
In the end, I relied heavily on Wolverine’s pouncing special move, since it was one of the few ways to cover ground quickly, while at the same time immobilizing Doom for just long enough to get a few hits in. It was a battle of attrition and eventually I was able to wear Doom down before he was able to eliminate all of my team members.
It would’ve helped a bit if maybe I had another human player, or if, in the least, my A.I. teammates were actually worth a shit. They really weren’t smart enough to navigate both the random smattering of objects in the room as well as the FF clones that literally swarmed me at every step. I kept expecting that fight to have a gimmick, but after the initial QTE prompt to steal a portion of his energy, it was all straight up hack ‘n slash.
As for the rest of the game, I really did like the constant cameos by some of the more obscure characters in the Marvel universe. This is obviously a pre-MCU video game, since Spidey gets front and center on the cover, and characters like Thor and Iron Man are there but not nearly a main bullet point. If there were ever an MUA3 they would no doubt be much more prominent.
Each character had a set of different costumes they could wear from various points in Marvel history, based on how many kills, except for one costume for each character that was unlocked by completing their respective training scenarios. What was kind of a bummer was that each costume had its own set of perks that could be bought using the in-game currency (the coins you pick up). I felt like I was locked into a certain costume because the perks it offered were just better. For example, Ghost Rider’s classic outfit gave him a 50% chance to resurrect any downed team member, including himself. This was extremely useful, especially since the A.I. was dumber than dirt and more than once did I have one of my members inexplicably walk off a ledge to his/her death. It also meant that I didn’t really get to enjoy any of his other costumes. This was exacerbated by the fact that some of the character designs they chose were just awful. For example, Spidey had his original blue and red costume, his black symbiote costume, the Scarlet Spider costume, and a metallic one that looks very similar to the Iron Spider (though I could swear this game came out before the whole Iron Spider thing). Okay, can someone please tell me why on earth someone would choose that awful Scarlet Spider hoodie costume over the others? Why? I would’ve preferred an original classic Spidey and a Todd McFarlane Spidey as opposed to that travesty.
The same with Wolverine. I have the classic blue and yellow, the brown and orange, and the Logan t-shirt and jeans. Why in the world would I skip over any of those and choose the ugly Ultimate X-Men outfit?
Anyways, one of the cooler things I saw after I beat the game is that you can start it over using your saved stats from the previous game, which is kind of an unofficial New Game +. I love games that do that. Maybe if I have the patience to play through it again, Dr. Doom won’t be such a pain in the ass.
