Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006)

Ok, so I started off thinking oh this will be great! A fun couch co-op with one of my best friends. YES.

Well, yeah the hang out was great. But right around 4 hours in we both were very done with the game.

The game play is pretty shallow, just a few steps above the 2 button beat um ups that were so big on Snes, but the game is like much, MUCH longer.

The story is a hot mess of ill conceived shit happening. WHich is disappointing because there are so many good cross-over stories in the Marvel universe.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment though was just how freaking repetitive everything gets. Characters' and their abilities blend together, the levels and enemies do, the bosses are almost all exactly the same. Hell, The Hulk and Colossus have literally the exact same abilities, just with different names...

Despite this there is some good: I love the return to a couch Co-op game. I also think the roster of this game is admirably deep, I just wish the variation/ abilities of the characters were deeper. Some are incredible (Invisible Woman has an amazing and unique Shield ability for the whole team), but many just feel exactly the same.

Overall this game became such a slog my friend and I both decided we would not be playing 2. There is fun to be had here, but don't expect much from the game.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was a cross-platform action-RPG released in 2006, just as the next-gen console wars had begun. Originally released on the PS2, it was also released on next-gen platforms (X-Box 360, PS3, and Wii) with additional character content and later with additional DLC. The DLC, mostly more characters for the roster, accompanied the on-disc Gold Edition released some time later.

The game itself was a critical follow-up to Raven Software's X-Men Legends and its sequel, this time stepping out of the X-Men universe and into the greater Marvel universe (although character designs are mostly taken from the Ultimate universe). In the days before film deals had broken up Marvel's holdings and caused the company to be reticent to release content not owned by Disney, the game stands out as an enjoyable--if not somewhat belabored--romp through various Marvel locales.

Central to the story is a plot by Dr. Doom to take the power of Odin so that he may rule the world. To that end, Dr. Doom has hired virtually every baddie of name in the Marvel universe, and it's up to the select band of heroes--the game's playable roster--to take him down and recover the power Doom has consumed. The game escalates from the beginning, providing an interesting, if not dated, blend of action and RPG elements most familiar to fans of Champions of Norrath or Baldur's Gate.

By 2006, though, the game had really begun to show its age. While the next-gen systems at least provided a smooth experience, graphical quality amongst the titles varied greatly, and the sound mixing was often imperfect at best. Both the Wii version and the PS2 version had by far the worst graphics, while every version had its own unique problems and eccentricities.

Combat could often get stale, and some arbitrary features--like the inability to revive fallen characters without letting a timer pass--are downright frustrating for a game that should ultimately be a fast-paced ride. The inundation of mundane text when interacting with characters shows the limits of the studio's budget for voice acting, and while character animations are sometimes fun, it can become fairly obvious how little effort was given to attack effects or the variances in move types.

Still, as cookie cutter as it can be, it does carry plenty of charm, and served as the further inspiration for popular games like Marvel Heroes, which took its Diablo pedigree and transformed it into a true MMO. The game got one sequel, which was ultimately ill-fated, and although the game was recently resurrected on the PS4 and PC, it remains to be seen whether or not it will ever come back as a true franchise.

In any case, Ultimate Alliance may not be so "ultimate," but it does at the very least do some honor to its source material and deserve a spot on the gaming shelves of those die-hard Marvel fans.