Marvel Ultimate Alliance - Raven - 360

[Rasix]

Ever bought a game knowing exactly what you're going to get, knowing that you like what it's going to be offering, and yet still come out somewhat disappointed? The formula for Marvel Ultimate Alliance is one I'm familiar with having played X-Men Legends II on the PSP, and one that hasn't changed much, if at all for this iteration of the series.

The game plays as a overhead view brawler with RPG advancement. You'll have a team of four superheroes/villians that bashes, stomps, and blasts their way through a variety of levels.  I enjoyed this formula with X-Men Legends II and it's still enjoyable here. Creating your own dream team is really never gets old, even though a number of super heroes play similarly.

Honestly though, it just doesn't feel like they tried very hard with this one. The poorly designed menu system is still there.  Loading lag on some of the menus is still there.  Poor production values with cut scenes and NPC interaction is still there.  There's also the problem that the action on the screen is small.  I don't have a 60" set, I imagine it might not be a problem on something like that.  But on a 40" set, you're going to have a little problem following the action at times, especially with the initial fodder villians being very bland and nondescript. The game looks good in parts, but the overall graphic presentation is a bit lacking.

I also have somewhat of a bone to pick with the initial plot.  I'm no comic book nerd, so I have limited knowledge on which to draw upon, but it just seems lazy. Basically Dr. Doom has brough together the "Masters of Evil" to attempt to take over/destroy the world. What this amounts to is a line up of villians you fight feeling like someone took a deck of villain cards, shuffled and started drawing random cards.  Scorpion, Bullseye, Radioactive Man/Winter Soldier, and a finale of Fing Fang Foom for the initial level?

I'll continue to play this, just because I'm a fan of the core gameplay.  It's a fun beat'm'up in the Marvel universe, and that's good enough for me.  And it was $20.

Try it. It's not an impressive effort by Raven, but it's a continuation of an enjoyable formula.

[Yoru]

Thread unshitted. Back on topic, dudes.

[vajuras]

I really liked Marvel Ultimate Alliance. I know its not for everyone. But when it first came out on the xbox360 it was one of the decent titles to come out. Plus, it included coop. If you think about the time when it released then I think we could all agree it was "good for its time". Thanks

[Strazos]

Decent enough release title...

Is it different enough from X-Men Legends (1 and 2) to warrant unwrapping this one? I just couldn't get through either of those games, out of boredom.


And I really like beat 'em ups/dungeon crawlers most of the time.

[vajuras]

I never got a chance to play X-men Legends. Ah, now I see why some people call this a 'rewrap'.

It was good for us newbies at least that's never played the previous versions.

[Prospero]

I played the first oh, 25 minutes of this and then wandered off to shave my cat. Seriously, trying to shave my cat hopped up on phets would have been more fun. I'd like to try it with a group of folks to see if it is any more entertaining, but as a single player game it was really boring. I'd say I was just done with beat'em ups, but I've really been enjoying Viewtiful Joe, so that probably isn't it. It just doesn't have any soul.

[vajuras]

Yeah I never played it offline. Played through the whole campaign online with friends.

[Margalis]

Man Viewtiful Joe is hard. I'm stuck at the part where you have to beat all the old bosses in a row then fight the new fire lion guy. I'm pretty good at certain types of games but I've never been particularly good at the 2D Megaman style bosses.

[Azazel]

I have this on 360 and plan on starting to play it sometime shortly co-op with my wife. I may have some feedback around then.

[Rasix]

Is it different enough from X-Men Legends (1 and 2) to warrant unwrapping this one? I just couldn't get through either of those games, out of boredom.

It's shinier?  It's really the same type of game.  If you didn't like one of the others, I'm not sure why you'd enjoy this one.  Multiplayer it might be a lot more fun, so you could try that, but I enjoyed the formula enough as a single player game.

I played X-Men Legends II on my PSP for reference.  Load lag can be annoying on the 360 version but it was about 10x worse on the PSP.

For what it's worth, I bought the original X-Men Legends for the PS2 at the same time I got this.  So, I'll likely load that up sometime later this year.  I'm not sure this genre is best experienced in succession.

[Strazos]

Two things I had against the Legends games were that the loot seemed forgettable, and that it was far too easy to build an invincible party ( I was a Nightcrawler whore previously).

I've had much more fun with the Dark Alliance games, and even D&D Heroes.

[Azazel]

I played the first X-Men Legends one for a bit. Until I got stuck on a confusing map in some ice level. Blew up a tank but couldn't open the door behind it or some shit like that... It was decent, but I didn't like the overuse of "great stuff loot hidden insire random garbage bins and walls" because it set off my OCD side and I began to demolish every single destructable wall and object I passed.
Which kind of took away from the game being an RPG beatemup..

[schild]

the loot seemed forgettable

Bingo.

Disliked every entry in the series. Diablo-style without any soul whatsoever. Not going to have items? Make up for it with awesome, plz.

[Sky]

Aww, poor loot whores.

I guess I'm the only fan of the series. Love all of them, especially XML2, playing as the Brotherhood of Mutants. It's a fun beat-em-up for Marvel fans. If I had narrowed the scope of my top 20 list to the last decade, XML2 would've been on it.

Need to make a run-through of MUA as my black powah supergroup: Storm, Blade, Black Panther and Luke Cage. My first run-through was classic Avenger style, Iron Man, Thor, Cap and I added Dr Strange because he's cool.

I will agree that the villians seem to be way to random, even if I like a good cameo. There are a lot of bad cameos in MUA.

[Mosesandstick]

I always enjoyed playing the marvel/xmen games with friends (gets boring quickly though). I would rather die than play it SP.

[Velorath]

Aww, poor loot whores.

I guess I'm the only fan of the series. Love all of them, especially XML2, playing as the Brotherhood of Mutants. It's a fun beat-em-up for Marvel fans. If I had narrowed the scope of my top 20 list to the last decade, XML2 would've been on it.

Need to make a run-through of MUA as my black powah supergroup: Storm, Blade, Black Panther and Luke Cage. My first run-through was classic Avenger style, Iron Man, Thor, Cap and I added Dr Strange because he's cool.

I will agree that the villians seem to be way to random, even if I like a good cameo. There are a lot of bad cameos in MUA.

I love all three of them as well, but I think that has to to more with my love of the characters rather than actually thinking the gameplay is anything special (not that the gameplay is bad or anything, it's just not great).

[MrHat]

All these types of games are for when I have some peeps over and we don't really want to play any of the current games.

So we go to blockbuster and rent this type.

4 Player Coop is pretty much always worth a play.  W/ 4 players.

[WayAbvPar]

I played MUA for about 5 minutes a few weeks ago. Had a fever of about 101.5, so it didn't make a lot of sense and I got bored/annoyed/frustrated/sleepy in a hurry. I would like to try it MP at some point though- that might be fun.

[Hoax]

Yeah I've played one of these games on the 360 w/ 4 people & it was tons of fun.  Moon Knight for the win and stuff.  But playing something this mindless SP?  Yall are crazy.

[Strazos]

Aww, poor loot whores.

Hey, I'm not a loot whore. I don't play CoX because of the grind, not because of the lack of loot.

BUT, if you are going to have loot, it better be cool. Also, I like seeing loot make my avatars look awesome, but that's more of a bonus than a necessity.

This is why I like my Infinity Engine games so much. Also why Dungeon Siege sucked balls.

[SurfD]

Out of curiosity, anyone have any tips on playing some of the Comic Book Trials solo?  I just seem to be totally unable to clear certain ones, and am wondering if it is just a lack of level / skill points to distribute, or what.  For example, the mister Fantastic one from the first Act, i just get slaughtered over and over again (level 15 or so).  Same for DR Strange (his abilities either dont do nearly enough damage, or cost so much focus that i run out of power before managing to kill much of anything)

[Sky]

Been a while since I played, but I think I just went back and did them later, and there were a few I never finished.

[Margalis]

Rented this and played it, man the single player is awful. Super duper repetitive, takes zero skill, way too easy, all the characters are pretty much the same, etc.

It definitely uses the Mortal Kombat style of character differentiation rather than the Street Fighter style. All the characters have the same combos, are about the same size, move at the same speed, etc. There are differences in the details but generally every character is kinda samey.

Also the levels are extremely ugly looking, repetitive, and the characters tend to blend into the backgrounds a lot. There is a ton of visual noise.

[Azazel]

4-player (or at least 3) is where it's at for this sort of thing. Good point is that players can drop in and out.

[Sky]

All the characters have the same combos, are about the same size, move at the same speed, etc. There are differences in the details but generally every character is kinda samey.