Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PSP
3. Publisher: Activision Blizzard
4. Developer: Raven Software
5. Release Date: 10/24/06
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Keith Schleicher

Activision had a huge hit on their hands with the X-Men Legends games.  In the first game you got to take four X-Men and romp through missions, destroying environments, killing off enemies, and increasing their abilities.  You could even switch out the members of the team and unlock costumes.  While the second game was similar, you were teamed up with your former enemies from Magneto’s crew and fought off against Apocalypse.  This increased the number of enemies you could play is in the game.

Now Raven and Vicarious Visions are expanding to the entire Marvel universe.  What would happen if you mixed Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Thor together?  What if the Fantastic Four used The Hulk instead of The Thing?  What would happen if the X-Men faced off against Galactus?  That’s what Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (MUA) tries to answer.  You can find out on the go with the PSP version, which is what we’ll take a look at here.

When you have four players on the screen the size of the PSP, there are some compromises going to be made to the graphics.  The characters look small, and you’ll need to play the game this way so that you can see the rest of your team on screen while you are taking on the waves of bad guys.  You can zoom up to the action, but your view can end up being blocked.  When you do this the characters look much blockier than they do when you are zoomed out.  The animations of the characters can look a little choppy and the framerate drops too.

The backgrounds throughout the game are varied depending on what area you are playing in.  However, the graphics seem to blend into each other at times, obscuring important items in the environment.  In the beginning of the game I spent a long time looking for some stairs that were in front of the characters but completely obscured from view because of the placement of the default camera.  While you can shift the camera view, it isn’t easy to do and takes too long to do.

If you can imagine what the sound in a superhero movie sounds like, then you probably have a good idea what MUA sounds like.  The mix of chivalry and action sets the tone of the action.  The music does cut out quite a bit though, jarring you when it comes in and out.

The sound effects are nothing new from the other X-Men Legend games.  Some of the sounds seem to be recycled from those games.  The sound effects are adequate and pack the right punch.  Still, all of the punches and kicks sound the same.  Performing some of the special moves does give you a little more variety.

The voice acting is a bit hokey, but that actually matches some of the feel of the game.  When you consider how far the developers dug into the Marvel archive and how bad some of the names are, you can tell the tongue is planted firmly in the cheek while some of the lines are delivered.

Some of the controls are familiar to those who have played the X-Men Legends games.  Movement is handled with the analog nub.  Regular attacks are done with X while heavy attacks are performed with Circle.  Hitting Square uses and item, and Triangle jumps and flies for those characters that have that ability.

The controllers for the home consoles actually have two analog sticks, so movement and adjusting the camera are able to be done at the same time.  Unfortunately this isn’t the case with the PSP.  Because of this some creative controls needed to be implemented.  To change your character, you need to hold down the L button and then hit the correct key on the D-pad.  Hitting L and then the action button rotates the camera and zooms in and out.  Holding down R lets you user your characters’ special abilities.  Some of these are awkward because of the button combinations, and some other commands are just hard to remember.  The zoom and camera rotation aren’t nearly fast enough either.

They say that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.  Well, that’s the approach taken with MUA.  Instead of only featuring the members of the X-Men, selected characters from the Marvel comics are involved.  You control a team of four characters to fight against the minions of Dr. Doom and Galactus.  When you start out, you’ll notice that a large number of characters are generally recognizable.  You can even put some groups together in their classic four-person team.  A few of them are lesser known characters like Deadpool and Captain Marvel.  You might be scratching your head why they were included, but fans of those series appreciate the opportunity to play as an anti-hero.

Raven has gone back and gotten some of the early characters in the Marvel Universe on the evil side as well.  The game focuses on Dr. Doom and a new assembly of super villains called The Masters of Evil.  While you do get to face enemies like Galactus, Silver Surfer, and Mysterio, some obscure villains pop their head into the game.  Ever hear of Radioactive Man or Winter Soldier?  Probably not.  That’s who you’ll see just in the first level.  However, some of the voice acting comes with more cheese than the state of Wisconsin, and it fits how badly the characters are named.  You can see how far comics have progressed.

While Activision didn’t tamper with what was working, they made enough tweaks to the game to make the game worth taking a look at.  As you progress through the missions you’ll have mini-bosses to fight.  This helps to break the game into pieces.  There are checkpoint areas marked by S.H.I.E.L.D. symbols that let you can save the game and change your team members.  It would be nice if there were more checkpoint areas to save the game though.  These bosses are tough, so you have to replay large pieces of the level if you lose your entire team, which can happen fairly easily.  If you lose a team member, you have to wait a certain amount of time.  Once that time is up you can go back to a S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol and have them return to your party.

While out on the field, you have plenty of options to pummel your enemies.  While there are standard kicks and punches, you can combo them together to get even more damage.  You also can pick up objects around you and toss them at your enemies.  You can even grab your enemies and hit them constantly or you can toss them around.  Each character also has super powers that can be accessed by hitting the R button.  These can get you out of a pinch when you are surrounded by enemies.  Certain members also have a good chemistry among them and can perform combos together, giving even more damage to an enemy.  This may take some experimentation, but just as in real life, some people play better with others.

While you have the ability to control one character while the AI takes control of the other team members, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have any control over them.  You can set up how aggressive they are as well as tell them to form up by you and get them all on the screen at once.

The environments are more interactive with plenty of barrels and crates to destroy.  While this can get very old, there is a purpose to it.  As you destroy objects, you are able to pick up S.H.I.E.L.D. tokens.  These S.H.I.E.L.D. tokens can be used to upgrade abilities.  You can make your characters normal attacks stronger, or you can go out and make their special attacks more powerful.  You can also increase their defenses.  While new costumes can be unlocked, you aren’t going to be focused on which piece of clothing can be worn by which super hero.  This makes the gameplay much faster.  You can also unlock new characters and costumes as well by completing certain objectives or playing with characters over time.  Some of these new costumes do come with power bonuses, so they are more than just cosmetic.

Once you start in a level, you can change characters when you hit a S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol.  If you do that, you start of with new characters they will have a lower level.  These characters will only be a level or two behind the current characters you are playing with.  This means that if you want to experiment with new characters, it doesn’t feel like you are starting out with some newbie who just got his spandex shorts.

Some of the mini-bosses and bosses do have a bit of a puzzle feel to them.  It’s almost like the old shooters where you figure out the pattern for the boss and then user your abilities to defeat that boss.  You’ll have to use your head as well as your reflexes to get past them.

One issue with the X-Men Legends games on the PSP was how long it took for the menu to come up after hitting the start button and how jittery the game played for several seconds after exiting that menu.  It appears that Activision has found a way around this and these skips are no longer present in MUA.  In fact, the load times for MUA are much better than those found in the X-Men Legends games and most other PSP games overall.

Plenty of extras are available in the game.  First of all you can play the game online over the Internet as well as through a local network.  This is great so that you can actually play the game with other people who have a better idea of what to do than the AI that can sometimes act a little flaky.  It’s nice to see a game like this incorporate Internet play, which is one of the strengths of the PSP.

While you can play cooperatively, you have an Arcade mode as well.  During this mode you and your buddies play through the level but are competing for the number of kills and the coins picked up.  At the end of each level a winner is determined.  This adds a bit of competitiveness to the cooperation throughout the levels.

You also start with about 18 super heroes to choose from.  As you unlock more characters, that number expands to over 22.  There is also a slightly different lineup on the PSP roster.  Colossus and Moon Knight aren’t in the PSP version, instead getting Ronin, Captain Marvel, and Hawkeye.

If you just want to play through the single player game yourself, you’ll get about 20 hours in by yourself, which is pretty good considering the length of action RPGs these days.  It’s a great game to take on the go when you are ready for a little extra action on an extended trip away from your home console.

Raven and Activision could have taken the easy way out and just created another X-Men Legends game with a roster of Marvel characters.  However, they really went above and beyond by pulling out all the stops and getting a wide range of characters throughout Marvel’s history.  While some comic book fans might complain about the lack of specific characters, there is bound to be a group in there that will satisfy the most obscure fan.

While the game does take advantage of the PSP’s networking abilities, some of the limitations really show up here, such as the lack of a second analog nub.  Still, the controls aren’t too bad once you get used to them.  Even if you have one of the home console versions of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the PSP version is a worthy purchase for long stretches of portable gaming.

Gaming Trend Score

82

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 76
3. Controls: 78
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 88
6. OVERALL:82