Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

It’s been over five years since Raven Software ventured into the world of Marvel with it’s PS2 hit X-Men Legends. The game’s superhero team dynamic was later adapted and used for it’s sequels and eventually used in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Now publishers Activision have come along and given the job of the newest instalment in the series to long term partners Vicarious Visions. Have they managed to recapture the fun of the previous games?

Well they’ve given it a good shot. The game retains the team based gameplay and at any given time the player can control four different heroes using the d-pad to switch between them. There are over 25 characters available in the game and more are coming as DLC. The characters you get to choose from depend on your choices in the game.

There's a huge roster on offer

The story of the game is set around the Marvel Universe’s popular ‘Civil War’ story line in which heroes are divided by a superhero registration act that will force them to give up their secret identities. The player is given a choice early in the game over what side they’ll fight for and this will affect how the game plays out.

It’s a good idea but unfortunately it doesn’t make a massive difference to the gameplay. Either side you choose will let you keep the majority of playable heroes (with only three heroes being ‘exclusive’ to either side) and all of the levels play out the same way only with slightly different dialogue.

However the choice will affect what boss battles you get and there’s a good bit of variation between the bosses, except in one level where the end boss is always the ‘Giant-Man’ of the opposing side. Yes there are two ‘Giant-Men.’

Jean Grey is the strongest character. By a mile.

The game allows characters to level up and gain new powers as they continue. The team is on a sliding scale so if the characters you’re playing at level up so do the ones you are ignoring, it’s a great time saver and lets you switch between team members without ever feeling like you’re trading down. There’s also team boosts which can be used to give your team a stat advantage, though only three can be used at a time.

Each character has four powers which correspond to the action buttons while holding down the shoulder button. It comes quite naturally but most of time you’ll just be sticking to ‘clear attack’ which knocks everyone out of your way.

Fusion attacks are impressive, but samey

Perhaps the most interesting element of the game is the fusion attacks. Each character can perform a unique devastating attack with any other character after building up enough energy, with so many characters available the list of potential fusions is well over 200. The downside is that many of these attacks are very similar. Iron man and Wolverine’s fusion has Iron man shoot lasers at Wolverine’s claws which is deflected to hit multiple enemies, but with Captain America the same happens just with a shield instead of claws.

There’s a lot of unlockables in the game with an incredible amount of fan service. The sheer amount of info dossiers, concept art and power boosts should keep any completionist happy for a good while. Marvel fans are sure to get a kick out of the game as well. Having Deadpool on the team is a must have because his comments regularly break the fourth wall “I should of asked the developer for a bigger life meter.” There’s even a cameo from the original True Believer himself, Stan Lee.

For a fan this game is a lot of fun, for anyone else I think the lifespan of this game will be considerably shorter and offer far less replay value.

Lost Gamer Verdict: 7/10