Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, 2 Thumbs Up
I have really enjoyed this game. For one, the graphics are absolutely amazing. Instead of making the characters cartoony, it makes them more realistic looking during gameplay. Plus, the cutscenes really look like actual people. When you look at Spider-man, you see the outline of cheekbones and a nose under his mask. To me, that made things very realistic.
The gameplay is also fun. If you are even just somewhat into super heroes, you will enjoy this game. There are so many heroes to choose from, and as you level up, you unlock your super powers. Some of the combo moves are flat out sweet! Although I don't particularly like the fact that the heroes have limits on their super powers and moves, there are usually enough orbs flying around after you destroy the enemy or surrounding boxes that it is almost like having unlimited super powers. I think it is very fun that the flying characters can fly and perform their movse in the air as well. Another bonus is that if you go online, you can download Colossus and Moon Night and put them into the game. I really liked Colossus and used him to beat the game. You can also download some saves that give you all of the characters, if you are someone like me who does not have all the time in the world to find everything and beat the game on all three modes.
In addition, you pretty much have the opportunity to save at any time by use of the portal function, so if you feel it is going to be a while until you get to a save point, you can use the portal, which takes you back to your home base, save their, jump back in the portal, and continue. If you load that saved game, the portal will still be there.
One thing that was probably not as good as other RPGs, like KOTOR or KOTOR II, is that there really is not much choice in where you go first. You knid of have to follow the order of the story. Also, the small side missions do not really feel like they do anything while playing (they do make a difference, as I found out after I beat the game), so that was a little disappointing. I really enjoyed the story, despite these things. The other thing I liked is that it was not terribly long. I did most things and beat it in about 20 hours. That might be a turn off to some gamers, but it worked out well for me.
One thing that you can get if you download someone elses saved game is the ability to used saved game characteristics to start a new game I really like this feature because instead of having to play the game on hard with really wimpy super heroes (who seem to feel like they aren't really that super), you can bring in your strong characters from another save, no matter where they are in that save. You can only do this, though, if you have beat the game a certain way or download the ability from the www.
Other than that, I really enjoyed it, and everyone I bring over to show it really has a blast. I really like that ability that you have to plug in USB controllers. Instead of having to create a LAN or go online, I can plug in my 4 USB controllers, and we can all play from my computer like a console. This is one of the few games that provides that option, which I have enjoyed as I invite people over to play.
One thing to note, the graphics card requirements for this game are very high. I just upgraded to a ATI Radeon X1950 XE AGP card, as well as upped my ram. So I don't have issues. Aso, you need over 6 GB of HDD space, which seems like a lot, but most of it is for the charactersRead full review
