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Life & Arts

'Alliance' has little to offer gamers

by JOHN-MICHAEL HAINES
THE DAILY COUGAR

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is nothing but a poor attempt by Activision to market the popularity Marvel movies have enjoyed the last five years. Instead of the intricate, and sometimes controversial, storylines that made Marvel comics popular in the first place, most of the characters in the game are poorly represented. 

The connections between the different heroes are loose, creating problems from the beginning. The game allows you to choose from 19 different heroes, including Wolverine, Storm, Dare-Devil, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider and, of course, Spiderman. Unfortunately, the programmers manipulated them all to create an illusion of equality. Even if you are a Dare-Devil Fan, why would you use Electra when you can use Wolverine or Spiderman? How do you reconcile a trained human being with a trained super human? 

Dr. Doom has formed a new Master's of Evil organization bent on stealing Odin's powers and taking over the world. They begin by attacking a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier headed up by Col. Nick Fury who sends out a distress call to all the Marvel Heroes to stop the Master's of Evil. There is very little background information offered on the heroes or the villains, which makes the story difficult to follow for all except the most devoted comic book nerds.

The game plays exactly like X-Men Legends with different characters and slightly improved cut-scenes. You can switch between a team of four heroes at a time to suit any situation. Skill is replaced by button mashing in all but the most important battles.

The only redeeming qualities are the great environments and the wide variety of unlockable missions that are specific to a single hero. Even a few of the more obscure Marvel characters, such as the Black Panther and the Silver Surfer, are there as unlockables. 

The biggest problem of this game is a lack of detail. Quantity is not quality.
 
 
 
 
 

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