Marvel mythology is a timeless craft of legendary characters and original settings. Nothing is held back when creating the story for Ultimate Alliance, and the game brings everyone together for an original experience. Dr. Doom is up to plenty of dirty tricks and evil deeds, and apparently the only group strong enough to stop him is one comprising of nothing but superheroes. SHIELD is the driving force behind the fight for justice, and is introduced very early on during the first mission – a tutorial of sorts. Ultimate Alliance is a considerably lengthy adventure no matter which way you look at it, side missions and bonus questing avenues notwithstanding. The main quest delivers a variety of weird, aptly named locations to explore, and despite a bit too much corridor-trudging, one can be pleasantly surprised with the locale selection.
Fighting is what superheroes do best, and fighting is what you’ll do. A brawler at heart, Ultimate Alliance lets you take command of four superheroes simultaneously, with many other available to switch in and out of the roster regularly. The characters bust through the levels, killing enemy minions, bashing crates and leveling up abilities. It’s a self-contained gameplay experience, with red and blue orbs available to be collected which regenerate health and energy bars. Most levels end with a boss battle against one of many Marvel evil-doers, and these are challenging and suitably exciting.
This way to "HeroCon '94"
Playing with so many characters enables a bunch of different attacks and abilities to be used in the blink of an eye. While all characters have a pre-set move category – attack, projectile, power attack etc – the most varied of superheroes make for a greta team. Spiderman could be swinging over the rafters and performing aerial assault moves, while Wolverine lays waste with a deadly one-hit kill slash, and Thing uses immense power to smash anything and everything in the way. The concept is great and works reasonably well – but not as well for the Wii. Of course, this is in reference to the controls, which are the biggest downfall of this version.
The fundamental flaw with Ultimate Alliance on the Wii is not the controls per se, but rather the style of the game trying to match the controls – which doesn’t really work. Ultimate Alliance at its heart is a brawler - fast-paced combat using a variety of special abilities to lay waste upon the baddies of the Marvel universe. This works well with the four face buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, but the Wii controls are hardly as precise, leading to two scenarios: you need to either be right up in the game at all times, in correct posture and position, or you’ll be forced to let many moves go to waste as a result of inaccurate motions. The controls work, simple as that – but it just isn’t effective. The attacks are fast and crazy, whereas movements in Zelda, another Action RPG, are comparatively slow and much more deliberate. A plethora of action is on-screen during any segment of Ultimate Alliance, and the Wii version forces you to attempt matching up different motions – determining which attack would be best for the current situation (situation meaning split-second), and performing the appropriate movement with the Wii remote. Wii remote swings are used up and down, left and right to perform attacks vaguely replicating the movements. There’s also another left/right combination, which always mixes with the first one – and the tiny buttons on the Nunchuk don’t help matters. Even the Nunchuk is rotated to control the camera, which is actually pretty cool.
As mentioned earlier, leveling up your characters is a primary focus of gameplay. You can go ahead and select whichever characters you want for as long as you want – experience points aren’t wasted when one neglects usage of some unpopular heroes. Experience points are distributed evenly, so should one have a sudden prejudice against Moon Knight halfway through the game, someone is ready to step up and take his place. Abilities are upgraded through a points and coins system, as coins are collected via smashed objects and enemy faces. Stronger versions of most attacks are ready to be purchased – or purist fighters can abandon all customisation and stick with a classic auto-levelling system. It’s a reliable and impressive way to make it through the game without battling through menus and agonising over character nuances.
Toasty.
Stark Tower is the main adventure hub and home base after missions where plenty of story direction is initiated. You can explore the tower and talk to a bunch of people, and the talking/questing experience is the most interactive while in the Tower. Main missions feature plenty of non-playable allies to interact with too. Multiple conversation options are available to discover the plot at your own desired pace. Conversation dialogue is always completely and unashamedly cheesy, featuring every possible corny superhero line imaginable. It’s not meant to be a serious, no-nonsense game, so laughing aloud at the wacky character lines is part of the fun.
The additions to the main quest gameplay aren’t especially extensive beyond running and bashing. There are a number of puzzles and maze-like areas to navigate, but nothing ever taxes that brain to any large extent. Pushing, pulling, activating – three standards of interactivity can get you through most of the game without much drama. As far as bonus content goes, in addition to the Stark Tower home base, you’ll receive a number of appropriately named “Comic Book Missions,” which serve as shorter beat-em-ups that focus on the adventures of an individual character. There’s many to be found, and rewards for completing the missions more efficiently will be granted for the best players.
What’s surprising about Ultimate Alliance is that the graphics are rather good. Compared with the Xbox 360 version it doesn’t reach the same level, but holds up to high scrutiny. The Wii powers through all of the detailed environments, and renders all characters smoothly. The menu layout and graphical style is different to other versions, but this is hardly a fault – merely an alteration.
Purple is in this year.
Multiplayer is available for multiple Wii remote users. This takes the sting away from control error, as a bunch of friends will gladly watch an array of beatings being issued, no matter if the exact movements were performed or not. It’s fun, frantic and exhausting. Multiplayer is probably the strongest aspect of the Wii version, and puts the technology to very decent use. Cooperative play is the real winner – play through the entire quest simultaneously using motion detection. It’s definitely worthy of a playthrough if you’ve got the time, hardware and blossoming social life to set it up.
The Wii has plenty of completely customised software available, so it was always going to be interesting to see if these multi-platform games would translate well. Unfortunately, if one were to make a recommendation between the 360 and Wii versions, the 360 wins hands-down. This level of crazy and unrelenting action isn’t necessarily suitable for the Wii control system – but it’s still extremely playable. It has to lose a full point below the 360 title, but if you’re a Marvel nut with a Wii, then Ultimate Alliance should serve its purpose admirably. Anyone else looking for another solid, lengthy adventure beyond Zelda, it’s definitely worth giving Ultimate Alliance a rent.
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