EA claim to have called upon comic book veterans Jae Lee and Paul Catling to design the Imperfects, while Marvel heavyweight Mark Millar was recruited to write their back stories, the storyline of the game, and a short set of comics on the characters with artist Terry Dodson. The storyline itself isn’t terribly interesting; an alien scientist known as Niles Van Roekel has been going about attempting to create the ultimate army. With a lab below the streets of New York City, Roekel has been actively kidnapping locals. His early experiments were failures, often leading to the death of the host. Roekel implements a new plan, and recruits the Imperfects; Solara, Johnny Ohm, HazMat, Brigade, Fault Zone, and The Wink. Considered flawed works in progress, the Imperfects are considered successful enough in the long term. Roekel turns to the Imperfects to help him finish his ultimate experiment, the perfect warrior, Paragon. With New York now under siege from alien invaders, it’s up to the Marvel super heroes to save the day. Well, that is, the ones that don’t get taken out in the opening cutscene.
Hop on Pop
The Marvel fighting game license which EA obtained in preparation for this title does not appear to be exhaustive, with characters notably under control of other developers – specifically the Hulk, the Punisher and the majority of the X-Men are absent from the playable roster, with the Jade Giant and Frank Castle being taken out in the opening scene. The selection of Marvel super heroes is a bit screwy too – favourites like Spider-Man and Wolverine are available, but lesser characters like Elektra have made it into the regular roster. The other disappointing factor is that certain characters are exclusive to certain versions of the game – Johnny Storm and Daredevil are only in the console versions, while Captain America and Doctor Doom are only available on the PSP. However, the game’s biggest roster issue is the Imperfects themselves; not only do they seem slapped together design-wise, the characters are essentially clones of the Marvel characters when it comes to fighting moves and abilities within the game.
Marvel Nemesis is broken up into two parts – the story mode and versus mode. The story mode is a basic beat ‘em up romp with the occasional CG movie (which are really quite good) thrown in to further the narrative. Starting initially with The Thing, players will have to wipe out a bunch of non-descript mindless enemies repetitively until the mission decides that it is over. Objectives are rarely mixed up in the story mode, though you will occasionally have to partake in a one on one battle with one of the Imperfects – usually the one that corresponds the most to your chosen character. After you defeat the said Imperfect, you’ll unlock the next character’s story mode and a pair of challenge missions. It’s boring to start with, but becomes outright frustrating when you reach Elektra’s story, which is damn near impossible, given her weak fighting abilities and the damn strong enemies you have to face.
Iron Man needs more Nutri Grain
We’d expected that the story mode would actually have just been a series of the versus mode fights, and given the dull nature of the story missions, this would probably have been a good thing. The one on one battles are just passably better than the story missions – Nihilistic has tried to capture the spirit of open brawlers like Power Stone, but the whole experience feels a little undercooked. The characters have very limited move sets – there’s only one basic attack button which can be tapped multiple times for a combo, or combined with the right trigger for a special attack, the left trigger for a launch attack or a jump attack with the jump button, but that’s basically all there is. Rage mode is triggered when the meter is full, and allows players unlimited access to their super powers for a short time. A finishing move is also available; it’s executed by a combination of the right trigger and the B button. Objects are lying around the environment that can be used as weapons – but there are essentially just two types; a throwable object (of varying weight) and a swingable object, which can also be thrown like a spear. Players can also be smashed into the environment, or run up and along the sides of the walls, if their character is agile enough to do so. It’s obvious that Nihilistic had some good ideas in here, but didn’t have enough time to fully realise them, or add enough polish to the fighting.
Marvel Nemesis isn’t going to hold your interest for too long – the story mode is short lived, with only 18 relatively samey characters to match up against and a flawed fighting system. Versus mode probably won’t make a regular appearance on multiplayer nights with friends, either. Xbox Live support is in full swing, and is reasonably stable, but we can’t see the game being too popular for more than a month after release. There seems to be a lot of stat tracking options, and leaderboards are there for regular players. The game includes two bonus comics, which have animatic frames and are fully voiced, unlike many other in-game comics. Parts of the comic, as well as many of the playable characters, must be unlocked by playing the single player game.
Moments later, Johnny Ohm was re-named "Johnny-owned"
The graphics have obviously seen the most attention in Marvel Nemesis – they’re easily the highlight of the title. The game takes on a very dark visual style, indicative of the current style seen in Marvel’s print releases. Character models are excellent with a very high level of detail – especially on larger characters like The Thing. Animation is smooth, and the Marvel characters’ movements are especially well choreographed. The game’s backgrounds are mixed bag though; most of them look really quite bland and the damage decals caused by fighting aren’t that great – throw a car at a wall and it bounces off, causing a lame shockwave explosion, with the car turning into a black husk – where are the fancy particle and debris effects? The framerate is relatively smooth, though slowdown is not a big deal when it does happen. Marvel Nemesis’ sound is functional – the voices are reasonable, but the cheesy opening and closing lines could have been much more varied. The soundtrack is a mix of synth orchestra and keyboards, and is serviceable, if unremarkable. Support for Dolby Digital 5.1 is included.
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects feels like a botched opportunity for a good fighting game. The Imperfects lack any sort of drawing power, so players never really end up giving a hoot about them, and the fact that they all seem to mirror a selected Marvel character in their approach cheapens their value within the game. The Marvel fighting game license was a huge acquisition for EA, and they need to treat it with much more respect – Marvel Nemesis feels like a title rushed out for the holiday season. The developers had the ideas that could have made the game a contender, but as a result of a lack of time, the game feels very undercooked. The focus appears to have been on the game’s visuals – it’s all glitz and glamour, with very little substance. All we can suggest is that they try again next year with a different approach – more Marvel, no Nemeses. You know, they do have the DC license now…
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