Who hasn’t dreamt of being a superhero? Superhero games have been around for a long time, but with newer consoles out and the popularity of the hero genre taking off, we are seeing more and more. Now with Marvel Ultimate Alliance we can play as almost any superhero we want from the Marvel world.

THE STORY
As soon as you start the single player game it gives you a nice cutscene that really draws you into the storyline. The world is in trouble again and it’s up to the benevolent combined forces of the Marvel superheroes to save the day. Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil have set in motion what they feel is the ultimate plan to take over the world. It’s up to YOU to make sure that doesn’t happen.

GAMEPLAY
Gameplay takes a little getting used to if you haven’t played in an arcade in awhile. The top-down scrolling view is fine in the single player mode but can prove to be a headache in multiplayer. You start out with Captain America, Spider Man, Thor and the ever so gruff Wolverine. The game starts out at a slower pace to allow those that aren’t use to this style of gaming get into the swing of things before “baddies” start pouring into the screen. This works towards everyone’s advantage, even the experienced gamer such as myself. It took some time to figure out how to switch between the four heroes available, because I have never been one to read the manual before I start playing the game. After experimenting with the controls, I found that the D-pad allows the player to switch characters by pressing up, down, left and right.

You don’t have to play too long before you are able to switch out your team for other heroes, and they give you quite a bit to choose from right off the bat. To do this as well as save your game, the player must find the S.H.I.E.L.D access points. This leads me to my first complaint about the game - there are no auto saves or being able to stop and save the game wherever you want. I know there was more then one time that I had to put the game down to go to work, while being between S.H.I.E. L.D points, only to come home and find my Xbox turned off. I had to start over from my last saved point, losing any progress I had made beforehand.

In the game, you gain XP just like you would expect from a RPG. As you level up you gain new, more impressive powers and access to new costumes. With each costume you get different bonuses to your hero, such as plus crit chance or faster health regen. You also collect tokens through killing villains or smashing everything around you, which allows you to buy upgrades for your powers or costume bonuses.

The single player is fun, but the game is meant to be played with friends. The view screen makes it so that everyone is on one screen, which is good for those of you that don’t have big 56” DLP screens to play it on. You can play with up to four other players on a box or over Xbox Live. Unfortunately the game is limited so that only one person per Xbox can play over Live. So if you have a friend over, the multiplayer is the only way for the two of you to play. Playing over Xbox Live is fun since there are so many heroes to choose from and everyone has their own different style of gameplay. Even a slapped together team using the quick match button can yield some great gameplay. You can also load up saved games so if you are having a little trouble with a certain part and the AI controlled players just aren’t doing it for you, you can use Live and real players help. One great feature is that if you haven’t put a lot of time into the game, you can still join with someone else who is further and unlock some achievements while doing it! Another problem I came across is when you are trying to find a custom game to join; you select custom game, but if there are no games available, you have to back out and select custom game again and search for more games. This can be a real pain sometimes when you just want to jump in and play, but still want to pick the parameters of how you want to play it. That could be solved if they would have added a refresh button!

Once in multiplayer mode, you find it’s very much similar to the single player as far as leveling up and gaining tokens to buy upgrade powers. Even changing out the heroes is the same. Players that have unlocked heroes can still play with those that have just picked up the game, but players that haven't unlocked them all are still limited to the ones they have previously unlocked. I have found that when playing over Live, your heroes feel a bit sluggish when moving around the levels. It wasn’t just the connection, it was pretty much that way for every game I played, whether I was connected to someone across town or across the world.

GRAPHICS
Overall the game’s graphics aren’t that impressive when comparing it to games like Gears of War or Oblivion, but it does get the job done. The one real advantage to this is that even with more activity on the screen you don’t have any slowdown or choppiness in the game.

AUDIO
The audio is pretty poor and the voice acting is terrible. The people doing the voice acting remind me of my buddies just sitting around the house doing their own impressions of Wolverine and Spider-Man. Not one of the superhero’s voices are played by their big screen counterparts, which is rather disappointing if you ask me. When you talk and interact with the other NPCs in the game, most of the dialog is scripted, but what your hero says isn’t. Furthermore, the little one-liners that your hero says throughout the game get rather repetitive as you play.

IN CONCLUSION
Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a fun game to play as a rental but it's not one I would go drop 50 bucks on. I think they could have cleaned up the multiplayer a bit and maybe spent a little money on getting the big screen actors or at least some better voice actors in there. I really recommend that you go out and at least rent the game. Play it a little and who knows, maybe you will like it. Either way I hope to see you on Live some time!

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