Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

**KENT HAMMER** on Sat Oct 03, 2009 6:55 pm

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 REVIEW

I was really looking forward to reviewing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (MUA2) ever since I heard Activision were sending us a copy.

Firstly I must be honest and say that I am not a big Marvel fan and have never read a comic book in my life! But I am a huge gaming fan and have really enjoyed watching all the recent movies. So this review will focus on the gameplay and fun factor rather than any huge back stories or tales how certain characters came to be.

I did worry that I wouldn't know many of the superheroes at all, but soon realised all the familiar favourites were here- Iron man, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, X-men and even Hulk, I will give you the full list later.

This time around the game focusses on the Civil war storyline from the Marvel multiverse. Basically Nick Fury makes a covet attack and all hell breaks loose and the government issues a superhuman registration act. All superheroes must sign up to it as they are considered to be deadly weapons of mass destruction and so the fun begins and you are invited to pick sides and go toe to toe with all the other superheroes!

Leading the two factions are the rocket propelled Iron Man for the pro-registration side and the awesome shield throwing Captain America taking charge of the anti-registration side.

I chose to go anti of course and my first team of four was Capt. America, Wolverine, Spiderman and Luke Cage who is quite frankly a double hard geezer! Although I did spend most playtime as Wolverine as his claws could rip anyone to shreds and he had loads of cool moves.

Right now onto the gameplay, its basically a top down isometric button basher. It did make me think back fondly to all those many hours spent playing Diablo back in the day, but I digress.

The great thing is that you get to mix and match any heroes you want and you can change them easily at any time with a couple of button presses. Also just a simple tap up, down, left or right on the d-pad instantly switched between your four current heroes. So if you're in a tight spot and need to go heal or god forbid die then you can easily switch to the next dude. The achievement junkies amongst you will need to know that there are special achieves for winning every boss battles without reviving any party members, so its worth letting everyone die and start again rather than using any magic to revive anyone mid-battle.

There is huge replay value because you will want to play all the way through the story arch as both factions and there is also many side challenge modes to complete which you are awarded medals for. These often also reward you with upgrades for your party of four and the whole time your playing through all characters will level up nicely along the way. I just set my group to auto-upgrade to save time faffing around in menus and stay with the action instead.

The graphics are very good and there are many over the top special effects, explosions and set pieces to feed your need for awesome action. Sound effects and voice acting is on the whole top notch although you do wish they could have used the movie actors instead sometimes.

Right, now down to the nitty gritty, this game is a button basher and it makes no bones about it. You will have pounded all the buttons on your controller 10,000 times by the time you complete it and I for one loved it!

One final thing I must mention is the trivia questions you need to answer. Now there is a cheevy for getting all of these babies right and you also need to do it in co-op either offline or online and both of you need to get all 175 of them 100% correct!
Not all in one sitting as they are split into five sections, but never the less it's quite daunting.

In my opinion this game is best played with 3 other mates online, so you can share all the super-banter and have a good crack along the way. Its also possible to play with up to 4 of you offline too, so that's a rare treat these days! I am still waiting for my retired parents and 86 year old Nan to pop over with there halo themed controllers as this is being written though *-)

So, to sum it all up I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this game and I am just about to start all over again on the goodie goodies side! Who wants to join me for some online 4 player mash em and bash em mayhem?

This great game scores an 8, if you are a huge comic book or marvel fan then make that it a 9. There truly is hours and hours of fun to be had here!

Playable Character List

1. Blade — Exclusive to the Wii, PS2 & PSP versions.
2. Captain America
3. Cyclops — Exclusive to the Wii, PS2 & PSP versions.
4. Daredevil
5. Deadpool
6. Gambit
7. Green Goblin (Villain)
8. Hulk
9. Human Torch
10. Iceman
11. Invisible Woman
12. Iron Fist
13. Iron Man
14. Jean Grey
15. Juggernaut (Villain) — A GameStop, Amazon UK or EB Games AUS pre-order bonus.
16. Luke Cage AKA Power Man
17. Mr. Fantastic
18. Ms. Marvel
19. Penance
20. Psylocke — Exclusive to the Wii, PS2 & PSP versions.
21. Sentry — Exclusive to the DS version.
22. She-Hulk — Exclusive to the DS version.
23. Songbird
24. Spider-Man
25. Storm
26. The Thing
27. Thor
28. Venom (Villain)
29. Wolverine

Guest on Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:28 pm

Great review. Finally got this yesterday so gonna crack it open tomorrow for a whirl.

palindromic BOB on Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:41 pm

Great review Kent. The way you talked about this game maed me want to play it but now I'm thinking about it even more.

Guest on Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:16 am

Thor was also an unlockable character from an exclusive edition.To unlock , while playing the game enter the following using the d-pad - up,right,right,down,right,down,left,right start

**KENT HAMMER** on Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:01 pm

wicked I will try this code later!
I am going to make my girlfriend play this game tonight. Twisted Evil

Guest on Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:11 pm

Finally playing this and really enjoying it, though my arms hurting from the button bashing. The animation is great especially when carrying out fusion attacks.

DonWeir on Sun Oct 04, 2009 11:36 pm

Bought
Started
Completed all today, took me about 12 hours straight play, may have died a couple of times, but no matter.
brilliant game loved it too peices

**KENT HAMMER** on Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:41 am

DonWeir wrote:Bought
Started
Completed all today, took me about 12 hours straight play, may have died a couple of times, but no matter.
brilliant game loved it too peices

Its a huge game mate!

Just checked and you only have 250g out of a possible 1000g, so you have another 36 hours play I reckon Very Happy

hardly completed Rolling Eyes

DonWeir on Mon Oct 05, 2009 1:40 pm

fair enough that i only gave it the once through but i think this would be so much more fun with four people playing

**KENT HAMMER** on Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:52 pm

We really should arrange a night over xmas to finish up the all the co-op achieves!
Any still got this great game?
santa

Guest on Fri Dec 11, 2009 8:09 am

I agree. Keep meaning to add to my 680 G from this game. Especially as I have the DLC and never played it.

Unfortunately it's one of those games that never drop in price so few people have it Sad

patchychris on Fri May 14, 2010 9:14 am

just picked this up dirt cheap from shopto, and Im loving it, great game, however I can see its gonna be an achievement grind

Guest on Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:59 pm

Rebought this today. If anyone wants to play and get their co-op achievements let me know Very Happy

**KENT HAMMER** on Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:30 am

One of the most amazing things about GSA is that this review I wrote is the 2nd all time most viewed thread on the whole forum.

Amazing really.

I can only assume that non GSA marvel fans must have googled it and found it that way.

Of course "show your face" is most popular although a show your chest thread would probably blitz it Twisted Evil

**Tricky34** on Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:56 am

KENT HAMMER wrote:
Of course "show your face" is most popular although a show your chest thread would probably blitz it

Not sure anyone would want to see my moobs...

Certainly not if they were eating!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title

Re: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 an Activision title