Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 review

Ms Marvel and Spider-Woman became major characters in the Marvel Universe because Bendis and/or Frank Cho thought they were hot. I think Bendis needed a couple hot females to get Frank Cho on board as an artist.

Bendis threw Spider-Woman into the New Avengers following Disassembled, and after Civil War Ms Marvel was made leader of the Mighty Avengers (Tony Stark’s Pro-Reg Avenger team). Spider-Woman later turned out to be the Skrull Queen in Secret Invasion.

However, they’re not classic heroes like Hulk, Cap, Spider-Man, etc, so it’s a small wonder the casual fan doesn’t know who they are.

Someone who is even a bigger nerd than me can come in and dispute these claims.

Spider-Woman is being seriously cultivated at Marvel right now. She has a new solo series and is the featured character of their 1st foray into motion comics (via iTunes)

Not to mention Spider Woman’s backstory now involves Hydra, SHIELD, was a triple-agent during New Avengers. She is seriously complicated…and yet still has the same powers as when she first started!

“Mrs.” Hulk? “Mrs.” Fantastic!?!?!?

You people are friggin’ killing me.

Edit: On a slightly more serious note, one of the guys in the comments says that the average gamer “could name about 7 X-men and 3 Avengers.” I might go so far as to say that the average gamer could not name 3 Avengers, but if they were to try to name all the Marvel characters they can think of, there would probably be at least 3 Avengers among them.

Given that Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Captain America are all Avengers, I’d say they’d get at least 4 of those in there, if not all 5.

Yes, tons of people know about those characters. Do they know that they’re Avengers, though? For example, I’m a pretty big comics nerd, despite not being up-to-date as to the current state of affairs in the Marvel universe; it’s news to me that Wolvie has joined the Avengers.

Okay, I get that nobody knows Ms. Marvel, but Spider-Woman? She had a cartoon and everything!

Wolverine has joined everything in the Marvel universe it seems. He would have been in Divas if he grew a pair of tits. Not that didn’t cross Bendis mind to give him at some point.

Actually…

Sentient nannites???

Hmm. So much for “I’ll save some money and wait to pick up MUA2.”

I take it that stuff isn’t in the comic book?

In the game – SPOILERS, obviously – the pro-registration faction uses nanites to control villains and deploy them in battle. Something goes wrong and the nanites get out of hand, like nanites do. They acquire sentience, settle on the name “The Fold” (“The Flood” was taken), and then they spread around the world so you can have a cool mission in Africa and then Iceland.

-Tom

I think the nanites-controlling-villains stuff comes from the Thunderbolts, so that’s got some basis in the comics, but no, none of “The Fold” stuff ever happened.

This my new quote on my email.

I’m probably going to hold off. I loved the X-Men games and MUA 1 but with all of them I ended up with the same frustration: the characters were deep, the possibilities of team combinations were enticing - but I couldn’t even scratch the surface on a single play through and couldn’t stand playing through the linear, been there-done that, campaigns over and over. I know some folks don’t have a problem with that. The Dynasty Warriors comparison is very apt on that account.

As for me? Let me know when Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Empires is out. Then I’ll happily leap back in once there’s some meat on the replayability bones.

C-A-W in a Marvel game? It honestly never occured to me but it would be effing glorious if they gave you enough costume bits to play with.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arda:

I guess that’s not terrible - it at least has some tie-in to the comics. That actual ending of Civil War in the comics wouldn’t have worked as a game, since it was essentially philosophical, heh.

I wish I liked this game as much as you did Tom.

I finished it because I like a good brawler, which this almost was, but the writing was abysmal (“And so, today we are here to mourn the alleged deaths of these heroes…”), and the infectious sense of fun that was everywhere (BENDIS AVENGERS!) in the first game had been utterly sucked out by the lame, overly linear, Civil War storyline that put you into dull generic environments instead of the first game’s cool comic-book locations.

I also felt the “combined arms” elements were pretty weak. And once the nannites show up you can finish the game with Storm and Wolverine alone.

In what way is the writing Abysmal? I played MUA1 with a friend, and we both loved the Mystery Science Theater quality of the dialogue, and the over-the-top voice acting. The fact that the game opened on a giant floating super-base really set the proper tone. I’d like those characteristics to be brought forward into the new game, but your complaint about boring locations worries me.

I don’t think a serious MUA would have been nearly as much fun.