New superhero game from Raven/Activision

Games
1

Press release:

OVER 140 MARVEL CHARACTERS COME TOGETHER IN ACTIVISION’S NEW MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE GAME

Santa Monica, CA – April 27, 2006 – Over 140 Marvel characters come together in Activision, Inc’s. (Nasdaq: ATVI) Marvel™: Ultimate Alliance, an all-new action/RPG that features the largest roster of comic book characters ever seen in a video game. Players assume the roles of more than 20 Marvel Super Heroes including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Blade and Captain America, and through their actions determine the fate of both planet Earth and the Marvel universe – revealed in one of multiple epilogues.

“Marvel: Ultimate Alliance delivers a new twist on action/RPGs where players’ actions and choices ultimately determine what happens to the Marvel universe,” states Will Kassoy, Vice President of Global Brand Management for Activision. “This coupled with the game’s enormous character roster will deliver an action-packed experience that comic book fans have been waiting for.”

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance features a deep, rich gameplay experience by offering total team customization, where players create their own team name, icon and vehicle, as well as establish their team reputation as they play throughout the story. Gamers also have the option to level up each character individually to their liking, or all team members at the same time to keep their heroes balanced. With the game’s new combat system, players battle against the world’s most notorious Marvel Super Villains in the air, underwater, and on the ground, using grappling, blocking and dodging moves, by charging up their Super Hero powers before unleashing them, and using environmental objects as one and two-handed weapons.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance features a unique storyline where the missions players accept, the objectives they complete, and their interactions with other characters throughout the game directly impact how the story plays out. The game also features a robust multiplayer component where fans can band together with friends as their favorite Marvel Super Heroes, and fight evil in both on and offline cooperative story modes. There’s also a Competitive Mode where the game tracks various in-game stats so players can see how well they stack up against one another – affecting the amount of experience points earned and how equipment is distributed.

Created by Raven Software and C.B. Cebulski, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance will be the first Super Hero game out for all next-gen gaming systems, and will also be available on current-gen, handheld and PC platforms. The game is currently rated RP (Rating Pending) by the ESRB and is planned to ship this fall.

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Cool. Sounds like X-Men Grand Theft Diablo Legends. As long as they keep the X-Men Legends style play or go even more RPG-y, and don’t make it a total fighting game instead, I’m happy.

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Yeah, I’d love MORE RPG elements actually. I wish they would make an SRPG using this concept, but I know that is VERY unlikely. If you have a license like this, you want it to reach the most people.

As an aside, I loved the Marvel vs. Capcom games, so you can certainly do a lot of things with the superhero concept, if you polish the game well enough.

4

When I heard the news of this upcoming game, there was only one thing I could say - WIIIII!

5

So this is essentially X-Men: Legends 3? Same interface, same linear levels?

Or is it a sandbox game?

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Sounds somewhat non-linear.

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I wonder if Marvel’s suit against the City of Heroes guys had anything to do with their plans to do this game? Like, maybe they were afraid that if everyone was playing a Captain America clone in CoH they wouldn’t buy this one or something.

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There’s also a DC game coming that looks to be a clone of X-men Legends. Hope that doesn’t suck.

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The DC game does not look good. It looks worse than the first Xmen Legends, seriously. The Marvel game looks good though I imagine its the same play system just with a larger world.

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Gamespot says the game’s story is by the author of “Marvel Mangaverse”. Horrifying! <appropriate smiley!>

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…they got Ben Dunn to write this?

Well, fuck the story.

12

140 characters? Good lord.

13

Yeah with 140, there are going to be balance issues unless they take out Marvel’s power houses.

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According to Game Informer’s preview, while there are 140 characters featured, only about 20 are actually playable.

15

Sounds interesting. The more superhero games the better. :)

16

^O^

DURR HURR FIVE CHAR LIMIT

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With Marvel, even with something like 4 characters they’d have balance issues. Explain to me why Spider-Man and The Sentry are both in the Avengers. They can’t even balance things in the comic, so good luck with the game.

18

Having seen some early screens, color me unimpressed. The X-Men Legends style of blocky “cell shaded” characters worked fine the first time and was passable in X Men Legends II, but it’s really looking dated now.

But who am I kidding? Superheroes + videogame = sold as far as I’m concerned.

… which made for some REALLY bad purchases back in my Sega Genesis days.