Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Wii) (gamespy)

- gamespy -

I came into Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the Wii with extensive experience with the Xbox 360 version, and had apprehensions regarding how the Wii Remote and Nunchuk could possibly handle the control scheme. Nontraditional games designed with the Wii in mind have been plenty of fun thus far, like the Wii Sports package bundled with the system. But how would something originally made for a standard gamepad, with its analog sticks, shoulder triggers, and array of face buttons fare? To my surprise, the control scheme was well laid out, simple to learn, and plenty of fun to boot. If you're concerned that this sort of game couldn't possibly work with the Wii Remote controller, rest assured that the core gameplay experience is not only handled well, in some ways it has even improved.

If you're not already familiar with this tribute to the stars of the Marvel Universe, then consider Marvel: Ultimate Alliance the unofficial successor to the X-Men: Legends games. You control a party of four superheroes, chosen from over twenty of the Marvel Universe's most popular heroes. The characters aren't so much balanced as they are unique, with a strong community of fans already engaged in heated debate over what the best character options and teams are. There are heroes that excel at fighting up close and personal, like The Thing, Wolverine, and Luke Cage, while others are at their best when making use of area effect attacks and distance moves, like the Human Torch and Dr. Strange. Some characters are jacks-of-all-trades that perform quite well in all situations, like Captain America and Thor. And some, like Elektra, aren't very good at much of anything.

My personal favorite team was built around a heavy hitter with superb range in the stretchy Mr. Fantastic, an incredible melee character in Moon Knight, and a pair of characters with very strong party buffs, Iron Man and Deadpool, who reduce energy consumption and increase the team's melee damage, respectively. It also helped that Deadpool has some of the best recorded dialogue in the game, in terms of both his one-liners during combat, as well as his flirtatious interactions with characters like The Black Widow. If you're looking for laughs, try and keep Deadpool as your active character as often as possible, so you don't miss out on the humor he brings to the game.

Your choice of characters is a big part of the game experience, and you can approach this in a couple different ways. Early in the game you are given the option of creating your own custom superteam, with its own logo, name and everything, or you can just go for one of the pre-made teams in the game, like the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, or the X-Men. Your team's reputation increases with each mission you complete for Nick Fury, and with added reputation your team level increases, which allows you to purchase upgrades like bonus damage, bonus energy, increased momentum, and additional roster slots. The roster slots are important because they allow you to tweak your party makeup before a particular mission without incurring the reputation penalty you would normally get slapped with for using a non-teammate. Sticking to your team early on pays big dividends, particularly if you plan on leveling up your characters extensively through the game's many side missions instead of just plowing through the story.

How well the control scheme would perform was my biggest concern when evaluating Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the Wii. If a good control scheme could be developed for this game, then the doors would be wide open for the hack-and-slashers and beat 'em ups of the world to find a home on the platform, thus allowing for a broader spectrum of titles that could become part of the system's library. After calibrating my remote, I discovered that the control scheme not only allowed for the full range of interactive movements that make the Wii so different from everything else on the market, but there were alternative control options one could use to keep the game from relying too much on the repetitive movements that seem like a carpal tunnel lawsuit waiting to happen. For instance, you can execute your basic attack combo string by wiggling the controller from side to side, or you can simply press the A button repeatedly. If you want to use your powers, you can hold the B trigger down and either lift, thrust, or slide your remote, or you can just open up a powers menu and quickly use the direction pad to select a power to use.

The multiple approaches available make it pretty easy to find a preferred way to activate your moves, and using the nunchuk for movement and camera control is completely painless. I actually had an easier time using slight tilting motions of the nunchuk to adjust the camera as I played than I did when using the analog-stick camera control on the other versions of the game.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the Wii does suffer in a couple different areas, though, most noticeably in terms of its graphics. The visuals are generally grainy, the environments are jaggy, and the character models look pretty crude. At first glance, one could even suggest that the game could have easily been developed for the GameCube. You didn't pick up a Wii looking for a next-generation graphics experience, though, so it's unfair to make the comparison to other systems. Still, the game doesn't meet the standards set by other games on the system. Perhaps a more cartoonish, cleaner look would have been more appropriate than a downscaled port of the same game on other platforms. We're not tired of cel shading yet, right? Thankfully, the solid voice work remains, and some of the better dialogue interactions between heroes and their favorite villains are just great.

You'll also not find the online multiplayer features here that are available on other systems, but this is more than made up for by the very fun co-op mode and arcade mode. The Wii is being pushed as an experience to be shared by friends and family, and two players will have plenty of fun cutting a swathe through hordes of lackeys together. Co-op mode allows players to swap between the four selected characters at will, while arcade mode keeps you in control of one character at a time, removing any non-human characters from the party, and thus increasing the game's difficulty, especially since you no longer share distribution of the health and energy orbs.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was a very good game on other systems, and it's still plenty of fun on the Nintendo Wii. It's a satisfyingly lengthy game, with loads of missions to complete and a huge assortment of comic book-inspired side missions to bring you a little more insight into the backgrounds of the game's leading characters. Be aware that you'll encounter a few glitches and snags along the way, like the occasional frame-rate hitch, some awkward jumping animations, and there's also a very confusing character progression interface that makes it way too easy to accidentally sell off a valuable trinket. Despite its flaws, gamers will have plenty of fun playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the Wii. Most importantly, you won't miss your clunky old gamepad and can just concentrate on having fun.