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PPM = Pitch Perfect Marvel

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: October 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In being an action RPG (role playing game with real-time fighting), Marvel Ultimate Alliance feeds off an intensely rich comic books background with characters you have never seen together in the same storyline before. For someone who grew up reading comics in the line of X-Men and The Silver Surfer, this game is a dream realized with intensity, action, and accuracy. In having made it safely through the first full act of the game, I can say that the learning curve can take some getting used to if you haven't been around a true arcade-style game in a while. With quick menu's offering power changes, special moves, and instant character switches in mid battle, once you get past understanding the controls, this game has great replay value in both single player and co-op. With the ability to name your own team, choose a logo, choose a team of two to four players from the Marvel universe, and be able to freely travel between missions learning about each character you come across in Stark's office building, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is engaging on several important levels. As you continue throughout the game you will be able to also unlock additional playable characters, take many varied side missions GTA style, change character costumes, build a team reputation, and unlock comic book covers, cut scenes, and concept art. If a game gets points just for being content rich, this game deserves a perfect score. The only downside (which is not distracting) is that the graphics could be cleaner. Other than that minor negative, I say Activision has done the Marvel universe proud.

Lives up to its title!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 51 / 58
Date: October 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am having an absolute blast with this game. It combines old-school arcade beat-em-up madness with RPGish character advancement, a fantastic story, and let us not forget a roster of some 140 classic Marvel comics characters, 24 or so playable. Then, of course, there is the much-hyped option of creating and naming your own superhero dream team. You start out with four heroes of your choice and the more you team these characters up on missions, the more experience and prestige your team gains. This leads you to upgrade your mighty force with great stat bonuses and an expanded roster. Cool, cool stuff if you're a fan of comics or superheroes in general. If you're a wise gamer, you can send any of several Avengers line-ups, the X-men, or the Fantastic Four along with a few other "secret" combos into battle together and receive special team bonuses as a reward. There are also some awesome sequences where your team all use their "extreme" powers at once. Picture this: Blade throws several vials of his serum into the air, shooting them so they explode into a deadly mist that damages the enemies, Spiderman then swings across the screen blasting every foe with webbing and ensnaring them as they are still recoiling from Blade's assault, Deadpool leaps into the air, flipping sideways in slow motion as he sprays the villains (now ensnared in webbing) with twin SMG's just as the Human Torch starts raining fire and Brimstone over the whole screen. That, my friends, is some hardcore superhero a**-kicking.
The story will take you throughout the Marvel Universe to other galaxies, under the sea, to the realm of the gods fo Asgard, and even to the depths of Mephisto's hellish underworld as you battle the Masters of Evil, an ambitious coalition of supervillains headed by Dr. Doom himself. The extra missions you complete (or don't) during the course of your journeys will all affect the game's ending; so though you may have saved the universe, depending on what side missions you did or didn't complete you are shown the future that has been created by your actions or lack thereof. My first time through, for example, I did much good and brought peace between some former enemies of humanity and helped defeat many future threats, but the combination of events that came about because of some details I neglected during gameplay doomed some of my favorite heroes of all in the end. I've never seen a story mode handled quite like this and it's very rewarding and really adds to the replay value of the game. All right, on to the characters. It would have been nice to play as the Namor, the Vision, or [insert your favorite obscure Marvel hero here], but the playable roster is an impressive combination of legendary mainstays like Spiderman, Wolverine, and Iron Man and hardcore fan-pleasers like Dr. Strange, Moon Knight, and the aforementioned merc with the mouth, Deadpool. Heck, even the cosmic power of the Silver Surfer is yours to command so who's to complain? Furthermore, you now have the option of downloading even more characters from xbox live including Venom, Magneto, and the Hulk as well as 5 others. There are tons of legendary Marvel villains and heroes that are MIA (no Punisher? Doh!), and some minor fanboy complaints about the upgradeable uniforms (why is Spidey's symbiote costume less powerful than his original cloth one?), but that just means that there is still room for this awesome franchise to get even better next time around.
Fans of the "X-men Legends" games will find the gameplay more than a little familiar (see: nearly identical) and will find some favorite characters from those games playable as well, but with some new tricks. You gotta love Colossus picking up enemies and using them to club their comrades; that's just good times all around. There are also interactive segments, mini-games if you will, that are pretty fun and look cool as hell. Running over psychotic clowns in a bumper car springs immediately to mind; and several of the larger boss battles and other situations have button sequences that need to be pushed as they appear to perform context-sensitive moves that look cool as hell. Then there's those games of old-school "Pitfall", and "Arkanoid" you play in Murderworld... Plenty to do in this game. You'll also earn several unlockable (and upgradeable!) alternate costumes for each hero and solo (or "comic") training missions for the playable heroes in the game if you can hunt down their discs. These missions are a godsend and allow you to learn each individual hero's abilities outside of the chaotic team battles and engage in some memorable duels with classic villains (Elektra vs Bullseye: round 2? You know you want it!). I only wish that each character's missions were a little more customized; they all consist of one of the same four or five levels with different bosses at the end.
Some of the cutscenes in the game look unbelievable (there is a Nightcrawler sequence that rivals the one in the 2nd X-Men film) while others are rather unpolished. The voice acting is spotty at best, but several of the character's voices closely resemble their animated counterparts and it's fun to hear your heroes banter during battle (Deadpool, unsuprisingly, even has wisecracking as one of his special powers) and the graphics during gameplay are a massive improvement over "X-Men Legends", so there's really very little to complain about.
Online multiplayer also looks to be a big draw this time out. I haven't tried it out yet, but from what I've heard there is 4-player cooperative where everyone shares and shares alike, and competitive where your baddie-stomping statistics are tracked for bragging rights and to the winners go the spoils. You can even play the comic missions with one player as the fearless hero and the rest of the players controlling the hordes of enemies. The fun just keeps on coming.
This is one of those games where, even after you've beaten it, you simply can't wait to start it over and play through it in a different way. Personally, I'm relishing every action-packed second and whether you're an average gamer who loves to mash buttons and kick tail, a hardcore comic geek looking for an epic adventure featuring your favorite heroes, an RPG fan who enjoys lots of customization, or just a person looking for a game you pick up and play with your friends at home or online this is that game. Buy it, own it, love it.

A Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 26
Date: October 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Finally, an adventure game for the 360 that allows CO-OP play with your buddies or family and lasts longer than 3 hours. It is nice to play these games with my son versus on-line with strangers. The game is very content rich with a lot to do. I have actually been playing since I got it and I am still not done. Yes, we like to do everything there is and this game has a lot. It really is nice being able to play with so many characters from the Marvel Universe. Seeing Ghost Rider was a plus for me.

As another said, the controls are exactly like the X-Men games. Sort of nice not needing to learn anything new. Load times are actually pretty good and overall graphics during gameplay are good as well.

If I had any complaints they would be the ease of play at times. Many boss fights are too easy. Just stay off screen at the doorway to the room, and they just stay back and do nothing. Just stand there and shoot until dead. Not all are like this, but many are. Also, the cut scenes always have the original four heros in them and they talk like they are in the adventure. Even when you pick four others. Spidey gets on my nerves!

For the overall lack of great games for the 360, this is a must have.

Ultimate Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 17
Date: November 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You can only play with 25 characters, they are missing alot of characters hulk, punisher, beast, nightcrawler etc. (and I have all char's). Frustrating camera angles along with ultra devestating gameplay and control issues. For beginners there's going to be alot of confusion. The story is very weak, and the graphics could be better then they are, they used xbox's graphics engine (lame). AI is unbearable because unused characters get in the way and take all your kills. In-game Bugs are out of control, level design is horrible and no variety and very repetitive. This game try's to be so much like City of Heroes but fails miserably.
If this game would of been designed and created like the two other spider-man games (ps2,xbox) it would have been perfect!

not as good as the Playstation 2 version

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: November 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

For some reason, the Xbox version of this game features bugs, and the graphics aren't as good as on the Playstation 2. I don't know if maybe I'm just seeing things or if this version is actually weaker than the Playstation 2 version.

A short blast

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: November 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The game is too easy. Playing on normal difficulty, I never once lost my team in battle. I blew through each boss first time using no strategy. The mini games used to beat some bosses require no reflexes - only that you can tell red, from green, from blue, from yellow, and Y, from X, from B, from A (in case you were either dyslectic, or colour blind). The mini game button sequences go at a snail's pace. I did not lose one team member in the final showdown against Dr.Doom. You want some sort of challenge from a game - the relief, ecstasy, and sense of achievement, say, from beating Ninja Gaiden, GRAW, or Manhunt. I employed no strategy ever against any foe - just got near them and leant on the special attacks of Ironman, and combined them with my other teammates. I never once employed the dodge/defend button. And the puzzles are redundant, the "solutions" incredibly childish. I know to put the square block into the square hole. That's the ordinary. The good is the presentation, characterisation, and story. The cutscenes are well worth opening, and give impetus to pushing on through the game. I am not a hardcore gamer. I'm a casual gamer who enjoys finding out the "story" of a game. I don't think I was lucky. I think this game might well have compromised for mass consumption, for sometime gamers, who usually only play bits and pieces - and give them the sense of achievement for completing a game for once. The lack of challenge seriously detracts from the game, and makes the core action hollow and repetitive. Buy this one for the kids.

An exciting rpg with action!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I must say this is my favorite game on the X-box 360 at the moment! Granted, I don't have many and once I've had my fill of this game I'll probbaly go back to Oblivion but still, this is quite a good game. Some of the bosses are easy. (The mini bosses anyway. The real bosses usually take some time to figure out how to beat. Mandarin took forever. My stupid computer controlled heroes kept killing the bomb bugs) but still in games like this the fun is in collecting all the various bonus itmes like the daredevil and black panther figurines. And finding all the costumes for every character.

This is also a fun game to play with other people but most of my play time has been solo which makes it harder since as I alluded to previoulsy your fellow fighters don't always make correct decisions when they are in the hands of the computer. Still, it is a fun game solo or with other people. The good thing about playing solo is you have more time to decide on what to spend your skill points and money on.with agroup it's like eh I'll just get whatever, hurry up let's keep moving.

Anyway, this is an awesome game for those that want to revisit there comic book days of yesteryear(or for those who never left them) and for those who want a good beat em up game with co op it's also good. It's win-win.

Bad Video Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 21
Date: November 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

You get four Marvel comics heroes to fight at once with Nick Fury being the boss. Other characters get unlocked and you can keep switching which characters are fighting during the game. You get experience points a la D & D and get better character skills unlocked. So far I have beat the first two boards when I rented it, but it's too confusing for what could've been a great role playing game. The bosses are too easy to beat and nothing else puts up much of a challlenge, especially at early boards.

Marvel Fans Rejoice

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ok..I am a big Comics fan. I really enjoyed this title. It is what i call a action/RPG (this means you DONT have to select what your gonna do in a fight like in the Final Fantasies and Knights of the old republic) you just smack down with the characters. The Rpg aspect comes in because you can increase certain powers and costumes. There are 20 playable characters. With your interaction with up to 160 diffrent characters. The Graphics are pretty impressive and the cinimatics are just first rate, the game play is pretty straight forward.. I will have to say sometimes the camera angle and be a pain and some times the character get stuck but for the most part that is a rarity. You get to create your own super team if you want and name it what ever you want. If you liked Xmen Ledgends you wil like this game period i gotta go play some more rock on...

very good title, a bigger next-gen x-men legends....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

the pluses:
-tons of superheroes to use. probably 20 or so to choose from.
-incredible graphics (the naysayers are either crazy/blind, or don't have hdtvs).
-focuses more on the marvel superheroes and not the x-men, which is great since if you've played legends 1 or 2 you might be tired of the x-men
-good length, and a cool diversity of enemies and places to visit
-a great romp through the marvel universe. any game that has galactus in it is cool (but he's too weak, he's the planet devourer come on now). i also wish i could have used the silver surfer during the game rather than just getting him after i finished all the comic missions.

the minuses:
-you spend probably 85% of the time breaking boxes or picking up coins which fall from the boxes. in the future the developers should have the coins auto-picked-up like the health and energy powerups.
-the game is easy, including the last boss.
-a surprising number of bugs (still very small, but for a console title there really shouldn't be any). you may get stunned in a level and never recover. or an energy-sucking enemy may permanently (for that level) strip you of your powers, even after defeated.
-there are not any great comic flashback missions like there were in x-men legends. these just feel kind of thrown together, except for a couple exceptions.

overall a great game, and the best superhero video game ever made.

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