Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Review (PS3/Xbox 360)

Meh Full

X-Men Legends was awesome. It was a hack-n-slash RPG that played like a beat-em-up with fifteen controllable characters – each with his own set of powers, strengths and weaknesses, yet all tied together by a beautifully simple control scheme. It was a great – but admittedly sometimes shaky – first start for a whole new game type that would expand from X-Men to the entire Marvel Universe (plus a Justice League off-shoot) and has its latest iteration in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. Unfortunately, the franchise has changed hands since the previous game (at least for the HD consoles) and it shows, as the new company makes some honest – but unartful – attempts to redefine the format. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 tries to structure its narrative (specifically, a narrative based on the recent Civil War story from the comics) as a gameplay mechanic, tries to incorporate a variety of team-based “fusion” powers and tries to streamline the design and interface. But in the process, it tears down or abandons much of what the previous games built up and while it seems like at times it is trying to advance on what was done before, it ultimately feels less like an evolution of the format and more like a shaky second start.

BEWARE! ANTI-CIVIL WAR TIRADE WITH SPOILERS BELOW!

Before we move on to gameplay, though, let’s get the story out of the way. As this game attempts to incorporate the abysmal Civil War arc, it is subject to a lot of the same criticisms. It may not unmask Spider-Man or “kill” Captain America, but it does harp on a lot of the same motifs and flawed politics that crippled the comic book iteration.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Civil War Screenshot

So, which one's the Union and which one's the Confederacy?

Its big problem is that a story about a war between two factions of popular superheroes shouldn’t have a “right” side and this one clearly does. In the comics, Iron Man is unquestionably made to be the bad guy. Very few major heroes join his side, he allies with supervillains and then there’s the whole symbolic resonance of Spider-Man (Marvel’s flagship character) turning against him. He and his pro-registration allies are treated more like rogue superheroes (ala Parallax from DC) and less like a legitimate side of a complex issue.

The game does a bit better with this, though, by highlighting the negative aspects of both sides. Whether it’s Iron Man’s mind control techniques on supervillains or Captain America’s petty gibes regarding Tony’s former alcoholism, both sides are treated more equitably here because both sides are made out to be complete dicks. It’s not exactly what I’d call a well-developed falling out between two equally well-meaning protagonists, but at least it’s fair.

But then we come back to the politics involved. These are lesser in the game than the comics, but still gratingly there. Civil War was written during the warrantless wiretapping scandal a few years back and has thus fashioned itself as an allegory about right to privacy vs. security. The problem with this is that a “Right to Privacy” allegory just doesn’t work when we’re talking about masked vigilantes and that’s because there is a very big difference between privacy when you want to call your friend in Canada and privacy when you want to use the giant ray gun strapped to your arm to fight purse-snatchers in Times Square. It tends to nullify the whole debate because this is the reason we have a government: to regulate stuff like that. So, while Civil War fancies itself as a “Right to Privacy” story that favors the Liberal stance (because Captain America is right, remember), it’s actually more of a “Regulation vs. Non-Regulation” debate that favors the Conservative stance. This could still work (for Right-minded folks, anyway), but there is an inherent confusion in the message that the story doesn’t recognize.

This whole rant is getting a tad tangential and moving away from the thrust of the game; but it’s worth mentioning because the political confusion in the narrative – and, more importantly, it’s unwillingness to acknowledge that confusion – does infuse the game itself and really butchers the story. It hammers home its message, but that message amounts to nothing more than empty sensationalism with no comprehensible conviction – or intelligence – behind it. So, to wrap this up and move things along, suffice it to say that while Superhero Registration may punish seasoned heroes who did nothing to deserve it and flies in the face of the “Citizen turned Champion” tradition of the superhero, it is NOT – as this game frequently suggests – in anyway comparable to the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps, slavery or even the McCarthy Hearings.

HERE ENDETH THE TIRADE

Moving right along then, Civil War’s inclusion here actually goes beyond a simple and tiresome set-piece for the levels, it’s worked in as a gameplay mechanic in itself. At a certain point, you will have to choose between the two sides and this choice will affect various aspects of the game: including your selection of playable characters, the missions you’ll undertake and the bosses you’ll fight.

At least, that is ostensibly the case. But let’s break this down a bit.

First and foremost, your choice of whether or not to register affects only three of the game’s nine levels and even then only superficially. Your objectives in these levels will remain largely the same – with only a few variations – but your motivation for them is altered. You will fight a unique array of superheroes on each side and sometimes these fights will differ from their counterparts considerably (Cable is a whole different animal from Bishop) and sometimes they won’t (Yellow Jacket is the exact same fight as Goliath). You will also have different NPCs talking to you and helping you out, but again this is pretty minor.

Spider-Woman is your best friend on one side and a boss fight on the other.

You could, I suppose, argue that there are two different endings, that even though the game eventually brushes aside its Civil War trappings for a new (and incredibly hackneyed) story all its own, the last scene will play out differently depending on which side you chose. Unfortunately, the only distinguishing trait in these scenes is which character gets to make a speech, so it’s not really much of an argument.