Today is the release day for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2!
I’ve played Marvel Ultimate Alliance with Josh three or four times. I had fun. Maybe some day I’ll play this one too.
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I just want to play as Luke Cage with a friend playing as Iron Fist
Okay, just to make sure I understand, this is pretty much Ultimate Civil War in game form, right?
Looks fun.
Ultimate Alliance 2, I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish but Batman Arkham Asylum is still one of the best comic book videogames ever made.
But seriously,
Ultimate Alliance 1 was pretty okay, Not a brilliant game but so much fun just because me and three of my brothers played together for hours on end. I’m holding my breath that MUA2 is a better-made game though.
Loved the first one, pretty excited for this.
I thought the first part of UMA was awesome, but then it successively shorter in each chapter. Still, it was fun to play as Luke Cage. Looking forward to this game and hopefully it’s a little longer/challenging than the first one. Similar to X-Men Legends 2.
First game was a lot of fun, definitely looking forward to this.
Maybe the Civil War storyline will be fun to experience…..it would be the first time for me.
It’s funny. I get excited about video games then I realize that I haven’t upgraded my console in YEARS. I’m still rockin’ an X-Box!
Plus, I get sooo busy that playing it would mean that I’m not working on art or paying attention to my kids. Which in the end is a good thing.
Still wanna play this game tho!
Nice. Had NO idea this was coming out today. Too psyched for the PC version of Batman Arkham Asylum.
I dug the first one, but not enough to grab this at the release-date price. Hopefully it drops quickly!
@TNC- You never read Civil War? Were you reading comics at that time it was released?
Who’s you’re favorite character? Besides Deadpool, Herc, or any other lame character?
@Kickass: I read Civil War, but I got back into reading about a couple of months after it ended.
That was a horrible story by (guess who?) Mark Millar. It started the chain of events that made Marvel the medicore company it is today. But that’s just my opinion.
If were talking about favorite characters to play. It’s definitely going to be Deadpool; but also Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, Blade, and even Sentry. Sadly Hercules is not a playable character but he is in the game.
I played as Moon Knight almost exclusively in the first game. I don’t know why.
You know who was an awesome, but totally came out of left field, character in the first game?
Ghost Rider! Seriously he was one of my favorites in the first game. He’s also not playable nor is he around for this sequel.
@stulach
I did too… he was fun.
Through various deals and coupons, I managed to get UA2 for under $6. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I hadn’t planned on buying this, but I’d buy it for $6. How the hell did you pull that off?
@ottobott I see what you did there….
I only kinda liked the first one but the potential to play as Deadpool seems promising. I’ll probably rent it.
The first one was a good used pick up, after it was a pack in. I liked putting all the teams together but I wasn’t really all that impressed with the gameplay.
I played the first one at Josh’s a few times. Once, I believe, was the night before WonderCon last year. I think we had more fun yelling at the TV about the awful portrayal of Winter Soldier than anything else. Fun button masher, though. A bit better than JUSTICE LEAGUE.
YES totally playing this on friday night til saturday during the day
Conor, I’m pretty sure the first one came out right before they decided to make it clear in the comics that the Winter Soldier wouldn’t end up being a villain. So they couldn’t really base his portrayal on much. I guess that would make the important question ‘Why use him at all in that case?’ Whatever. Once the Hulk or the Surfer were completely upgraded and leveled up, that game was like taking a chainsaw or an M60 (respectively) to a cage full of chickens. Sure you took a couple pecks, but the carnage! Oh god, the carnage! MAYHEM!
Anyway, I’m excited to try different team up combos like a Thunderbolts team (Venom, Penance, Songbird, Green Goblin), Secret War (DD, Cap, Wolvie, Spidey, or Luke Cage). And the alternate costumes are always a blast to play around with. Does anyone know where I can find a complete spoiler list for the costumes? I picked up the game today, but I won’t have time to sit down and play until the weekend, and I’m dying to know what they are!
Yeah same here, i have no clue what any of the costume variations are
So if the Sentry is a playable character. Does that mean we win automatically? Cause it’s hard to stop the man stronger then a 1,000 suns.
FYI I just rented the game so I’ll give first impressions later.
The Sentry is DS exclusive.
But don’t play as him, or your DS will just fly off into space and cry.
@ActualButt MUA actually came out just as they were making it clear Winter Soldier was a good guy, it was odd. What was even worse was at the time Radioactive Man (who he was rather oddly teamed up with in the game) was a good guy!
Speaking of video games. "Muramasa: the demon blade" for the Wii is SPLENDID FOR THE EYES AND THE FINGERS. I swear if you ever wanted to see beautiful art on a 2D 90’s game callback, just rent Muramasa, I guarantee it will be worth it. I’m going to grab it somewhere cheap hopefully.
Just picked the game up. Going to pop it in tonight. If anyone is at all interested in trying to organize some multiplaying, follow me on twitter and we’ll see what we can arrange! 😉 (My twitter username is the same as here.)
@PraxJarvin – I mispoke. It came out right then, but it obviously takes a little while between when they write the game script and when the game actually comes out. It was likely being written before he was a good guy. And has Radioactive Man really been a good guy? He wasn’t as bad as when he was a full on villain, but I wouldn’t call him a good guy during Civil War, which is when the game came out.
I really liked the first one so I think I’m probably going to pick this one up. When will probably depend on the financial situation, or when it drops in price.
@ActualButt Well, this was one of the many issues with Civil War. Niciezia had written Radioactive Man as reformed and repentant in Thunderbolts leading up to Civil War, this was abandoned to keep him on the evil T-Bolts.
BM:AA was awesome, but the key word here is "was". It was beaten on normal in 3 days, with little replay value besides going back to find riddles and get achevements /trophies for bragging rights on your respective consoles. It was great and a lot of fun, but for $60, I was hoping for a game to last more then a weekend.
Marvel: UA2 will be just as much fun and take longer to beat, if the previous 3 games are any indication. It also has several characters to upgrade and master, I’m guessing you can choose to play as one of the two factions so replay value is high if there are two paths to take, and it has online play. Now this is a $60 game!
Picked this up this morning, played all afternoon– and don’t see much reason to keep playing it. Doesn’t add anything for me beyond what I got out of playing the first game to death. And, the Civil War storyline just feels really tired and old at this point– heck, I’m dying for the comics to move out of the "big story" where the bad guys are in charge (Civil War/Initiative/SI/Dark Reign) to something new– so going through the motions of the CW story now feels really- bland.
I really didn’t understand some of the choices they made with this sequel– from the character selection to eliminating some of the variation in powers (4 only per character now) and alternate costumes (which went from 4 to 2– often 2 bad ones).
To make matters worse, I just finished Arkham Asylum a week ago, and it was something special compared to this game– just a vastly superior experience on every level. I agree there’s not much replay value to Arkham Asylum, but that first play through was truly sensational. This game, Ultimate Alliance 2, just really didn’t do it for me. I really wish I had just rented it vice buying it– and plan on just returning it for store credit at this point.
First impressions:
-They are really doing a good job blending in the real Marvel stories into the game. Secret Wars in here was almost Secret Wars comics. I only got to finish the 2nd mission but it’s very accurate.
-It plays remarkably like the X-Men Legends games and the first MAU. Which is a positive and a negative thing. It’s positive cause you can jump right in from the other games and do what you like. But it’s negative cause it’s repetitive and almost adds nothing new to gameplay.
-The only new innovation it seems is the Fusion. Although heavily advertise, it gets old to do it really quickly and the different team ups are almost the same. Captain America/Wolverine fusion is the same as The Thing/Human Torch fusion.
It’s took early to grade or judge it fully. But right now I am not so happy on playing the first hour like I was playing Batman: AA the first hour.
It is amazing(ly stupid) how much I want this game despite the fact that I still haven’t finished the last one. (I have a gaming downfall: you know how you’re enjoying the button mashing, and then suddenly all the bad guys are dead and you can’t find the goddamn door? 80% of my saved games are in this state, over the course of my lifetime.)
I really hope they don’t f’ing stereotype Luke Cage like they did in the last MUA with his alternate outfits *sigh* I’m going to rent it this time before making the mistake of buying it.
Jimski – I have the same gaming downfall. For some reason, I get really turned around in games like this after I defeat a room full of dudes. Sometimes I wish for less camera movement/rotation.
With my dislike of X-Men Legends 2 and MUA, I’m oddly hyped for this. Almost all videos I’ve watched for this game seems to me that they’ve fixed most of my cons for this genre of superhero game. Since I just finished Rock Band Beatles I guess I’ll give this a rent and check it out. On a side note there’s a Juggernaught standee at my local Gamestop that shows off way too much of Juggernaught’s "Jewel of Cytrakk" if you know what I mean.
@Mangaman
Those were all things Cage had worn at different points in time in the comics, if anything’s at fault it’s his lack of notable superhero gear. I like what I’ve seen of him in the trailers; the yellow shirt is fitting for he who once donned the disco shirt of danger.
Okay, captbastrd. Prove it. I’m very skeptical about the credentials about that. I googled for it, and you know what?… couldn’t find it. And EVEN though they existed: how many comic guys who actually "knew that" first hand own the game? Very few that’s who, so what comes to mind first? The obvious stereotype, which makes no one happy. Well… with the exceptions of nazi’s.
Well, (this is the best I could get for the ingame image of all 4)
Default : black tee & brown pants (I know it’s not from the comics, but it’s official! Probably? Also, yes it’s a tank top, not a t-shirt, but it’s the same damn thing. Also: here)
Old School (I want that t-shirt! Damn the conversion rate for the British pound! Also my hair would cover the back image. Here, if that pic was too small)
Black Leather Jacket one
I had more difficulty with his white tank top, beanie, and chains look (which I incidently used on my last run through the game, only cuz that costume got more preferable boosts to me) but these two are not dissimilar to the one in the game.
Thing is, why can’t Luke Cage wear gold chains and a beanie cap? Sure, it’s vaguely stereotypical for a black man to wear those things, but a lot of black guys do. A lot of black guys listen to rap. Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean that a black person has to become so self concious about it that they change to avoid falling into the trappings of a close minded person going, "Pssh! Another black guy with his chains and his rap!" They had to fill 4 costumes for him in the game, he has worn those clothes and clothes like that, what were they gonna do? Make up costumes for him? Then they’d have the fans who clamor about it saying, "Why didn’t you include the disco shirt and tiara?!?"(which was my initial response to seeing Cage’s alt. costume in UA2. People will think what they think. If it happens to be dumb and/or racist, what can we do about it? Shall we photoshop pictures from the ’70s so that all the guys with awesome ‘fros have conservative clean cut hair styles? Deny any black person from purchasing gold chains because it kind of sort of propogates a stereotype? I don’t care if some dumbfuck laughs at the portrayal of Luke Cage in MUA because he’s black and has a clever pair of khaki pants (seriously, what was wrong with the default costume?), I’m too busy Hammer Tossing some Doombots.
Oh, let’s not forget: up until Bendis (and maybe some writers that I’m not aware of) Luke Cage was more often than not portrayed as a walking stereotype! So, while Cage is now one of my favorite characters in all of comics, I can’t deny how he was once written. Let’s not blame the guys who make M:UA 1 for being accurate in the portrayal of a character who was never handled correctly until recently.
@mangaman Luke Cage is one of my favorite characters. All of those looks he wears in the game are based off of real "costumes" he wore ("Standard" is based off of a New Avengers costume, "Classic" is based off the original Cafe outside, The Black Leather Jacket/Red Shirt look is from the 90s cage revival, and the beanie/chains appeared in the Azzarello MAX series as well as being a look from NA/Alias. I’m actually sad that as far as I can tell, the classic Cage look. A quick google image search shows all four costumes (for the beanie look, a close approximation.) on the front page.
Second impressions:
-They nailed Deadpool, seriously. His introduction to the game is hilarious and he does have the same move set I loved in MUA1. I also love it how whenever you decide to play him directly he states: "As long as I get those residual checks!"
-Again this is definitely doing a great job translating the Civil War storyline. I might not be a fan of the story, but it’s eerie how close the game is too the comics. (With some alterations of course) It also seems to be a bit of showing what was happening behind the scenes on bigger moments or what a character said off hand instead of showing us.
-Biggest downfall of the game? How repetitive it is. Now it’s technically an RPG Dungeon crawler so it’s to be expected. But considering how close it resembles the first game and how the movesets are virtually identical….it is a bit annoying to play.
I’m willing to play this until the end, but so far I think this is close to sub-par for me. In terms of gameplay, technical and story aspects of this are top notch.
@TNC – i think its a little late to hold the repetitiveness against it considering this is the 4th game from Marvel to use this platform. I look at it as a "you should know what youre in for" kind of thing. It absolutely should be expected.
My biggest disappointment so far was that opening cinematic…yuck.
Pretty choppy…c’mon, you only had 2? 3 years? to work on it.
WTF with getting rid of the mini map?! "heres about 500 little treasures to find throughout the game, good luck."
Green Goblin is friggin awesome in this game.
@ChrisB: I find the phrase ‘you know what you’re in for’ the same as the word repetitive. If I am looking forward to this being the same as the previous; then I’ll know it’ll be repetitive. The developers made it look like this was going to be different, especially with the fusion powers. It’s very annoying to see the fusion is the same for almost every character just with little tweeks to make it different.
I’ve rented the game and it goes back this weekend….I find little desire to try and finish this, only because this has been disappointing. On a technical level it’s mainly good, the story is pretty good; but the gameplay is just not up to snuff. I know I am so close to finishing the anti-registration side of the story, but I have no desire to play on the other side.
Man that fight with Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic at the chemical plant took forever. I was not prepared for that one. Smooth sailing since then.
I’m too busy Playin’ Beatles Rock Band. I liked the first one of The Ultimate Alliance series… I picked it up on the cheap after the hype died down. I’ll do the same here.