Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Comparing The Games in The Series

If you are thinking of grabbing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, you might want to look at the games predecessor (if you haven’t already), or may want to know if the game is actually better or worse. Here are some of my observations:

- The basics are still kept, the sequel is explosively fun, especially with four people playing on the same console and sharing comments and whatnot. That is the way I first played MUA 2 and it was tons of fun. All the necessities of a good “side scrolling” fighting game are there – the varied, yet simple moves, tons of enemies and bosses to combat, tons of destructible environments.

- The most prominent addition in the sequel gameplay mechanics wise are the fusions, special moves your superheroes can execute. Each fusion is, in theory, different, however you will probably end up finding similarities relatively soon. Most are pretty generic, but still add some to the mechanic factor and as a combat addition add more to team tactics of which fusion to use and where, with the addition of your Team layout which defines your fusions.

- The sequel does cut off game play mechanics too though. The costume-based ability choices have been abandoned, replaced instead with what choice you make during the second act, although on a second play through you can unlock all of them. Alternative costumes themselves have been limited to just one and most of them tend to be pretty outlandish (Personally I’ve found only one alternative costume that I was willing to use, but that is a question of opinion. They aren’t the most obvious choices for most characters though.)

- Storyline wise, secondary objectives no longer define your ending. In fact, most of your choices except one, which is explicitly pointed out, do not matter at all, except for achievements and additional, mostly useless, “boosts” you can unlock by sticking to “Aggressive” ; “Defensive” and “Diplomatic” conversation choices. After the first game this was a slight let down, but not enough to actually kill the fun of playing the game. If you liked the multi-ending aspect of the first game though, be warned – its gone without a trace.

- Superhero choices are possibly more true to the “core” Marvel cannon, characters that really were never part of the universe, like Blade, got the boot, replaced instead with a few super villain classics (varying depending on your console of choice). Overall I didn’t feel robbed of anything, although including only a hyper-charged, cyborg version of Nick Fury does not really seem suiting to the character.

-The original parts of the story are well rounded up and make sense. Part of the games mission arc (Act II mostly) takes from the “Civil War” storyline, but the rest is an original creation, so no need to fear spoilers.

In summary, the sequel does seem to be inferior in a few aspects and missing a PC port, but in general, with its monster-smashing fun, its still a relatively decent game. If you have friend/friends to play it with, you are bound to have tons of fun with it. If you hoped for an expansion of the RPG aspects of the prequel however, you might end up disappointed. The choice is yours.