Customer Reviews

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Basically, MUA 2 as it is called is a scaled back version of MUA 1 that does to a point deal with the Civil War but does not take actual advantage of the story line there and the potential(Or does pending on how you look at it) Now on to the good and bad(+/- section I do in video game reviews)

+ The graphics here once you get used to them can be considered cartoony

- The graphics are a step down from part one though and some of the heroes look ridiculous(Hulk, Thing, and Venom all look like versions of MODOK with the top of the bodies being huge and the bottom being small)

+ When you can switch the camera view it helps.

- It would have been more helpful if you could do it throughout the game.

+ The Line up of heroes is impressive especially if your a fan of the X-Men. In addition you get all the new heroes in(Bonus) Missions which are given to you in certain parts of the game

- Yeah, well there just went collecting Action Figures and Discs... also no Alternate Costumes or the ability to distrbutse stat points.. takes away the customization of your characters that was so popular in part one and to a point X-Men Legends series.

+ The Fusion system is fun and it's nice to be able to revive your heroes whenever instead of having to wait or run back to the Shield Savepoint.

- The Fusion System takes place of Extreme Attacks... sometimes I wish I had those back instead.

+ The rewards your team (Boosts) earns throughout the game is cool and they can be upgraded.

- You lost alot of customization of your heroes for this system however... I'm not sure if it's worth it.

+ The storyline is interesting and I'd have to say it leaves more of an impact than the first game... I enjoyed the Civil War Scenes best of all and how this actually plays out will make alot of people smile and say yes.... this is probably how it should have happened.(Well the ending I got from Anti Reg side anyway.)

- Unfortunately the Civil War is limited to about two or three chapters. Also... the story doesn't take as much advantage of the Marvel U as the first game does. (No Atlantis or Asgard here)

+ This game is enjoyable with a friend.

- Notice the A FRIEND there.... (Only 2 players here folks)

Overall... I would say if you liked the series of games this represents here.. (X-Men Legends, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance or MUA as we call it) Even though I consider this a step down from the first game... I would say there is no reason to not add this to your collection. It's still a good game.

Side Notes:

Whose Side are you on?? (The Difference it makes)

1. Pro Reg and Anti Reg get different awards once you choose a side.

2. You have to hack more computers in Anti Reg than in Pro Reg... and at least the first time through in Anti Reg you don't have to actually hack the computers if you mess up so many times it will cause a system failure and you can proceed on.

3. There are indeed 2 different outcomes to the game pending on which side you choose.

4. I got more Awards in Anti Reg than Pro Reg... but more Upgrades in Pro Reg... Though this could be just from my experiance and actually very.

5. There is a group of 4 heroes per side you can't play as for the Civil War Chapters.

If your Pro you can't use:

Captain America

Daredevil

Luke Cage

Storm

If your Anti Reg you can't use:

Iron Man

Ms. Marvel

Mister Fantastic

Thor

Everyone else will be availible to you.

People seem to have expected a bit much from the "past gen" systems in regards to this game in my opinion. Graphics, while not near as brilliant as the PS3/360 version are still decent (think X-Men Legends if you've ever played that series). The gameplay is also pretty similar to X-Men Legends, and the previous Ultimate Alliance game. Each character has their basic powersets and such that can become more powerful as you level up.

The extras for the PS2 version were actually more appealing to me than what the PS3/360 got. The PS2 version gets 3 exclusive characters--Cyclops, Psylocke, and Blade. Being a big Psylocke fan, I was quite pleased to find out she was included. The X-Men are pretty much the only reason I bothered considering this game, and Psylocke sealed the deal. I only play with X-Men teams, so it's basically like another X-Men Legends game to me lol. Just for reference, the X-Men roster for the PS2 are Wolverine, Storm, Gambit, Jean Grey, Iceman, Cyclops, and Psylocke.

I think to boil it down, if you liked X-Men Legends or the previous Ultimate Alliance game, I'd say you'll enjoy this game. It could be better, but I think it's pretty solid on the PS2 if you didn't go in expecting the PS3/360 version.

I got really excited to learn that MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 for PS2 was coming out that I pre-ordered it last May. I loved the previous games Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Legends II Rise of the Apocalypse, and even the first one X-Men Legends (which took me some time to enjoy)--but this new incarnation falls short.

First off, Raven Software, the company who did the previous three games, were not involved in this project and I'm not sure why. That should have been a tip off that something would be off but I didn't think it would be like this.

As a disclaimer I haven't finished the game, yet, but there are some major problems that I thought people should know about so they can RENT this game before buying it.

Here's the bad:

***MAJOR BUG: After the training tutorial and going on the first actual mission from the hub/Stark Tower in the "NYC-Save The People" area, once you save the three people, the objectives don't load so you end up running around in circles and you never advance to the next level/area. You have to restart the game and load the "auto-save" file (the game creates two files the auto save, which only works in the background and happens at certain points, and the checkpoint save which you do at the "X-Traction Points"); this will fix the bug and you can continue. I found this out on a game message board. There's another bug further along the game where this same thing happens but I haven't reached it yet. Game testers should have caught this in quality assurance trials and it should have been fixed before it was released.

***CAMERA SHAKE AND MANUAL MOVEMENT: The camera shakes whenever the characters move and doesn't have the smoothness of the previous three games. And the "manual" rotation of the camera with the "R" stick doesn't work most of the time.

***CHARACTERS GET STUCK: One team member will get stuck behind a wall or other obstruction like corners and will get left behind without warning; if you switch to that character you'll end up in the place where they get stuck. Not good.

***SWITCHING HEROES: Seems like a bug, but since the four characters are displayed in the four corners of your TV screen, unlike the small diamond shape in the other games, switching to the character you want can be tricky as you usually pick the wrong one even though you're hitting the right directional button.

***CAMERA POINT OF VIEW: When heroes are running down a corridor or hallway the camera will be facing them so you can't see where you are running to. You're literally running toward the camera and you can't move or change the camera angle. Terrible!

***TIME TRIALS: There are way too many time trials to make up for the lack of excitement in the game! And I have it set on easy and I haven't even gotten that far into it.

***OTHER ISSUES: Graphics aren't very good; load times are long and the load screens suck; hero management is a pain since you can't switch from one to the other you have to go back to the hero screen and choose the next character; audio sounds muffled; extraction is not available on the "X-traction Pads" and you can't call for help from your teammates. I also noticed that in the first hub, Stark Tower, you can't just walk up to other characters and start talking to them. Only the ones that you're supposed to talk to will talk to you, which is boring.

The Good:

***CHARACTERS: There are some cool characters and improvements like Psylocke and the Invisible Woman where their telekinetic powers are part of their regular abilities rather than special powers.

***FUSION POWER: This is more like the "Xtreme Power" from MUA, but it's pretty cool.

***SIMILAR GAME PLAY: The game play is similar to the previous games, but not as fun or as good.

***INSET MAP: The inset map is still there

Basically this game is a step down from the previous games. Whereas in each succession of the other games got better, this one just seems like they ripped off the last game, MUA, and tried to change it so it wasn't exactly the same game. But this company "n space" and "Bink Video" either couldn't or didn't know how to make a better game or even an equal game as Raven Software, which has ended up in a far inferior game with many issues then the previous three. I'm not sure why Marvel decided to go with these other companies but it was a mistake. If you haven't played any of the previous games then this game will be OK, but that bug with the objectives brings it to barely to the OK-level.

Again, I haven't finished the game but there are enough problems with it that I thought buyers should know about before spending their money. I don't know if the versions for PS3, WII, or X-BOX are better than this version, but if you plan on checking this PS2 version out rent it instead.

If I finish it, I'll add an update but right now I'm not a happy camper.

UPDATE 09/24/09
I finished the game. And I still feel let down. I only played a couple of hours after work each day and that's including the bonus missions to unlock characters, so I was totally surprised when I got to the final battle and then the credits. The story line was not really involved like the previous games and there was very few voice-overs from the characters.

The different stages were also uninteresting and when you get to the next level it would just say "enter next level" or something lame like that.

Plus side is that I didn't trigger that second bug, so that's cool. Again, if you're expecting an involved story line and game play like the previous three games this one will let you down. It had potential but falls short...

UPDATE 09/26/09
On a second play through there was another bug in the "Rebel Bunker" stage where you finish all objectives but can't continue on. This time the "NYC" bug didn't happen. If you encounter this (an easy way to tell is if you have cleared the inset map and there's no red on it, check your objectives by hitting the "start" button. If it says you have no objectives and yet you can't continue on you've hit the bug) do as before and quite the game and start from the auto-save file. I hope the other systems fair better with this game than the PS2 does.

I know the PS2 is a lame duck platform, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't put any effort into making a game for it. Anyone who bought this at its original retail price got suckered big time because the designers did nothing to improve upon the first game and took several steps back. Everything from the menu graphic screens to the cut scenes looks cheaper than last time. As someone else noted, the selection of heroes is awesome if you like the X-Men. And while it was nice to have the villains like Venom, the designers compensated by removing heroes like Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman. And worse yet they took away the option to change what costumes your heroes wear, which I had fun with in the last game, especially breaking out the retro unis.

To make it all worse, the story is far less robust than the last game. In the first game you went everywhere from New York to Latveria to deep space to Valhalla. This time around the farthest you get is a dimensional prison. Yawn. And then there was the stupid Tron-style game to "hack" computers that was just annoying because you could hardly ever see where you were going. More to the point, the whole look of it was like something for the Atari 2600. What is this, 1982? Argh.

It's also misleading the description that you get to pick sides for the registration thing. Sure you do--for like two chapters. Big whoop. It's actually a pretty small amount of the game dedicated to that. Very deceptive and misleading. And even in those two chapters it only takes a couple of heroes off the table. Ooooh.

There was just nothing to like about this game. Most of it is the same bashing and brawling as the first game and the X-Men Legends games, all of which are better and probably cheaper by now in terms of price. So if you haven't played those, go ahead and try one. If you have, then don't bother with this inferior product.

That is all.

There were parts of it that were good but overall it wasn't even close to as good as the first one. I will break my opinion down a bit

The bad:
- the camera angles were horrible and you had next to no time where you were in control of them
- the graphics weren't even as good as the first one which shocked me since it is the newer game
- the areas were less accessable. A good example of this was the toned down crappy version of Stark tower.
- the voice acting was less and worse. They replaced Spider-Man's voice with that of an annoying prepubessant and had next to no speaking parts outside of the stupid briefings which they didn't bother animating more than shadows in front of bright colors.
- there was next to no character specific benefits (you know how in the first one you got different responses and conversations based on who was in your party)
- There were hardly any villians.
- The fusion system wasn't nearly as fun as I hoped it would be
- It was choppy (story-wise and game play-wise)
- Only one costume per character and no individual character gear
- Character management wasn't as good as the first game.
- I absolutely hated any "hacking" minigames becauses they were complete BS and weren't even remotely fun.
- The "training" parts sucked hardcore. I preferre the game hints of the first game
- The score thing at the end of levels (what is this? Halo? Different game with very different goals.) I mean do I care what my report card says so long as I save the world? Also, making destruction a major thing was stupid. I mean would we want superheroes going around busting up cars and mailboxes? Lame
- The "awards" at the end of each level (finisher! What is this? Lazertag?)
- They took out Dr. Strang and Silver Surfer

The good

- They didn't mess too much with the controls
- Deadpool was great and I loved the gag on him knowing that he was in a videogame (it worked as well for the game as the comics)
- There were some cool new characters and the variety was nice.
- The choice of the Civil War theme was nice

When Activision released the original X-Men Legends it was perhaps the closest a superhero videogame came to matching the fantasy worlds created by more popular Japanese RPGs. On paper a superhero RPG sounds like a home run, after all comic books already immerse their readers in a fantasy world, so allowing people to interact with this world is just the next logical step right?

However since X-men legends 1, activision has committed itself to trimming down the actual content of the games in favor of needless hype. Think about it, X-men legends 2 featured a united X-men and brotherhood of evil mutants, however if you keenly noticed the game was about half as big as its predecessor. Then marvel ran countless ads for their "ultimate alliance" the first version of which was about as big as legends 2. On top of that while other games such as fable, final fantasy, etc. were featuring more open-ended games MUA was about as linear as you could get, even in the alternate endings (i mean how is it possible that I wipe out the entire mutant race and at the same time create government funding for X-men style schools?).

MUA2 unfortunately does absolutely nothing to right this ship. There are three things that this game does right and it should be to its credit, the new Fusion system is awesome and a lot of fun to play with, the choice to be Pro or anti registration is pretty cool, and the game accurately recreates the backgrounds featured in the Marvel Comics Civil War plotline. I tip my hat to the graphics designers and other artists, they did a great job.

Now to the bad. If you thought legends 2 and MUA1 were short you are in for quite a treat here, I finished the game (first run) in under 10 hours. You read that right an RPG that's beatable in 10 hours. and the "choice" to be pro or anti reg really isn't all that marvel was hyping it to be. As a matter of fact outside of two various sets of missions it doesn't really appear to have that much of an impact on the actual rest of the game. Now add in the fact that the graphics designers didn't add make cut scenes more organic. The whole point of MUA is to control a team of heroes that have a significant impact on things to come. However watching spiderman listen to a briefing while hunched over not able to see over the table where the briefing is, makes you feel like you're just a replaceable part of the story. Once again character interactions leave a lot to be desired, unlike other RPGs where character interaction is fun and leads to all kinds of extra goodies and information, here its so pointless I mostly ignored it. Here's an idea for activision, how about taking one of those old MUA or X-men legends map and turn it into a side quest apart from the central plot, to unlock a bonus or even a secret ending? But gosh that'd make too much sense, why not just keep the same dry plot and hammer it to death with such exhilarating dialogue as "i know we're on the right side" "we made the right choice" " i don't trust any of them" etc...

Recently the head of activision admitted that the spiderman games the company was producing sucked and they needed to get back on track. Somebody should buy him a copy of this game and a copy of fable, and final fantasy 10-2 and ask him if this franchise too "sucks". With DC setting the standard in movies "The Dark Knight" and Videogames "Arkham Asylum" Marvel has a lot of ground to cover. Games such as these just make that gap even bigger...

The storyline of MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 roughly follows the Civil War storyline from Marvel comics. The game begins several years ago in Latveria where a team led by Nick Fury infiltrates Dr. Doom's headquarters. Something during the mission goes wrong that a few years later comes back to haunt not only superheroes, but supervillians. Legislation, backed by Tony Stark (Iron Man) to force all those with abilities to register with the government. Captain America revolts and becomes the leader of the Anti-Registration movement. Meanwhile, there is a sinister force at work that will force all those with mutant abilities to align and fight together.

I realize that from this point forward whenever there is a new video game title released on several different platforms, if it is released on PS2 then the graphics and overall game play aren't going to be as great as they are on the other platforms available. Therefore, I didn't mind the sometimes cartoony graphics. However, the load time between scenes is incredibly long. You would think that what is lost in the graphics department could be made up in load time. This just shows that even though the PS2 is still (as of 2/18/2010) Sony's #1 selling game platform, they don't much care for the people who own those systems. For instance, there are numerous older PS2 games that had not only great quality but incredibly fast load times between sequences (the KINGDOM HEARTS games and GOD OF WAR are the ones that first come to mind).

Other than slow load times, another complaint about this version of the game is the camera angle. There are only a few times during the game that you can actually change the camera view. This makes certain parts of the game more difficult to play as you literally cannot see what is happening directly in front of your character.

In playing through the game, there are two major bugs: one in NYC and another towards the end of the game. Basically, your characters can't move forward and are stuck with nothing to do over and no place to go. The only way to solve this dilemma is to restart the game from autosave because restarting from your own save point will not "fix" the bug.

You are able to switch from one of the four characters on the screen during game play. However, you aren't able to switch very easily. Also, you cannot switch out of the any of the four teammates you select except at certain locations so whomever you choose to fight at the beginning of a mission is probably whoever you are going to have until the end of the mission. In addition, it was also frustrating that certain characters were locked and remained locked until the game was defeated. We played the game in what would be normal mode (not the easy mode and not the difficult mode) and none of the mini-missions to unlock characters were available until the very end. This is something that should have been available much earlier in the game.

Even though there are a lot of problems with this particular platform version of the game, MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 is still a fun game to play. My brother and I played this game through together and despite the issues I mentioned and a few others, e.g. the stupid computer hacking segments, we had a good time playing the game and enjoyed the overall storyline. There are two different endings to the game depending on whether you choose to fight on the Anti-Registration or Pro-Registration side, which also affects which characters you can and cannot play during two chapters of game play. My brother and I both thought that the Anti-Registration ending is how the comics themselves should have been resolved instead of the convoluted crap that is passing as storytelling in Marvel right now, e.g. everyone knows that Spider-Man revealed his identity but no one remembers who he is, Hulk was sent in outer space so he wouldn't threaten the Registration plan, Captain America was killed, etc.

Overall, there are a lot of problems with the PS2 version of MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 2 and the versions for Xbox 360 and PS3 are much better (I've had a chance to play parts of the game on those systems, so I know). However, if you don't let the glitches and problems become more than a nuisance, the game is still a lot of fun to play.

You see more and more the PS2 system getting the shaft on new games. Developers see there's enough of a user base out there that they don't want to pass up the customers, but they also know they'll charge less for the games and won't have the visual eye candy, so they try to trick people into thinking they're getting almost the same game as you see in the ads showing the PS3/360 version of games. I've seen everything from very nearly lying to just leading people to the wrong conclusion. As someone who cannot afford a next gen system right now, it's irritating.

For every excellent Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, you have a buggy mess like Ghostbusters: The Video Game, a completly different from the next gen game like Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, or just a rip off like Tomb Raider: Underworld.

After having played the X-men Legends II and the first Ultimate Alliance on PC I was so disappointed to find out that Ultimate Alliance 2 would be for consoles only. At the time I only had a PC, but later I got a PS2 and to my delight they announced Ultimate Alliance 2 on PS2! I thought it'd be great, if it's just the same level graphics as Alliance it'd be so cool. What a dissappointment.

The graphics are a step down even from the Legends games in my opinion. I normally don't care about graphics, but you'd think they could have done a little better than this for $30 new. Also, an obvious lack of play testing hurts this offering too. There are more bugs than a you should resonably expect in a console game where they can't offer patches. I've also read it's much shorter than the PS3/360 version, but I have no way to judge whether that's true or not.

If you're like me and holding off on the next generation console, then maybe wait and buy this game cheap when you do. Unless you can get it pretty cheap or you're desperate, just collect X-men Legends I, X-men Legends II, and Ultimate Alliance 1 for cheap and get your enjoyment out of those. For most people, this should be a pass.

Is it as good as Ultimate Alliance 1 - no way

Is it as good as X-men Legends 2 - no

Is it as good as X-men Legends - yes - In my opinion better coarse I never solved X-men Legends 1 whereas I was able to solve this one as well as unlocking all the charartors.

Story was decent, not earth shattering. Even with the double path, it is a bit short but I absolutely love this game series. The bug in the game is annoying but thanks to posters here, getting by it is easy enough. That could've made the game a totally annoying waste so thanks to those who posted the solution.

I really enjoyed playing the predecessor game, Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the PS2, much more. This sequel is not a very good follow-up, as it does not retain the crisp gameplay of the first version. The visuals do not flow very smoothly and the wait in between sequences is unacceptably long. Furthermore, there is a glitch early in the game, whereby reloading is required to proceed as the sub-chapter for the New York streets literally runs into dead ends. The character skills and abilities are also managed very differently than the first game. I had hoped that this game would improve on the previous game, but it did not even match it. I believe these problems are due to a different group of developers/designers/programmers used for the sequel.