Beat ‘em ups is a genre that fueled my early gaming years. Looking back at hundreds (thousands?!) of dollars I had dropped into arcades around New York City, the vast majority of those Benjies fired up Captain America and The Avengers, Double Dragon, Final Fight, The Simpsons, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In all honesty, what separated one brawler from another was the licensing; virtually every game had one attack button and one jump button, which pressed simultaneously, caused your character to perform an energy-draining special move. Really, there wasn’t much depth or differentiation.
As arcades and 2D gaming gave up the ghost in the late ’90s, so did the brawler. But it’s back in a big, big way in the form of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. After the jump, my (delayed) hands-on impressions from Activision’s New York City showcase.
Activision’s PR team will probably never refer to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 as a beat ‘em up, but this “action game with RPG-elements” is a beat ‘em minus the pimps, punks, and street whores. The 24+ playable characters punch, kick, throw, and super power their way through level after level of baddies; the most basic elements of a beat ‘em up.
You can’t tell by the screenshot above, but the actual in-game graphics, specifically the gameplay visuals, are tremendously improved over the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Not only are the character models better conceived and rendered (it is on a contemporary system, after all), but the lighting effects are eye-popping. They really wow in the D.C. level where trees align certain city blocks, casting deep, black shadows on your characters as they pass under them.
As you’re running about the different stages, the controls feel tight. Sometimes when you play overhead polygonal games, the characters feel as though they’re ice skating across the screen, but not here. The Hulk, for example, has weight, but has enough speed to not come off as lumbering; the perfect style of movement for Doc banner’s emerald alter-ego.
The Fusion Meter is the super-powered highlight of the game, which allows two characters to combine their powers to create awesome effects. For example, when I activated a Fusion Attack with Gambit and Thor, it resulted in Thor creating a whirlwind, into which Gambit tossed several charged playing cards. Needless to say, it caused big damage to the enemy Hydra grunts. In another instance, the Invisible Woman placed a circular force field around the Hulk, which transformed him into a bad ass pinball that mowed over foes.
In my short time with the game, it was obviously that the developers aimed to give fans of the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance a bigger, more robust experience, and from the looks of things, they have done a good job of that. Beat ‘em fans should eat this up, as well as action gamers in general.
