Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance

I've been playing through the PC version of Ultimate Alliance over the past few weeks and, aside from the initial shock of having to use the keyboard, I'm enjoying it quite a bit.  I initially started with the plans of using every character in turn to try and unlock all of their alternate outfits, but quickly realized that wasn't going to happen.  At a certain point in the game you get to form your own custom super hero team, so I decided to stick with the following:  Iron Man, Venom, Wolverine, and Dead Pool.  As soon as I earn enough rep to unlock another member, I'm planning on adding either Cyclops or Spider-Man.  This is with the very excellent packaged mod from marvelmods.net, otherwise I couldn't play Venom and that just wouldn't work.


Needless to say it looks much better on the PC, with the added bonus of being able to turn off the bloom effect that I hate with a passion.  I've managed to make it over half way through, this time taking special care to complete all the optional objectives that eluded me on the 360.  At the end it actually goes back through and shows you the long term consequences of what you did or didn't do, so this time I decided to do a few things different.  I've focused Iron Man on ranged attacks, specifically his plasma disc.  With the right gear and enough points, he can kill almost any normal enemy with one hit.


The problem is that he's weak as a kitten, and enemies tend to swarm over him when fights start.  If I can't get him up and into the air, he usually ends up dead.  Wolverine and Venom are specialized in close quarters fighting, with extra attention spent on Wolverine's regeneration.  It's really helpful during those tough boss fights, but unfortunately it doesn't help when either you or the AI happens to walk him off a cliff.


Dead Pool has kind of been split down the middle, with average close and ranged attacks.  His swords are pretty nasty against bosses, and if I can keep them at a distance his dual pistols can bring some pain as well.  Of course any comic book reader also knows that like Wolverine, Dead Pool can regenerate his health.  This saved me during one boss fight, as the entire team was knocked out and he was healing faster than being damaged.