Do you ever ask yourself that age-old question: Which super-power would you most want to have?
Flight would be cool, but I admit that I'd worry about getting cold up there. Also, if I could fly everywhere, why would I bother walking? Does flying burn off calories? Nobody wants to look up in the sky and see a big fat man with a feeble pair of atrophied legs dangling below him.
What about invisibility? The only legitimate use I can think of for it is spying on people, and becoming a pervert. Firstly, I don't want to know what people are saying about me. There's a reason why I don't ego-surf. These days. Also, it would depend on whether my clothes became invisible too. Would I have to walk around in the nuddy? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Also, what if I got cold?
Being able to breath underwater like Aquaman? It's alright if you live at the seaside, I guess, but the main thing that puts me off going swimming is all the faff of having to get dry and changed afterwards. Plus, it's probably really cold at the bottom of the ocean, and it's not like you can go swimming in a thick woolly jumper.
Actually... now that I think about it, it seems my choice of superpower would be dependent on whether it made me feel cold or not.
Flight would be cool, but I admit that I'd worry about getting cold up there. Also, if I could fly everywhere, why would I bother walking? Does flying burn off calories? Nobody wants to look up in the sky and see a big fat man with a feeble pair of atrophied legs dangling below him.
What about invisibility? The only legitimate use I can think of for it is spying on people, and becoming a pervert. Firstly, I don't want to know what people are saying about me. There's a reason why I don't ego-surf. These days. Also, it would depend on whether my clothes became invisible too. Would I have to walk around in the nuddy? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Also, what if I got cold?
Being able to breath underwater like Aquaman? It's alright if you live at the seaside, I guess, but the main thing that puts me off going swimming is all the faff of having to get dry and changed afterwards. Plus, it's probably really cold at the bottom of the ocean, and it's not like you can go swimming in a thick woolly jumper.
Actually... now that I think about it, it seems my choice of superpower would be dependent on whether it made me feel cold or not.
LUMBERJACK
Ultimate Alliance 3 is a big, dumb, lumbering, idiot of a game. If it was a person, you wouldn't trust it with cutlery in case it accidentally poked its own eye out.
Somewhat inevitably, it takes its cue from the most recent Avengers movie, the plot being a watered-down version of the Infinity Stones saga, albeit in a way that makes it a hybrid between the film and comic versions of the characters and story. And then throws in Deadpool, whose U-rated quips might be a foreshadowing of what happens now that Disney owns the film rights to the character.
It strikes a good balance twixt film and page; some characters are clearly more overtly modelled on their movie (and, in some cases, TV) counterparts - right down to the voice - while others stick to their original comics look. Many have yet to even appear in a Marvel film, and thus get no middle-ground reinvention.
Furthermore, there are some deep comic cuts here, with more recent characters, such as the new Ms Marvel, Spider-Gwen, and Elsa Bloodstone. No, me neither on that last one... but she's English. You know she's English because, aside from being a shotgun-wielding demon-slayer, she keeps mentioning tea. You know: like all English people do all the time.
As I say, it's a big idiot of a game.
The dialogue is risible and stupid, with a plot that's barely more than a nanowafer-thin string of chaotic battles. After each fight, more characters stand around waiting for you to talk to them, so they can deliver vaguely-in-character exposition of the most chronically dumbed-down variety.
NOT PLAYED IT, MATE
Having never before played an Ultimate Alliance game - UA2 came out 10 yeas ago - Ultimate Alliance 3 isn't what I was expecting; it's not an RPG, despite superficially resembling one, with its experience and upgrade system, and its modifiers which change depending on the mix of characters you choose.
Instead it mostly reminded me of Capcom's Powerstone, and - to a lesser extent - Super Smash Bros. It's a chaotic fighting game - with you assembling (and, at checkpoints, reassembling) a four-hero team, able to switch between individuals mid-combat if you're in single player mode. I didn't play it in multiplayer, but I can't believe it would've made much difference; the AI is fine.
For what it is.
The structure generally goes as you'd expect: waves of cannon-fodder foot soldiers (prisoners, monsters, robots), slightly more powerful versions of the foot soldiers, recognisable super villain sub-bosses, and then Infinity Stone-powered uberbosses. Wear down their shield, stun, attack, combine special attacks with allies (if you can get the timing right amid the chaos), repeat. There's not much to it beyond that; the occasional running-away-from-a-thing section, a couple of get-on-the-big-gun moments...
It's repetitive, it's ridiculous, it's deeply flawed, and it appears to have been written and conceived by a 12 year-old.
And yet... I sort of loved it.
Ultimate Alliance 3 is a big, dumb, lumbering, idiot of a game. If it was a person, you wouldn't trust it with cutlery in case it accidentally poked its own eye out.
Somewhat inevitably, it takes its cue from the most recent Avengers movie, the plot being a watered-down version of the Infinity Stones saga, albeit in a way that makes it a hybrid between the film and comic versions of the characters and story. And then throws in Deadpool, whose U-rated quips might be a foreshadowing of what happens now that Disney owns the film rights to the character.
It strikes a good balance twixt film and page; some characters are clearly more overtly modelled on their movie (and, in some cases, TV) counterparts - right down to the voice - while others stick to their original comics look. Many have yet to even appear in a Marvel film, and thus get no middle-ground reinvention.
Furthermore, there are some deep comic cuts here, with more recent characters, such as the new Ms Marvel, Spider-Gwen, and Elsa Bloodstone. No, me neither on that last one... but she's English. You know she's English because, aside from being a shotgun-wielding demon-slayer, she keeps mentioning tea. You know: like all English people do all the time.
As I say, it's a big idiot of a game.
The dialogue is risible and stupid, with a plot that's barely more than a nanowafer-thin string of chaotic battles. After each fight, more characters stand around waiting for you to talk to them, so they can deliver vaguely-in-character exposition of the most chronically dumbed-down variety.
NOT PLAYED IT, MATE
Having never before played an Ultimate Alliance game - UA2 came out 10 yeas ago - Ultimate Alliance 3 isn't what I was expecting; it's not an RPG, despite superficially resembling one, with its experience and upgrade system, and its modifiers which change depending on the mix of characters you choose.
Instead it mostly reminded me of Capcom's Powerstone, and - to a lesser extent - Super Smash Bros. It's a chaotic fighting game - with you assembling (and, at checkpoints, reassembling) a four-hero team, able to switch between individuals mid-combat if you're in single player mode. I didn't play it in multiplayer, but I can't believe it would've made much difference; the AI is fine.
For what it is.
The structure generally goes as you'd expect: waves of cannon-fodder foot soldiers (prisoners, monsters, robots), slightly more powerful versions of the foot soldiers, recognisable super villain sub-bosses, and then Infinity Stone-powered uberbosses. Wear down their shield, stun, attack, combine special attacks with allies (if you can get the timing right amid the chaos), repeat. There's not much to it beyond that; the occasional running-away-from-a-thing section, a couple of get-on-the-big-gun moments...
It's repetitive, it's ridiculous, it's deeply flawed, and it appears to have been written and conceived by a 12 year-old.
And yet... I sort of loved it.
MARVELLOUS
I'm a Marvel Comics kid. I never had the same attachment to DC as I did Marvel. Indeed, when it came to movies, it was the Marvel characters I wanted to see done justice (ironically).
Batman is a grumbly bore, Superman is a impervious bore, Wonder Woman is a sort of regal bore. The best Marvel characters are all messed-up in some way or another. It's why they're compelling; we root for them because of their flaws. Perfect people are dull.
Appropriately, Ultimate Alliance 3 is a flawed, imperfect game.
It has a terrible camera system, sometimes it's easy to lose track of your character in the midst of a battle, strategy is rarely more than button-mashing, and still... it's a really generous game in a lot of ways, in terms how frequently you get new "action figures" to play with, and new playsets to put them in.
I got to play as loads of my favourite Marvel characters, and enjoyed encountering a few I wasn't familiar with. I liked mixing up the teams, and though I powered-up several to the degree that I never really wanted to replace my Hawkeye and Spider-Man, sometimes it was just fun to throw some rando into a mission to see what happened.
I'd have liked the dialogue and scripting to have just a little more depth, and not just been a series of soundalike cliches. I would have preferred if it hadn't merely paid lip-service to the notion of a plot. Whole I didn't get those things, I somehow still liked it.
I'm well aware that it's unlikely I'd have enjoyed any of it as much if I didn't have a familiarity with the Marvel Universe - both cinematic and on the page. Yet enjoy it I did, albeit with a bit of a guilty conscience that the license was papering over many, many deficiencies.
SCORE: 616 out of 800
I'm a Marvel Comics kid. I never had the same attachment to DC as I did Marvel. Indeed, when it came to movies, it was the Marvel characters I wanted to see done justice (ironically).
Batman is a grumbly bore, Superman is a impervious bore, Wonder Woman is a sort of regal bore. The best Marvel characters are all messed-up in some way or another. It's why they're compelling; we root for them because of their flaws. Perfect people are dull.
Appropriately, Ultimate Alliance 3 is a flawed, imperfect game.
It has a terrible camera system, sometimes it's easy to lose track of your character in the midst of a battle, strategy is rarely more than button-mashing, and still... it's a really generous game in a lot of ways, in terms how frequently you get new "action figures" to play with, and new playsets to put them in.
I got to play as loads of my favourite Marvel characters, and enjoyed encountering a few I wasn't familiar with. I liked mixing up the teams, and though I powered-up several to the degree that I never really wanted to replace my Hawkeye and Spider-Man, sometimes it was just fun to throw some rando into a mission to see what happened.
I'd have liked the dialogue and scripting to have just a little more depth, and not just been a series of soundalike cliches. I would have preferred if it hadn't merely paid lip-service to the notion of a plot. Whole I didn't get those things, I somehow still liked it.
I'm well aware that it's unlikely I'd have enjoyed any of it as much if I didn't have a familiarity with the Marvel Universe - both cinematic and on the page. Yet enjoy it I did, albeit with a bit of a guilty conscience that the license was papering over many, many deficiencies.
SCORE: 616 out of 800
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