It took me four fucking days to buy this game. Four days! Problems ranging from it being out of stock to Tesco’s arbitrary closing of their entertainments department at 10pm despite being a so called ’24 Hour Store’. Seems like a lot to go through, trying every day for four days to purchase a game, but really it wasn’t… when you think about the 18 months I’d already had to wait for it.

The original Marvel Ultimate Alliance is one of the best action RPGs I’ve ever played. Never mind the fact that it’s crammed with Marvel superheroes from Spider-Man to Captain America to The Human Torch, but  as a stand alone bit of gamery it’s aces. I originally completed it on the PS2, which I took a week off of work to do, and when I got a 360 later that same year it was the first game I bought. I played it through twice by myself and again on the Co-Op with my flatmate, I’d probably have played it through again with the Heroes and Villains character packs I downloaded from the Live Arcade, if my mate Lambley hadn’t borrowed it and then got mugged on his way to give it back.

So when they announced a sequel, the story of which was to be based on the hugely successful ‘Civil War’ crossover from the comics, I was fucking delighted. Release date set as October 2008.

But the pushed it back.

February 2009.

March 2009.

August 2009.

Then finally, September 18th 2009, it lands. Sadly I’m out of the country and so when I finally get it this week [on Monday] I was so anxious and het up about playing it I actually made some tea and had a bit of a sit down before I switched on the console.

The story is hugely engaging from the start, playing up to the point where your team must choose between Registration and Rebellion ]Wikipedia ‘Marvel Civil War’ if you want to know any sort of background on the story] and then things fork off and certain characters are no longer available to add to your team but others are unlocked to counter balance it.

I enjoyed the game, and I’m still enjoying it. I’m actually playing both forks right now, having saved the game before I made my choice and then made both choices in separate saves. I’ve not completed it yet but I have spent the majority of my hours since purchasing the game playing it, so I won’t be far off.

Sadly this isn’t going to be a hugely praising review… it’s a critique, because while I do like the game and am vert glad to be able to play it, I can’t help but compare it to the first one. Which is so much better.

It’s not the game’s fault. They’ve made this horrible mistake of looking at the original game and then spending two years taking things away from it.

There are no bonuses for keeping the same team for extended periods of time. In fact you’re encouraged to switch team members as often as possible. Without the team bonus there’s no earning of extra spaces, for subs. No health bar/power bar extension awards. You can’t assign the powers to buttons anymore and there are only four powers per character, instead of the ten or so in the original game. Trying out all the powers on all the characters to see which compliment each other the best so that you can personalise your team to your liking was part of the fun in the first one. That’s all gone.

They have introduced the Fusion moves, which when you build up the momentum allows you to combine powers between two members of your team to create a devastating double attack. Which is ace, but that would have been awesome on top of the other stuff rather than instead of.

Also the original game, which I’ll refer to henceforth as UA, allowed you to unlock three alternate costumes for every hero. This was awesome! The customisable options on the thing were immense. You’ve chosen all the best powers on all the best heroes and now you can choose all your favourite costumes! Black Costume Spider-Man, Ultimate Ironman, WWII Captain America and Smart Casual Human Torch. Fucking amazing.

UA2 is not completely devoid of alternative costumes. You can earn them for each of the 23 characters… but just one each. One alternative costume per character. Why take that away? Away from the game, every single hero/villain featured has at the very least three possible costumes. That’s the original and two spares. Even these two spares would have been all right. Just the one is a piss take. It sounds like a small thing but the individual touches you could add to your team were really important in UA. They made them feel like your team. Now they’re just a team. Not A-team, but a team. Singular. Not specific to me… or you.

The storyline is excellent, taking its cues from Civil War but branching off into new subplots to extend the game and keep it all fresh for those of us who actually read Civil War. However there’s not as much to do. In UA there were the missions, but by talking to people throughout the game you could pick up extra side missions which could be completed or not at your pleasure. Find Hank Pyms’ research files in the Triskelion and you’ll get some more XP, maybe earn a new power or add a new character to the roster. That’s all gone for UA2. There aren’t even as many people to talk to in the off periods of the game. Everyone knocking about in the HQ in UA2 is there purely to advance the story. No chit chat finding out about people’s origins or enjoying a couple of in jokes. It’s all business for Ultimate Alliance 2. Everything is about the mission.

Which is a shame because the missions are all very similar. Go here, smash/collect/activate this. Defeat this person, then this person, then the first person again. End.

UA had a variety of different boss fights, for example, ranging from the standard fight to the quick-time extravaganza of battling Galactus. Thus far UA2 has presented me with one giant boss [in the form of Yellow Jacket for the Rebel team and Goliath for the Pro-Reg lot] and then numerous standard fights with various characters. Fighting War Machine is no different to fighting Hercules is no different to fighting Multiple Man etc… and it should be. The characters are all so unique I don’t see why they’d take all these things away.

Speaking of characters, some of the choices for playable characters are so left field it’s like being in ‘Leftfield’.

This is probably only noticeable to a comic fan, but Songbird? Who the fuck cares?

No Bullseyes, Hercules, War Machine, Multiple Man, Cable, Bishop, Winter Soldier? I mean they’re all there, apart from Winter Soldier, but they’re not playable. I think there might be less playable characters in this than in the first one.

I mean it sounds like I’m just razzling the game to bits, and that’s harsh because I really do like it, but the first one is just so much more and I can’t get my head around why they’d get a really popular game and rip away so much of it.

Ultimately [neh-hehe] Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is a game far too stripped down of the original’s best features. Even when not compared with its predecessor the missions are somewhat repetitive and there’s very little in the way of achievement or award. You can pretty easily just run through all the levels, Sonic the Hedgehog style, and probably complete this thing in a few hours and there’d be nothing to look back in regret for.

If you like Marvel Superheroes and you wanna play a game full of them, get the first one. If you play the first one and then feel like you want some more with a different story, get this one.