threevue

I realize that this game has been out for a while already, but the demo dropped today onto the Xbox Live Marketplace so I decided to give it a whirl. I didn’t play much of the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance, mostly because it reminded me too much of an underwhelming X-men: Legends game I played on the PSP waaaay back in 2004.

I like that they tried to expand the scope of the game a bit by including bright, outdoor levels. It makes the always-dungeony isometric view a little more palatable and wide. The graphics look prettier, and there seems to be more combat going on at once than before. Unfortunately, the same thing that mires down all games like this is exacerbated in MUA2’s new scheme – I had the damnedest time figuring out which character I was controlling and who was a good/bad guy.

The demo only lasted about 5-10 minutes (that’s including the fact that half the demo is cutscenes), which wasn’t a fair enough assessment of how repetitive the combat will be. I’m assuming it’ll be the same story as the previous game, which means that if you’re into this kind of game you’ll like it. Otherwise, if you were thinking that this was the iteration of the series you were going to jump into, you might want to wait for a better sequel.