Reviews// Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

Visually, Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the Wii is passable. It looks a bit better than the PS2 version, but predictably not as good as the 360 edition. The characters are good approximations of their comic book originals, and move appropriately. The backgrounds are detailed if lacking the polish of their 360 counterpart.

Moving constantly through dungeon-like backdrops does get a bit tiresome, however. One of the great things about comics is that an unlimited special effects budget means unlimited locations. As such, swimming through Atlantis should be spectacular, but instead it just feels like the other levels with more blue shading.

Not only does it become tiresome, it can also be downright claustrophobic, especially when your team goes into combat. It was great having four of my favourite characters on screen at the same time, but when they're all bashing the same guy it’s hard to see what you're actually doing. I found myself switching reflexively to the Wii equivalent of furious button bashing (which is furious remote-waving, and it gets dangerous).

What you really want to know, however, is how well the much vaunted Wii controls let you play. The answer is... okay. I was expecting to be making crazy movements to throw Cap's shield or swing Ghostrider's chains around my head - putting people around me in copious amounts of danger. I didn't need to. I tried, but everyone in the office laughed.

It's quite possible to play Ultimate Alliance without ever leaving your chair. Movement is controlled by the thumbstick on the Nunchuck, with the [C] button taking care of leaping/flying, and [Z] doing things (pushing, lifting, picking your nose). This leaves the fighting to the Wii remote.

The [A] button covers basic attacks, as well as combining with the [B] trigger to set loose super-powers. Annoyingly, this limits you to one power being used at any given time. Powers are switched using the D-Pad, but in the thick of battle it's difficult to tell what you've selected. With the [A] button doing the grunt work, other attacks (such as tripping moves and pop-up attacks) are taken care of by movements of the remote.

These movements are not very complex, however. It's a question of simple swiping and prodding: there's no Wii Boxing-style punch swinging with Wolverine's claws. Button hits have basically been replaced by simple movements. This came as a bit of a disappointment.

It's not a bad control system. In particular, I enjoyed playing an action/beat 'em up game with controls that allow my hands to act independently. But it's not a great control system either. A clever and innovative use of the Wii remote and Nunchuck to use the huge range of superpowers on offer could have really made this a stand-out title, but instead it just feels okay.

SPOnG Rating: B-
Overall Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a decent game. Would I buy it? Yes. But if it wasn't littered with my favourite fictional people, probably not. And I'd probably ditch the Wii control system in favour of better graphics on the 360 too. In fact, it might have fared better if it had been scaled down a bit. More focus on individual characters might have yielded more interesting use of their powers with the control system, and might have given the Wii version a leg up over its next-gen competition. As it is, it feels just okay.