Perhaps most impressively, MUA was able to honor the source material while delivering a fun, action-packed game experience, with accessible and satisfying combat backed up by solid character-advancement and team-based systems. For me personally, it's probably the most enjoyable comic-based video game I've ever played. Needless to say, my expectations for the sequel are quite high. I got to see Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 in action for the first time on the Xbox 360 during GDC last week, and it seems intent on delivering as big and explosive an experience as its predecessor, though it's definitely going about it in a different way.
Since Raven's busy testing the limits of how gory a Marvel-licensed game can be with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Vicarious Visions is handling development duties on MUA2. Vicarious Visions doesn't have quite the same development track record as Raven, but it's certainly familiar with the franchise, having worked on the Wii and PSP ports of the original, in addition to building the Alchemy Engine that powered MUA. Unsurprisingly, with a new creative team comes a new creative direction for the series.
The Civil War won't just be window-dressing, either. No real specifics were given, but at a point in the game, you'll actually have to choose which side of the conflict you stand on, which will have a significant effect on how the rest of the game will play out. The decision to focus on the Civil War storyline seems indicative of the tone that Vicarious Visions is trying to establish with MUA2. The first game was happy to embrace some of the weirder, cornier bits of Marvel's history, but its sequel seems intent on capturing the grittier, more serious tone of modern Marvel comics.
Before you get to any of that, though, the game starts off with Nick Fury calling on Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine to investigate some strange goings-on back in Doctor Doom's home country of Latveria. This is where the actual demo that Vicarious Visions was showing off took place. As our fearsome foursome fought its way through the dank Latverian streets, the most immediately noticeable change was the camera angle. While the camera in MUA defaulted to an eye-in-the-sky perspective, here it was something closer to a third-person view. It provides more visibility at incoming enemies, though the camera will also zoom in or out depending on the action, giving the action a more dynamic feel.
In addition to the four heroes you'll start off with, we got to see a few of the other characters you'll play as, including Thor, Iron Fist, the Human Torch, and Songbird, and the demo culminated in a battle against regular Spider-Man baddie Electro. All told, MUA2 will ship with 24 playable characters, though while chatting with Vicarious Visions cofounder Guha Bala I learned that, much like the original, additional characters will be made available as post-release DLC.
I was intrigued by what was shown of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I came in fairly skeptical of the fusion attack stuff, but it looks cool, and it doesn't necessarily forsake the existing combat systems of the first game. The serious Civil War-inspired storyline isn't what I would've expected after the fantastical events of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but I'm definitely curious to see how it will play out.
