Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - REVENGE!

So von Bardas is dead and the heroes are chilling out back at Stark Tower. We're still dealing with story setup at this point. The main story hasn't gotten underway yet. Now if you've played the last game, you know that it ended with Galactus threatening to come to Earth and take revenge. I was really hoping that story would be fleshed out. Sadly it's not. The Civil War story really isn't that new. The Mutant Registration Act from the X-Men series caused a similar split. The big difference this time is that all the Heroes get broken up into loyal government dogs or traitorous rebels. It's all a matter of perspective.

So we take the next mission. There's something about Ms. Marvel having gone missing while exploring (aka captured) so a whole team is sent in to investigate. Into the sewers we go. I had Green Goblin on my team, that guy is fun to use. I also took along Ms. Marvel. I felt that she should help rescue herself. Like most of the game the sewers are straight forward. There are a few hidden items off to the sides and your normal variety of destructible items.

Speaking of destructible, what is with the sounds effects in this game? Everything seems so muted. It really seems like the placeholder effects are still in the game and someone forgot to switch them out for the real sounds. It's really distracting. If I throw a missile at someone I want it to explode like I threw a missile. Make it BIG! But for some reason this game really holds back.

In the sewers we finally find Ms. Marvel, she's being held captive by Shocker. Oh goody a pathetic Spider-Man villain. And that's pretty much describes the fight. Shocker is nothing to be impressed with even if I wasn't already overpowered. But I find myself starting to wonder who my healer is... Do I even have one? I don't remember one from my last playthrough. Hmm...

With Ms. Marvel freed we head down an elevator to a...factory? Why is there a factory below the sewers? I've always thought of the sewers as the bottom floor, unless we ever get invaded by mole people or something. But sure enough there's a factory. There's some machinery to destroy, but for me the best part of the factory are the robots in the containers. Masses of robots will just come pouring out of various containers all nicely lined up and ready to be destroyed. Think of them as free XP.

Again, the factory is pretty straight forward. There's a fight against the Grim Reaper. He does this thing where he runs around with his blade spinning in front of him. He's invincible during that time. When he's not invincible you can just crush him. Move on past the downed Reaper, run through the factory and eventually you'll reach a big and fairly tough boss battle.

Cyborg Von Bardas

Lucia Von Bardas lives! Technically, she's now a cyborg and a pretty ugly one too. She reminds me of a lizard. She's recovered pretty quickly since it's only been one year to the day since she was blown up. But she's here in New York looking for revenge. There are four cannons setup around at the corners of the arena and each cannon has a super-villain controlling it. The cannons are all targeted at New York City. Now that just won't do.

This fight can quickly get out of hand if you're not careful. When you destroy a cannon Von Bardas will take the villain controlling it and then drop them into battle. This is what I like about this fight. You have to watch what you're doing. There are normal enemies running around and if you destroy the cannons to quickly you can have up to four super-villains joining in the fun. Super-villains are fine to fight normally, but if you start throwing in multiple villains along with normal enemies and environmental dangers then things can get tough. I find it best to take out a cannon, take down the villain who was driving it and then move onto the next cannon. Do this four times for the next stage of the fight.

I actually don't understand why they setup the next stage the way then did. Von Bardas will officially join the battle. I guess she's using the super-villains life force to create a shield for herself. It doesn't really make any sense, but this is comic book logic we're talking about here. Mix that with video game logic and things can get out of hand quickly. You have to take down each of the super-villains again, but they only have a sliver of health this time. Every time you do Von Bardas loses her shield for a little while. That is your obvious sign to attack.

Like I said, I really like the first part of this battle. It's got that fun frantic atmosphere that can keep you on your toes. There's lots going on, but it never feels horribly overwhelming. The fight against Lucia herself is a bit of a let down. Sure there's still environment stuff to dodge, but it's just not as fun at this point.

Once Von Bardas is down we get to see a cutscene. Super-heroes are helping to clean up the disaster, but it's been leaked to the press that the heroes are actually responsible for the problem since this is retaliation for the covert raid into Latveria last year. Turns out that wasn't a mission sanctioned by the government. Fury is wanted for questioning but he's gone into hiding. Already the heroes are starting to fear that the government will take some kind of action against them.

And that's pretty much where we're at.