Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Review (AnuBisOBeast)
Like most of the reviewers on here I purchased Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on a pure nostalgia kick.
The Ultimate Alliance series along with its predecessor, X-Men Legends, were really fun to play (and replay) with my friends back in the day. All of them are still definitely my favorite style of co-op games, i really appreciated how each player can pick a character to match their own playstyle.
You feel like hanging back and blasting fools from a distance with projectiles? Done.
Wanna mow through 'em one by one like a tank? Go for it.
Oh, you prefer to stick to the skies and rain down haymakers? No problemo!
The flexibility in how you approached each stage was (and still is) awesome, countless hours were spent playing through the story with different combinations of teams and it was cool to see how certain team combos were given boosts i.e. Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-men etc.
Unfortunately, when it comes to this port on Steam, i'm just not interested in spending more hours than the few that i already have on an otherwise great game... as you will see in other reviews, controllers are virtually un-usable due to the button mapping. The fact that the game is still being offered for purchase with this major issue is insulting to the series and to the community. It's like expecting people to pay for a car that they can barely drive and having no issues with selling such a sub-par product... even on a sale it's questionnable.
I hope that Steam will increase their standards for what they allow to be sold on here. With this major issue, it would make more sense that you tell the publisher to fix it with a patch or otherwise remove it from the store completely if they fail to do so within a given time. In its current state, it's honestly not doing anyone any good, and hasn't been for a long time.
===== Verdict =====
Visually it runs really well on high settings with no bugs (so far), but that's pretty much where the pros stop.
I'm being really generous here when i say that i recommend this game, and that's only because i absolutely love this game, especially when the plot takes you to Asgard since i'm a big fan of Norse mythology. More so, i recommend it only because technically it does work on my setup after taking a good 20 minutes to map the buttons on keyboard and peripherals. I bought this game purely to enjoy it with friends again, but since controllers don't work, i'm left playing it on my own which takes a lot away from the game's potential experience that i remember.
If you love this series and don't mind playing it alone on keyboard + peripherals (i don't, game runs beatifully), then this games for you.
If you don't subscribe to the above points, honestly just skip it and spend your money on something else. You will be dissapointed...
========== SPECS ==========
ASUS ROG G701Vi-XS72K
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
i7-7820HK 2.9 GHz (8M cache, up to 3.9 GHz)
GTX 1080 (8 GB DDR5)
32 GB DDR4 2800 MHz
Peripherals Used for Review
Razer Naga
Razer Orbweaver