At SDCC, Activision showcased two upcoming games, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 and Singularity. They were kind enough to allow me to spend some time playing demos of both of them last night.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 was without a doubt the highlight of their presentation last night. The game is due out on September 15th, and will feature 24 characters in its playable roster. So far, the “revealed” character roster consists of:

• Spider-Man
• Wolverine
• Iron Man
• Captain America
• Hulk
• Human Torch
• Invisible Woman
• Mr. Fantastic
• Thing
• Thor
• Daredevil
• Luke Cage
• Storm
• Songbird
• Iron Fist
• Deadpool
• Venom
• Green Goblin
• Juggernaut
• Jean Grey (just announced)
• Gambit (just announced)

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Juggernaut in Action

Juggernaut has been announced as a “GameStop pre-order exclusive” character. He was featured in the demo presentation, and was available for use when I sampled the game, and he handles about like you would expect him to. If you want information about the GameStop promotion, it can be found here.

The story itself follows the Civil War event in the comics – basically, you get to choose which side of the Registration issue you fall on, and the story will progress based on your selection. I didn’t get the sense that they were incorporating a moral choice engine here, instead I just got the sense that there were two paths you could follow in this game, so you would have to run through it twice: once from each perspective.

Running through the game for the first time, I have to admit that I feared a repeat of X-Men Legends II here. As many will recall, the basic form of this game traces its lineage back to the original X-Men Legends game (4 heroes at a time, top-down point of view, destructible environment) which was outstanding. The sequel to this game, while fun, did suffer a bit from “too much stuff.” By trying to make the game bigger and badder, they made it more complex, and muted some of the things that made each character special. In releasing the original Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I felt some of these problems were corrected and was a bit wary about what they might bring in the sequel.

Thankfully, my fears seem mostly unfounded. There is a new game play feature to the game, “Power Fusions.” If you will recall from the last Ultimate Alliance game, each character had their own special attack that could use to lay waste to a field of enemies and cause massive damage. That seems to have been replaced with the Power Fusion concept here. Each and every character has a special joint attack with every other character in the game – that is some serious variety. I played on the X-Box 360, and to activate these Power Fusions you would pull the left trigger, and hit the button corresponding to the character you want to use in the pairing. During the ‘event,’ you can often guide the course of the attack, increasing the speed, size, and direction of the elements involved.

During my time with the game, I got to experience several of these Power Fusions – Deadpool and Thor had an interesting combo where Deadpool chucked a bunch of grenades in a tornado to destructive effect. Iron Man and Wolverine had an odd one were Iron Man reflected a beam attack off Wolverine’s claws. Many of the combos involved reflecting attacks off Captain America’s shield – Storm’s Lightning and Human Torch’s flame come to mind there. Juggernaut could do what amounted to a Fastball Special with Wolverine, and Wolverine and Deadpool had this odd tandem charging attack. Clearly there are many, many more combinations, listing them all here would get redundant. I found this change to be a pretty good one – it encourages using many different team combinations throughout the game.

I have to say that the combat mechanics were changed for the better. First off, there were many, many more opponents on the screen at one time. In the last game you’d encounter maybe 3 or 4 at once… I was easily encountering over a dozen at a time here. It was chaos… you are clearly superior to the opponents you are fighting, but you get so overwhelmed by the numbers you actually feel a sense or urgency and danger. This was missing from the previous incarnations of this game, and I found this to be a huge change for the better (this is thanks to technology above all else). And often times elements of your defeated opponents remain behind – it is kind of neat to stand in a pile of robot pieces after plowing through a dozen or so robots who were trying to dog-pile you.

Utilizing basic attacks and abilities works much like it did in previous games, as does the upgrade system. It was fine in the previous incarnations, so if it isn’t broke, why fix it, eh? The different power-sets for the characters has been tweaked a bit, and it was mostly for the better from what I saw. “Fluid” is a good way of putting it – sometime in the last game, some characters didn’t necessarily fight in a way that you might imagine they would. It made certain characters not quite so fun to play with. Granted, I didn’t get the chance to sample every character in the game, but the ones I did play seem to work quite logically.

One aspect of the combat I enjoyed was the fact that different opponents and characters were resistant to certain attacks. Whether they are robots resistant to energy attacks, or even something as basic as Human Torch not taking damage in fire, at points in the game you find you have to adjust your tactics because some enemies are flat out immune to your special attacks. I believe that element is something comic fans will appreciate in particular.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Tinkerer Boss Fight

I also rather enjoyed the ability to revive a fallen ally in the middle of a level – it really was a pain to have to wait for a save location to bring your team back up to four. In fact, there were two notable things missing from the demo – any save location, and the “base” levels (you know, those annoying intra-mission levels where you had to walk around and perform mindless errands and get boring side-quests from the previous games?). I have no idea if these will be in the final version of the game, but if they aren’t, good riddance. The bases were always the most annoying part of Ultimate Alliance and Legends, I can’t say I would be sorry to see them go.

The look of the game is improved, but there were also some elements that were difficult to get used to. Obviously the graphics have taken a step up from the last game, but I was most surprised by the open levels. Both Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends had a bit of a claustrophobic feel… it was fun to smash everything around you, but even the outdoor levels felt very enclosed. That wasn’t the case here at all. When you are outside, there is room to breathe. There is a lot going on at the same time still, but the increased number of enemies makes up for the lack of garbage around you all the time.

The voice acting, what I heard of it, wasn’t too bad. They are definitely getting better at portraying these characters over time, and it reflected in my time with the game. Being a Deadpool fanboy, I was excited that I got to play through his boss encounter almost immediately. Of course, many characters start as bosses that will later join your team after you defeat them. Deadpool is no exception. It was difficult to hear, but he spoke pretty well how you might expect him to – rambling, random, and darkly silly. I am not sure about the voice quality, only because I couldn’t hear it too well (what constitutes “speaking yellow” really is something you have to hear to know if it is right), but he definitely broke the 4th wall, displaying his awareness that he was in a video game. Nice attention to detail there.

There is a lot more to see of this game, but from what I was exposed to, it looks like it is going to be a pretty solid game.

Playing Singularity

I didn’t get quite as much time with Singularity while I was there, but I have to say there is some promise there. For those that haven’t heard of it, Singularity is a First Person Shooter that is built around the discovery of an element called “Element 99” (creative, huh!). Element 99 has displayed an ability to manipulate the time-state of objects it interacts with. The Russians develop this element in an effort to change history and win the Cold War. You get sent in to stop them.

One of the game’s taglines is that you get to “use time as a weapon,” which is pretty accurate. You have two specific weapons towards this end. One is your E-99 Pistol, which fires bullets you can steer. More importantly is your TMD (Time Manipulation Device), which uses Element 99 to alter the time-state of your targets. This can be used on some environment pieces, as well as your enemies. In combat, you can use it to age or revert your opponents (reverting your opponent turns them into a placental rebirth that in turn attacks everything around it, including its allies), or fire an “impulse” which is basically a shove that causes varying degrees of damage, and brings some opponents back into phase. Your TMD can also be used to restore stairways that have crumbled, rust away a lock or a wall, or refill empty oil barrels, among other things.

Looking out a window in Singularity

This is one I am going to have to say has potential, but I need to see more of before I get excited about it. The FPS aspect was about how you would expect – though I have to admit switching between your different weapons and the TMD wasn’t very intuitive. This might be something you need to go through the game’s inevitable beginning tutorial to really grasp. The puzzler aspect could go either way. The TMD seems like a fun idea, but the environment items you can use it on are very limited. In combat its utility is varied and ever-present, but there are only very specific things you can use it on that don’t involve combat. This makes sense, but knowing when and where you are supposed to use it is something the game hopefully spells out for you a little better than the single level I got to play around with.

This game isn’t due out until sometime in the beginning of 2010, so I imagine there will be some improvements before the game is finally released. Singularity is developed by Raven Software, which is also behind the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game, both of which make use of Unreal Engine 3. If you enjoyed X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this might be a game you want to check out.

TITLE INFORMATION

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: Nintendo Wii, X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS
Players: 1-4
Genre: Action RPG
Rating: TBA
Official Website: http://marvelultimatealliance.marvel.com/
Release Date: September 15th. 2009

Singularity
Developer: Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: X-Box 360, Playstation 3, PC
Players: 1, possible multiplayer
Genre: First Person Shooter, Puzzler
Rating: TBA
Official Website: http://www.singularity-game.com/
Release Date: 2010

PLATFORM

Nintendo Wii

DEVELOPER

Next Level Games

PUBLISHER

Nintendo

GENRE

Boxing

# OF PLAYERS

1-2

Rating

E10+

U.S. RELEASE DATE

May 18th. 2009

MSRP

$49.99

OVERVIEW

Little Mac steps back into the ring to regain his belt!

REVIEW

I must admit that I rarely ever follow E3, or any major news items about what game companies are planning to release. This is in part because everything is so sugar-coated (it is sales, after all), but mostly it is because I simply stopped caring about the number one selling point on every game these days – graphics.

Good graphics are essential – don’t get me wrong. But as someone who has grown up gaming, someone who still owns a functioning Atari 2600, someone who is old enough to have had Pac-Man fever, I find it impossible to get excited about what is really an insignificant increase in the graphics quality between the last generation and this one. Improvements in graphics meant something with the leap from 8 bit to 16… and 16 to 64, but these days? Don’t get me wrong – the X-Box 360 HD graphics are indeed gorgeous, but they are hardly enough of an improvement to sell games when game play and originality is so lacking.

Of course, this is what I suspect is the main reason the Nintendo Wii has done so well this generation. Graphics-wise, it is by far the worst of the three consoles. And since it was unveiled, some hard-core gamers have ridiculed it left and right – but it re-introduced gaming to a huge segment of the population who were left behind as games became more and more complex. It has focused on game play above all else, and in my mind is well deserving of its current status as the king of this generation of consoles.

So, with interest in Nintendo as high as we haven’t seen since the Super Nintendo, the old Ninendo franchises got a lot of focus. Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 ended up being incredible games, setting the bar for Nintendo’s First Party titles very high indeed.

Glass Joe

I was 11 years old when Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was first released, and at the time, the game was hard to put down. You knew a good game at that time when you would only stop playing in frustration, only to jump right back in and pump your fist in triumph when you finally figured out how to block Great Tiger’s Tiger Punch, or the timing on Bald Bull’s Bull Charge.

Having missed the announcement that this game would be released (though, I suspected it was in the works when I first saw the Little Mac Trophy in Brawl), I have to admit that I geeked out a bit when I saw my first commercial for this game.

If there is one thing this game got right was its appeal to nostalgia. Everything you remember about Nintendo’s original Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is there – from Mac’s pink warm-up suit, running after his manager’s bike with the New York skyline in the background, to the music – it was all perfectly calculated to invoke some heavy nostalgia, which made this game a lot of fun. Doc Louis even says “Join the Nintendo Fun Clu- I mean Club Nintendo today Mac!” to you in between rounds, which was good for a chuckle. (Of course, the Nintendo Fun Club became Nintendo Power long ago, but there is a Club Nintendo today).

Naturally, the game features heavy use of the motion controls – it even makes use of the Wii Balance Board if you so desire. It seems like a great fit – the idea of bobbing and weaving on the balance board while the Wii Remote and Nunchuck register your punches should make for a fun game, right? Trouble is – the controls are horrible. The Wii’s Motion sensor technology is terribly weak. It is great for certain things – but for Punch-Out!! they work about as well as they do on Wii Sports Boxing, not very well at all. In Wii Sports, though, the imprecise flailing as two friends attempt to knock each other out is fun. In a game where timing and precision is extremely important, it is beyond frustrating. The Balance Board is equally nightmarish – I swear there was a lag between your bob and what happened on the screen.

Mercifully, the game offers a “classic” control scheme, allowing you to turn the controller sideways and play just like the old NES Punch-Out!! game (or identical to the control scheme on the Virtual Console Punch-Out!! download). Mindless flailing instantly became lethal precision, and the game suddenly became incredibly playable.

King Hippo

The game plays exactly like an updated version of that old classic. It retains the same perspective from the classic, with the camera firmly behind Little Mac. The graphics and music are considerably better – updated while maintaining the classic feel. The boxers are the same as well – keeping the whole line-up from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, adding Bear Hugger and Aran Ryan from Super Punch-Out!!, and one new character in Disco Kid. Donkey Kong even makes an appearance as a hidden fighter in the Last Stand Mode. The fight progression is familiar, with Little Mac competing in the Minor, Major, and World Circuits of the World Video Boxing Association, winning the title in each before moving on to the next.

Thus far, you probably are thinking that this is a pretty good game, and in a way it is. The trouble is – it isn’t a new game. After a few days of playing, my interest began to wane. In fact, I only stayed excited about playing this game a little longer than I did when I downloaded the old NES version from the Wii Virtual Console. While it is to the developer’s credit that they worked so hard to emulate the original with the Wii version, the trouble is that they did such a good job that they made the exact same game.

Everything about this game is identical to the NES version. You fight the same, you have the same punch repertoire, you block and dodge the same, the boxers have the same weaknesses and tells, and you even get the same red flash when you are supposed to throw a punch to stop your opponent’s attack. In 1987, this made for a great game. In 2009, its a dinosaur.

When Punch-Out!! first came out, this was really what you could expect from a boxing game. But in terms of evolving game play, this just doesn’t cut it for a boxing game. Where is the footwork? Why do we need a boxing game where each opponent throws the exact same punches fight after fight, so that all you need to do in order to beat them is learn their pattern? Staying true to the original is one thing, but if the makers of Metroid Prime had taken it this far, we’d have gotten a 2-D side-scroller with a fold-out map, instead of a first person shooter.

Soda Popinski

The thing is – this is a fun game, in its own way. The nostalgia-factor alone makes the game a blast. But for $50, you are essentially buying the exact same game that you can get on the Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points (or about $5, give or take). Sure, Punch-out on the Wii has a few more features, but they don’t really add much. The motion controls are frustrating and ultimately worthless, the head-to-head more is interesting for a short time, and the challenges and exhibition mode give you a little more to do, but in the end, you are ultimately playing that old original game in a shinier package.

After it is all said and done, it comes down to the argument this review began with. Do graphics make the game? Here we have a case of two games, one brand new, the other 18 years old. They are virtually identical, except one has better graphics. All things being equal, of course the better graphics will make the newer version better.

But, is it better to the tune of $45? I really don’t think so. In a strange twist, the company behind the console that made its mark by laying aside graphic improvements to instead focus on gameplay have given us a game where they copied 18 year old gameplay mechanics, spruced up the graphics, and called it brand new. And to prove my earlier criticisms of todays hard-core gamer, this game has received near-perfect reviews from all the usual sources.

Sometimes it is hard to know if you should laugh or cry.

Overall Rating:

Punch-Out!! Official Site

Post your comments in the Forum!