The Nintendo Wii gaming console has teamed up with Marvel to offer “Marvel Ultimate Alliance”, a very fine launch title for the popular new gaming console. Marvel Ultimate Alliance has been brought to us by the very same people who made the X-Men Legends 1 and 2 games several years ago. The story that this game uses is fairly basic, revolving around Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four, who has assembled his “masters of Evil” with the intention of doing, well, evil. So the Marvel Ultimate Alliance, the greatest super heroes ever, are called together in order to end this reign of terror and to fight off the mad men. This is a fairly basic theme which is drawn from the Marvel themed comic books, which is where the most expansive stories are told. So this game actually has quite a bit of depth when it comes to enemies, characters and the various locales that are visited during the game. You will not necessarily be incredibly disappointed by the story line, but the experience you will have with this game is not quite as involved as with Tales of Symphonia so try not to expect something like that.
In Marvel Ultimate Alliance you are given a team of more than twenty different heroes that you can play as. As you enter certain scenarios, you are given the opportunity to choose four different team members to play as. Just like in X-Men Legends 2, you can combine many really interesting teams using each set of four heroes as they are given to you. As you progress through the game, you can use both basic melee attacks and super powers in order to gain experience for your characters so that they may level up. As your characters level up, you will receive points which can be spent on new abilities or to improve current abilities as well. For example, Spiderman has different web attacks which you can add to your repertoire or upgrade through the game. Storm also has an interesting set of abilities, including several different weather-related powers, and Wolverine is great for learning different ways to completely maul someone. Some of the abilities that these characters learn are defensive in nature or helpful in some other way, so you may want to focus your attention on strengthening other skills at least in the beginning. There are a lot of different upgrades which can be added for each character which makes it fun to customize each one as the game play progresses.
One advantage that only applies to the Wii version of this game is that you can use the “Wii mote” remote controller to equip the super powers to your characters at any time, and then can simply wave the Wii mote remote in order to activate the powers when you are ready to use them. Many of the basic attacks used in this game can also be done using the Wii mote, either by shaking, flipping or thrusting it during game play. The A button will work just fine for basic attacks, but varying your attacks helps to gain a better strategy. The game play for Marvel Ultimate Alliance is proof positive that great things can be done when you combine the Wii mote remote and the “nunchuk” controller.
If you have played this game on either the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3, you may not be all together impressed by the graphics, because these other consoles have much improved frame rates and better looking graphics, but the graphics on the Wii definitely get the job done as long as you have a decently operating television. The graphics in this game are definitely much improved if you compare them to the older X-men Legends 1 and 2, though, so cut them a little bit of slack even if they do not meet your expectations.
Overall, this is a great game for anyone who enjoyed either X-men Legends 1, or X-men Legends 2, or anyone who enjoys Marvel in general. If you are not a big Marvel fan, this game is still worth renting because it offers a really great RPG experience even if you are not typically into RPG games.
RuneScape is an incredibly addicting online role playing game that has become a favorite past time of many online gamers, some of which have been playing for several years now. The game play is straight forward and easy to pick up on, as all players are created or spawned in the same area, and you can easily make friends, talk with other plays and watch people play in order to pick up some information on the game. There are a lot of low-level bad guys in the beginning of the game that new players can kill to gain some starting experience. The play interface is extremely easy and involves navigating with your mouth as typing using your keyboard to communicate. There are icons on the screen that work as menus so you can keep a friends list, a private message system and an ignore list among other features. You can easily add and remove friends, and communicate with other people on the game. The only bad thing I ever found in RuneScape was a large amount of “noobs”, players refusing to admit that they do not know what they are doing when they are new to the game. As far as game play is concerned, this game definitely deserves a 10/10.
The main aspect of RuneScape is character building, and there are many different skills that your characters can advance in, including fishing, mining, cooking and smithing. You can also raise your combat level as you play. When your character is first created, you get to choose the way it looks, and which class your character will be as well. For example, you can choose a warrior for your class and then it will determine which equipment and skills you will begin with, but that is the only thing your class actually has influence on in the game. Warriors start with wooden shields and bronze short swords, for example. And a Warrior generally begins with relatively high skills in combat. On the other hand, a wizard would begin with a staff and a wizard’s hat and higher magic skills with lower combat skills. There are three additional classes; adventurer, miner and ranger, that you can choose. Your stats are generally low when you begin the game, but there are steps that you can take to raise them, such as mining a rock in order to increase your mining statistic. Stats also tend to depend on one another, such as the relationship between smithing and mining which requires you to mine ores and smelt them in a furnace in order to make equipment from the metals. In character building, this game definitely deserves a 10/10 because there is plenty of character building and expanding in this game.
There is no real main story in RuneScape, but there are a lot of small quests which can be completed, and each of these quests has its own story. Every character also has its own story, so while RuneScape does not have a drawn out plot, it certainly is not without stories in its own right. Because there is no main theme or story, RuneScape deserves a 7/10 in this category.
The graphics in RuneScape are not amazing, but they were made in JAVA and look pretty awesome considering they are MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) graphics created using JAVA. The creators of this game are constantly working on graphic updates, so while the graphics may not presently be ideal, all hope is not lost for them. Old sprites will eventually be replaced by better looking images, and textures are rumored to be greatly improved. In the graphics department, RuneScape only deserves a 5/10, but improved graphics will change this rating significantly.
The free version of the game has no sound, but you can purchase a better version with sound effects for $5 every month.
RuneScape is an incredibly addicting game, which grants it a 10/10 on the Replay ability scale, because even after you beat all the quests for your character, you can continue to play or you can create another character and begin again with new stats and a different class. And because there is so much room for communication in the game, you can always just walk around and chat with friends even if you are not actively playing.
Videogames released as a tie-in to a big movie tend to be disappointing. Especially when that movie is a sequel, expected to be a blockbuster, and is a somewhat shallow summer released created to offer simple entertainment. However, there have been enough good movie-based videogames that gamers still hold out hope when a new one is released. The new Pirates of the Caribbean videogame turns out to be very solid and will please fans of the movie of all ages.
Each of the movies in the Pirates of the Caribbean series have been, in their own right, epics. Yes, they are somewhat silly and perhaps aimed more at children than adults, but they are truly triumphs of special effects and tell huge stories that span the seas themselves. Sadly the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End action adventure videogame is not so epic. Instead we get what is basically a hack-and-slash action videogame that loosely follows the story of the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The point of the game is more to let you fight as Jack Sparrow rather than acting out the complex storyline and going through all of the twists and turns. The Pirates of the Caribbean game does tend to get some story elements wrong when compared to the movie, but the gist of it is correct and I am sure some changes had to be made to help the story be easier to understand in the context of the game.
The movie stars do not perform the voice acting in the game, and this is quite obvious when you hear the characters speak. While the voice acting will not trick you into thinking that movie stars were a part of it, the performance are close enough that the game is enjoyable. Also, there is not a lot of dialogue in the game since it is action-driven, so the voice acting is not very important.
The game is visually very impressive, but not as much so as the movies are. This is to be expected as the game as to be rendered in real time while the computer generated effects in the movie are pre-rendered. However, after seeing the movies the game does not look nearly as slick and polished. The graphics are quite good compared to other fast-paced actions games out at the moment. The environmental effects help give the game a lot of ambiance and help draw you into the experience. With any fast-paced action game the character animations are extremely important. Everything has to be fluid and convincing or the game will just look awkward no matter how good the textures and character models are. Luckily the animations in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End are very good. For reference, they are on par with the Dead or Alive games, Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry. The pre-rendered cut scenes are also fantastic and show some great ship battles.
Game play and controls are also very important to action games and Pirates of the Caribbean does not disappoint. Combat is the most important element in the game and it is generally accomplished by pressing two buttons and using special tactics such as making use of the environment around you. The levels also include some light puzzle-solving elements, but they are simple enough that they do not get frustrating. You also sometimes have to defend allies and fight bosses, which require changes in tactics. The controls do not allow a huge amount of freedom, but they feel very organic and make a lot of sense for this style of game. The combat system lacks depth, but it keeps the action fast and fresh and makes the game easy to pick up and play. While Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End can be enjoyed be adults, it is also designed so that children can play it successfully. The easy puzzles and simple controls will not frustrate any children and cause them to constantly get stuck at certain points in the game.
The main draw of the game is that it allows you to play as Jack Sparrow, a very interesting and unique character. The animations and simple controls allow you to easily accomplish the feats that Jack Sparrow accomplishes in the movie with the same sense of style and flair that he does it with. It would be a shame if the swagger of Jack Sparrow did not translate into the controls and animations, as it would leave gamers as if they were not really controlling the character they know from the movies.
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