MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE

Activision, PS3/Xbox 360, $59.99 Wii $49.99 PS2/Xbox $39.99

A comic book fetishists wet dream, Marvel Ultimate Alliance has managed to squeeze twenty of Marvel’s finest into a button mashing extravaganza (though a total of 140 either make good-guy cameos or otherwise try to whip the universe into upheaval.) You’ll take an assembled team of four heroes up against some of the most famous supervillians in the history of comics ranging from Dr. Doom and Galactus as well as a handful that are so obscure you’ll have to fire up Wikipedia to figure out who the hell they are (such as the super bad…Grey Gargoyle…) You’ll battle your way through various futuristic factories and underwater kingdoms, ultimately (pun intended) leading you into a descent on the hideouts of evildoers. In one scene, while you’re crashing Arcade’s pad, you’ll have to play through a bit of the classic Atari 2600 game Pitfall in all of its crappy graphics glory. But instead of Pitfall Harry hopping alligator heads, and swinging from vines, Spider-Man or Captain America will be traversing the danger. It’s fun stuff. The game’s greatest flaw, however, is that the individual superheroes have no time to shine on their own. MUA is in the spirit of Gauntlet, so you’re crew of four is basically running around mazes and cracking heads, which is fun, but unfortunately the camera stays far enough away that you can’t really dig in and feel like Thor hammering away or Mr. Fantastic stretching his rubbery limbs. But, of course, even that light criticism is moot if you’re the proud owner of a Stan Lee tattoo. Todd Zuniga

www.activision.com 

Love: The Whopping Geekdom that Comes with 140 Marvel Characters

Hate: Game Moves too Fast to Really Enjoy the Superpowers

Score: 8/10