Tag Archive: thor


When Heroes Collide

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April 24, 2010

Originally Published: October 5, 2009, to 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com), Lundberg.me, and Comicvine.com

Marvel, a while ago, had put out a series of action RPGs involving four-person teams of some of your favorite heroes. Two X-men games, a couple of Fantastic Four titles, and the crème de le crème that culminated in the title that was Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, a joining of many of the heroes from the Marvel Universe, that did extraordinarily well with an original plot line and the game allowed you to mix and match your favorite heroes in any way you saw fit.

The best part of MUA was that it left itself wide open for a sequel involving Galactus, maybe the Silver Surfer, and an even larger array of heroes that encompassed the whole of the Marvel Universe.

But when MUA 2 came out, instead, it looked like the folks at Activision and Vicarious Visions who took over this series of games got lazy and didn’t feel like coming up with an entirely new script again. They took two of the biggest Marvel story arcs in recent history with Nick Fury’s Secret War and the Superhero Civil War and changed the ending so that if they ever decide to be original again, then they can.

Incase you are unfamiliar with these plots I will give you a quick summary: basically Fury’s War was a private attack on Dr. Doom’s Latveria (in this case after the events of MUA 1) as the new governess was also a weapons trafficker and designer. The Civil War pitted hero against hero as the government tried to make superheroes reveal their secret identities by registering with the government to make them liable for collateral damage after the New Warriors underestimated a group of villains in Stamford, CT, and 612 people were killed in the ensuing battle.

I’ll give credit where it is due in that Activision and Vicarious Visions stayed as true to the original comic arcs as they could before trying to get cute in bringing everyone together, but considering they had a plot for a sequel already lined up, it boggles my mind that they would put it on the backburner for something that die-hards spent far too long reading about to begin with.

Aside from my frustrations over the lack of a truly original plot though, this game is just as good as the first MUA in every other aspect. The cut scenes look beautiful and the voice acting is top-notch although I could’ve had a few more lines recorded for each character during the actual gameplay (how many times can you hear “HULK SMASH ALL THERE IS!” before it becomes tiresome?).

The gameplay is everything you would expect from an action RPG with some characters being much better than others and the new Fusion feature makes for some awesome team up moves like the classic “Fastball Special”. Since Colossus isn’t a playable character though, the Hulk, Thing, or Juggernaut (GameStop pre-orders only) stand-in for Wolverine’s X-men tin can teammate. There are a few minor glitches with your characters or enemies sometimes becoming trapped in corners and force you to switch characters to get them out, but aside from that, the game is relatively smooth.

The replay value is also very strong for the game because the only way to unlock everything would be to play through at least twice, once pro-registration and once anti-registration. Of course, the course you choose also affects the characters you can play with. Anyone familiar with the story arcs shouldn’t be surprised that only by choosing anti-registration can they get Luke Cage, Captain America, and Iron Fist and that only by choosing pro-registration can they get Iron Man, Songbird, and Mr. Fantastic.

Of course, once you beat the game one time through, you can play the second time through with any of the 25 playable characters as well as unlock the hardest difficulty. The best team to do that in the least amount of time would be Wolverine, Deadpool, Hulk, and Iron Fist. I don’t know why Iron Fist is as strong as he is, but he’s one of the best characters in the game because he can heal your entire team and Wolverine and Deadpool have healing factors, which makes the trio nearly impossible to kill. And then there is the Hulk (only available at the beginning if you get the game from Best Buy) and like I said before: HULK SMASH ALL THERE IS. Enough said.

In the end, anyone who is a comics fan and followed these story arcs should get this game because it is awesome to see the comics come to life and to see the various personalities of the Marvel Universe mix and mingle on your TV. I’m looking forward to MUA 3 even more now because I still want to see Galactus!

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 8.0: This gets a slightly better than average score because the cut scenes are awesome, but the regular gameplay graphics are okay at best because of having so many enemies on screen at one time to prevent lag. Typical of these games, but I still have to call them on it.

Audio: 9.0: Great voice acting mixed in with great sound effects make this a strong score, but the music was generic for the most part. The MUA 2 theme for the game was really good though so the audio gets a great score overall.

Plot/Plot Development: 6.5: MUA 2 gets a barely passing score on plot because two-thirds of the game isn’t original whatsoever. They then made up an ending that was so far from the comics it is ridiculous, just to bring everyone together so that they can make a third game with a plot they hinted at in the first game should the opportunity present itself. It passes though because at least they stayed relatively true to the parts they did steal straight from the comics.

Gameplay: 7.0: This game is a button masher, plain and simple. You press the same couple of buttons to attack and occasionally team up with your pals to do it, but overall there isn’t a lot of depth to the gameplay. Add in a couple of glitches and it is okay at best.

Replay Value: 10.0: Needing to play through the game twice to unlock everyone and everything, along with 4 play online co-op and more collectibles than I can remember and there is a lot to bring you back to this game. It will take you probably 25-30 hours to find everything in the game if you play through it twice.

Overall (not an average): 7.5: Even though it isn’t the prettiest game, or the most original, the game is still good. Not great and definitely not ground-breaking, but if you are a fan of the Marvel universe, you will definitely enjoy this game. Add in some great surprises at the end and you will walk away with a smile on your face.

-Ray Carsillo

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Ray Smash Puny Movies!

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April 18, 2010

Originally Published: February 6, 2009, for Collider.com and 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

Its efforts like this from Marvel that have almost made me “Hulk-out” on many an occasion. I will give them some credit; their timing is impeccable. A few months after the release of the solid Incredible Hulk remake with Edward Norton on DVD, days before the New York Comic Con, and only a couple of months before Wolverine: Origins hits theatres, Marvel Studios drops this little wannabe gem on us called Hulk VS.

“Versus who?” you ask. Well, who do you want to see fight the Hulk? This is after all the question that the folks at Marvel seemed to ask themselves since this effort is just a huge piece of fan fiction to drive the fan-boys into frenzied fits at comic-conventions.

Hulk VS. is a straight to DVD release that contains not one, but TWO “movies”. I have to put those magical punctuations around the word “movies” with this because something that can be strung across a pair of Saturday morning cartoon episodes should not be considered an actual movie. To try to make this geek-gasm on a disc worth your money, Marvel paired two separate Hulk adventures onto this DVD and even then it times out to only 82 minutes.

First, we see the not-so-jolly green giant take on the man who is “the best at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice”. A pre-X-MEN Wolverine has been tasked by his Department H headmasters to locate and subdue a monster who is wreaking havoc in the Canadian countryside. Dept. H is a fictional spin on Canada’s CSIS, by the way. Fictional, of course, because who expects Canada to have any REAL intelligence agency? After picking up the scent, Wolverine begins to track the Hulk across the Canadian Rockies.

The action quickly picks up as Wolverine finds a quivering Bruce Banner in the woods and he wants to know why there is a half-naked man in freezing temperatures out in the middle of nowhere. Wolverine’s subsequent threats get under Banner’s skin, transforming Banner into his worse half and the highlight of the “movie” ensues with a defining battle taking place with moments from all the Hulk vs. Wolverine battles that have happened over the past 30 years, again catering to the fan-boys. Before it can end, Sabertooth, Lady Deathstrike, Deadpool, and Omega Red appear out of nowhere. We then see a montage of Wolverine’s origin story, which is not explained so if you are unfamiliar with the character, you end up lost, confused, and frustrated because I thought the Hulk was supposed to be the main character here and we just had every major bad guy and moment from Wolverine’s history thrown into a five minute montage. The story then continues in a Wolverine and Hulk TEAM-UP against the Weapon X rejects. After they are defeated, the Hulk and Wolverine go back to fighting each other, for no apparent reason, and the credits start to roll on a freeze frame a la Rocky vs. Apollo Creed like they were two friends sparring in some eternal duel.

This first DVD is a complete and utter disappointment. The things that made me furious as a comics fan far outweigh the handful of positives in this. When all the special features vignettes outlast the actual “movie” by almost 20 minutes each, you know you got off on the wrong foot.

The only positives were that the animation style kept in line with the popular Japanese style that many American animation studios have adapted in recent history (starting in 1992 with Batman: The Animated Series and continuing through most major superhero cartoons up to this point) and living up to those standards, they tried to make it play like a comic story arc, and the introduction of Deadpool to animation.

The negatives include the horrible character development, the fact that the name of the title is Hulk vs. Wolverine and it ended up being Hulk and Wolverine vs. Weapon X, the horrible animation model for Sabertooth, who looked nearly the same size as Wolverine, the fact that the entire movie could have been done over the course of a Saturday morning special, and you just have a frustrating, disjointed viewing experience as if you were reading a comic story arc, but missed several issues. If you are a diehard comics fan then you will probably be able to sit through it because you already know the back stories and will recognize the many, many references the “movie” makes to the comics, but if you are a casual fan, this would not be for you. Add in a few typical behind the scenes vignettes and special commentary packages and the special edition part of this disc is not very special at all.

The second piece in this two part Hulk-fest sees Mr. “You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry” against the mighty Thor, the Norse God of Thunder in the aptly titled: Hulk vs. Thor. This second “movie” was a lot better than the first. With a narrated opening montage that explains all you need to know about Asgard (realm of the Norse gods) and the characters in play, the plot is revealed within the first five minutes and the rest is non-stop smashing. Loki, the Norse God of Mischief and Evil has separated Bruce Banner from the essence that is the Hulk and unleashed him on Asgard during its weakest hour.

Without Banner to keep the Hulk tethered to humanity, the Hulk rampages throughout Asgard, laying waste to all in his path and all that stands between Hulk and the complete destruction of Asgard is Thor. The Hulk, being the only thing that could compete with a god, handily smashes Thor. Loki is betrayed though by his minion, the nicely drawn Enchantress, who revives Thor because it seems she’s got a crush on Mr. Goldilocks. She reveals what Loki has done and the rest of the movie is cut between Thor trying to reunite Banner with the Hulk and Hulk just laying waste to the rest of Asgard’s army as he makes a beeline towards the temporarily incapacitated Odin (near omnipotent king of the gods) with Thor finally succeeding in the end.

This “movie” was much better in terms of establishing the plot and giving the heroes an objective. Still though, being only 45 minutes, again this could have been done over a pair of Saturday morning specials and we could have been done with it. Instead, Marvel wanted to show off the new blood special effects that they have for animation so they could get a PG-13 rating on a cartoon and therefore make it so they couldn’t put it on network Saturday mornings and mass produce these ridiculously overpriced DVDs. Again, the special feature vignettes are just “How we produced 82 minutes of par animation and charged you $24.99 for it” and they last longer than the actual “movie”.

I have to end on the note that I really hope they do better with future releases in the “VS.” series Marvel is planning. On an individual basis, Hulk vs. Wolverine gets a 1 out of 5 and Hulk vs. Thor gets a 2 out of 5 to average it out to a whopping 1.5 out of 5. Unless you are a hardcore Marvel fan-boy, I would probably avoid these or rent them at most.

-Ray Carsillo

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