E3 2008: More on ‘Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Fusion’
Consider it the worst kept secret since Spider-Man’s secret identity. (Well, before One More Day.) Through stock reports and other PR events, Activision had pretty much said that a sequel to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was on the way.
As we reported earlier today, they revealed the official name at Activision’s E3 press conference: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Fusion. The subtitle comes from the heroes now combining their abilities for “an astonishing number of powers.” The demonstration teased Iron Man’s laser beams and the Invisible Woman’s forcefield building up to something but they stopped before showing the result. In the original MUA, when two characters attacked the same enemy, a bonus would be added for performing the combo. A “+2 to damage” sort of thing. The new system is more along the lines of the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer videogame adaptation, where the Human Torch filled Invisible Woman’s force bubble with fire so she could hurl it as a bomb.
As for as the storyline, Activision didn’t confirm the rumors that it revolved around the Civil War story from the comics (despite Brian Bendis’ saying as much in our recent interview with him). If anything, the footage shown made it seem like Latveria was attacking the world.
The series has been an odd mixture of the Ultimate and classic Marvel universes, but Wolverine was shown now wearing his yellow uniform from Astonishing X-Men, as seen in the video posted after the jump.
No release date was announced for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Fusion. But they did drop that they will be publishing a tie-in game with the release of next year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. Hugh Jackman’s likeness has been secured, so it won’t be like X2: Wolverine’s Revenge which based off movie continuity but looked nothing like Jackman.
I didn't like the FF2 game at all. I thought 2 FFers combining their powers into a glowing balled reeked of the not-so-great FF1 movie ending. They do this same thing in Spider-Man Friend or Foe. Iron Fist pours his energy into a web ball that Spider-Man spins around to make an attack that takes out every henchman on the screen at once when it hits the ground and explodes.I hope this is not a lasting trend. Why even license real characters if you're going to make up stupid combo attacks?