It's been almost ten years since the last Marvel Ultimate Alliance game was released. I played the first installment of the franchise back on the PS2 and the second on the Wii (yes it has been that long!) The games were amazing, most notably for their multiplayer action, great character designs, perfectly casted voices and story line. One last tidbit I did enjoy from the first game was the end credits blooper reel. It was a fun add on that allowed the character to break that 4th wall.
Alright, enough reminiscing and on to the review of Black Order!
The game starts off with a quick cinematic scene with none other than the Guardians of the Galaxy. The banter between the characters is spot on and gives the player the feeling that you are playing through a story that is taking place in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. The original games drew more from the comics since the Marvel universe wasn't as developed theatrically as it is now.
Of course, you see some baddies that are familiar. Nebula is first up, followed by Thanos and the quick realization that the Infinity Stones are in danger of being captured by Thanos. As the story progresses, you discover Nick Fury has organized a super team of heroes, whose mission is to stop the destruction of our universe. Simple, right?
The list of playable characters for this installment is loaded. There are 32 characters on the main roster, a few unlockable characters, free DLC downloads and DLC content that will be released later. Just to highlight a few characters, the list includes: Nightcrawler, Deadpool, Miles Morales, Luke Cage, Doctor Strange, Spider-Gwen, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, The Avengers, and more.
Yes the story is good, character designs and their powers are awesome to use, but the camera angles are what drove me a bit batty. Even with the Switch docked, the camera angles are very forced on one perspective and sometimes that perspective gets stuck leaving you unable to see where the enemies are located. During a few boss fights, I had to battle the camera to be able to hit the enemy correctly. I did a quick Google search and found out that I wasn't alone with my camera woes. Camera settings can be switched between two modes but to me both seem pretty glitchy and unsatisfying. I would LOVE for there to be some sort of patch but I highly doubt one will be released.
I can forgive the camera issues, even though a few times they caused so much frustration it broke submersion. In spite of that, the game was very entertaining. The characters are great and I love the special moves for each character. I also like the few additional touches of getting extra team power ups when grouping liked heroes together (example: avengers, x-men, heavy hitter, web-slingers, etc.). I'm almost done with the game and am looking forward to hopefully another installment from the series. Games like this are just fun to play. Who doesn't like to play as their favorite superhero and team up with friends?
My rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pros: Great multi-player fun, and still fun playing solo. Lots of characters to choose from and character designs/voice are perfect with great cinematic cut scenes.
Cons: Camera angles...they just take away from the flow when they act up.
