Day Three: Marvel Ultimate Alliance

After a few hours behind the controls of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, I was both happy and unhappy. Ultimate Alliance gives your right arm a solid workout, and after a few hours play you’re going to start feeling like you might have the biggest right bicep in the known world. I’m unhappy because the game unfortunately leaves the left arm almost completely unused. Ultimate Alliance is plenty of fun, and playing with a few friends at home, or playing against them really intensifies the experience, if not the lop-sided workout.

Fitness:

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance scores a 2 on fitness for the relatively vigorous workout you get on your right arm. It might have inspired me to give a 3 if the workout was spread over both arms, but as it is, you’ll develop some pretty bad imbalances if you play this game with a mind to get fit from it.

You’re also severely limited in what else you can do while you play this game. Unlike Mario Strikers, you can’t fit a workout into the game mechanics, leaving you with the old faithfuls such as squats and ab curls while you play. Check out the big list of exercises I came up with for Mario Strikers.

I could suggest you take each of the Wiimote movements and over exaggerate them, making them sweeping forceful movements that mimic a real fight, and that would really build a good sweat if it weren’t for the absence of left hand movement. Use this advice for better suited games like the current fitness king, Wii Sports Boxing.

Fun:

The fun rating will always be biased, and being a gamer thats been around since the Commodore 64 I feel like I’ve played this game too many times before. If you’re new to beat em up games you could rate this a 4; its a solid game after all. The basic premise has you and 3 of your hand picked super hero mates go stomping bad guys with all the special abilities you see from the movies- Wolverine with his slashing claw attacks, Spiderman shooting bolts of web, and the Human Torch can surround himself with flames which burn his enemies. The game has some cool role playing elements too, so you can watch your heroes slowly progress to superhuman powerhouses as the game progresses.

Motivation:

I don’t see this game appealing to many adults, but it might motivate plenty of kids to come back and continue the journey of their superheroes against Doc Doom. Given this game isn’t good for exercise I’m going to penalize it’s motivation score by a point. If you buy & play this game its less time you’ll spend playing games that you can get a much better workout with!

A suggestion for any developers creating games which involve continuous Wiimote movement, please, make both controllers equally useful. We don’t want a generation of half Arnie, half Steve Urkels roaming the streets… right?

Check out other games I’ve reviewed at “Wii Workout Week“, or if my review hasn’t convinced you otherwise yet, you can pick up Marvel: Ultimate Alliance at Amazon.