Marvel Ultimate Alliance getting re-release treatment on PC and consoles this week
Is the series making a comeback?
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 are being spruced up and re-released on PC, PS4 and Xbox One this week. They're due Tuesday, 26th July (which probably translates to Wednesday for European PlayStation Store), and can be bought either in a two-game bundle for $60, or individually for $40, which sounds rather steep for old games.
But the games have apparently improved, according to the Marvel Ultimate Alliance re-release executive producer, who was interviewed on Marvel.com. They've undergone performance improvements as well as user-interface and graphical enhancements, although that's as specific as the information gets.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance is nearly a decade old now, hence the re-release occasion. But it's a bit odd to see two fairly run of the mill games revived - and there are other co-op action role-playing games around now that are much better, namely Diablo. Then again, there's also a slight whiff of Marvel teasing a series comeback - as in, a whole new Marvel Ultimate Alliance game - with this re-release.
Marvel.com asked executive producer Mike Jones whether the re-release signalled a new beginning for the Ultimate Alliance series, to which he replied: "Following the footsteps of a proud Marvel tradition, I'll say: Anything is possible, True Believers!"
Kristan Reed reviewed Marvel Ultimate Alliance for us in 2006, and wrote: "It doesn't look anything special, the combat's massively repetitive, but somehow it all hangs together." He called it a game "greater than the sum of its parts".
Dan Whitehead reviewed the sequel, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and was less impressed - calling it out for having a "garbled story, half-baked gimmicks, creaky engine and rote gameplay". Oof.