Each game is based around characters from one of the two leading names in the world of comics. Justice League Heroes represents the DC universe while Marvel Ultimate Alliance sides with…well you can probably guess. They’re practically identical in structure, so why not have a showdown? Holy Shakefire, Batman, I’m a genius. Let’s get it on.

SETUP AND RULES:

Both contenders are represented by their XBOX releases. The PS2 version of Ultimate Alliance will also be included for system comparison. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a copy of Justice League on PS2.

Values of quality will be rated on gameplay, fun factor, etc. Both were played extensively, incorporating both single and multi-play using multiple controllers. Online gameplay has not been tested even though both games support this feature, as this review is primarily a judge of game content. The standard TV setup was used for both games, rather than the XBOX-featured HD 720p resolution, to be fair to the majority of gamers who don’t have the option of HD TV just yet (read: me) as well as for PS2 comparison.

Both games were set to the hardest levels available from start-up; “Hard” for Justice League Heroes and “Normal” for Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

OFFICIAL MUMBO-JUMBO:

Justice League Heroes:

DC / WB Games / Eidos

1-2 players

Rated: Teen (Fantasy violence, mild language)

Online play capable

Marvel Ultimate Alliance:

Marvel / Activision / Raven / Vicarious Visions Alchemy

1-4 players

Rated: Teen (Mild language, violence)

Online play capable

WINNER: This should be a stupid category to judge but the fact that Marvel Ultimate Alliance allows the possibility of 4 players over Justice League’s 2 is worth noting. So……

WINNER: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE

IMPRESSIONS:

An evil mastermind brings a slew of super villains together in a plan to take over the world. Now it’s up to the super heroes to stop this dastardly plot and save the day.

From a graphics standpoint, Justice League Heroes has the polished look and fluid animation that we’ve come to expect from Snowblind Studios, developer of the Baldur’s Gate games. Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a little rough around the visual edges but has better effects and sound.

The CGI cut-scenes from Justice League Heroes would probably be considered pretty spiffy about four years ago, considering what was available at the time. They’re mighty bad by today’s standards. Everyone looks like a reject from the first The Sims and moves like a robot. Activision decided to sink some cash into the cut-scenes for the Marvel game and it shows. Ultimate Alliance’s CG is better than most of the computer animated kid’s movies on the market.

WINNER: TIE

BASIC FEATURES:

The Lineup:

Justice League:

Heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, and more.

Villains: Brainiac, robot cronies.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance:

Heroes: Wolverine, Thor, Spiderman, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Human Torch, Iceman, The Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Elektra, and more.

Villains: Dr. Doom, Mysterio, Scorpion, many more.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance lets you pick your team members early in the game, and has more characters to choose from. Both games offer additional heroes that can be unlocked during play and both games have a few lame heroes, such as Elektra and Zatanna, but MUA is happy to let you ignore the losers. Justice League Heroes makes you play its undesirables. That’s like your PE coach making you take the fat kid on your team for a game of dodgeball.

WINNER: MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE

GAMEPLAY

Both games focus on beating the crap out of enemies using strong and weak attacks that can be chained together for simple three or four hit combos. The super power menus are pretty simple and easy to access. Depending on your game system, pressing the left trigger or R2 button changes the function of other buttons on the controller to the character’s special attacks, and a small display pops up to show you which button does what.

Justice League Heroes:

This game is the Perfect Dark to Baldur’s Gates’ Goldeneye. They replaced Magic Missiles with Heat Vision and tossed a bat suit on the dwarf, but outside of that it’s the same game with only minor changes.

Since there’s no Cure Light Wounds for most of the game, heroes regain health and power with surprising speed if they exist outside of combat for about five seconds. This is good because on the hard difficulty setting you’ll probably find yourself running around and screaming like the proverbial little girl after a boss (even the first one) pounds the turds out of your counterpart and comes looking for new meat. This happens not because the bosses are impossible, though they are a small challenge, but mostly due to poor A.I. that follows two simple instructions: “Move to bad guy” and “Punch bad guy”. Low on health? Fighting a boss? No problem little CPU buddy, just keep standing there and attacking like a champ.

Multi-play relieves the fits of panicked screaming but not all of the running, as you will quite likely have to retreat and hide in a corner while your life bar regenerates during the tougher fights. Zatanna is capable of healing the party when she’s present, but that’s the only other means for DC heroes to get healthy outside of rare power-up drops.

A majority of the environmental effects (street lamps, hydrants, even cars) can be used as weapons by the super strong heroes. Using these objects on enemies can get a little frustrating because they have to be directly in front of you to be hit. My multi-play brawling buddy had to save me on more than one occasion because I couldn’t hit my target with a delivery truck that took up ¼ of the screen.

I don’t recall fighting anything but robots, which should please the Jesus moms until they remember that this is a game about deified humans with supernatural powers, which to them is about as ok as felching the devil. I think DC should just grow a sack, toss in some human bad guys, and let Superman jump rope with their intestines. But that’s me. I’d also like to see the DC heroes beat the crap out of opponents while they’re down but apparently the Justice League is above that kind of behavior.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance:

Unless you’re Wolverine, you’re not regenerating health. That’s ok because just about every enemy you kill drops health and power recharging nugs. In fact, if you steadily kill baddies, you’re pretty much nigh invulnerable. That seemingly endless supply of health combines with a maximum starting difficulty of “normal” to easily make this the less challenging of the two. Your heroes practically can’t die unless one of them is targeted by several baddies at once or the A.I. makes them stand in a fire. I’ve lost three heroes to the nefarious piles of burning rubble strewn throughout the levels because apparently the A.I. is lacking that one essential line of code that says “IF ON FIRE, THEN MOVE = YES”. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

There’s more of an arcade feel to Marvel Ultimate Alliance than Justice League Heroes. The pace is faster and there’s more action on-screen. This is at the expense of greater difficulty but makes for the better overall experience. I am very happy to report that Marvel is entirely cool with their heroes grappling enemies and kicking them in the nuts as well as hitting people while they’re down. In combat the A.I. performs well enough by moving about, defending, and even using powers.

With all four human players the challenge turns from surviving the missions to being the first person to reach enemies and power-ups. I started using the dash option for a quick boost in speed to score the S.H.I.E.L.D. tokens (used to further enhance abilities that are unlocked when you gain levels) before my friends could get to them. After about twenty minutes my Iceman was so pimp he was hitting people with gold teeth and 40 oz bottles, while the other heroes were digging through furniture for bus fare. Sadly my friends caught on to the dash goodness and soon enough all four heroes were traveling everywhere by means of quick somersaults. With the playing ground once again leveled, I saw no choice but to start slapping the controllers out of people’s hands when good loot was discovered.

When it comes to the comparison of the XBOX and PS2 ports of this game, there isn’t much to say. XBOX wins. The PS2 shows its age with choppy animation that exists almost continuously. The audio was another problem on the PS2, with many effects sounding muffled or dampened in comparison. Add in the fact that you need an adapter to connect all four controllers for local multi-play and the console of choice is only more obvious. If you happen to have both consoles, stick with the XBOX on this one.

In this category there really isn’t a better of the two games. The layout of Justice League Heroes is based around a hit-and-run fighting style, so it may be better for the more serious or mature action/RPG gamers. Marvel Ultimate Alliance doesn’t really bother with strategy. You jump in and start swinging. As such, MUA would be better geared toward a younger gamer or someone looking for simple action and fun.

WINNER: TIE

XP SYSTEM / LEVELING YOUR CHARACTERS

Justice League Heroes:

Hey, you got Baldur’s Gate in my City of Heroes! You got City of Heroes in my Baldur’s Gate!

You can spend experience points to access new abilities or add “slots” to existing ones to enhance them. This part is Baldur’s Gate all the way. Once you have those slots available you can insert glassy-looking stone kind-of-things called “boosts” which add additional minor enhancements depending on their nature. These boosts are found on defeated enemies and come in flavors like range, damage, speed, and luck, each having a level of potency. A level 2 damage boost offers slightly more of a bonus than its level 1 counterpart, and so forth. This part is about as City of Heroes as you can get without a lawsuit from NC Soft.

As an example of the whole system, using experience points to place a slot in the hero’s health ups his or her HP by 100+. Adding a level 1 range boost to that slot yields an additional 15 or so HP. It’s a fast, simple system for upgrading your hero that’s pretty easy to understand.

There are civilians wandering around most levels, each of which turns into a Justice League token after you touch or “rescue” them. These nuggets can be used to unlock the other characters, buy different costumes, and more. My favorite part about this whole system was seeing that the cost of unlocking Aquaman was one of the lowest of any of the extras. He’s a cheaper unlockable item than most of new costumes for other heroes. Let me put it this way: DC and WB Games are basically stating for the record that Aquaman is worth less than a pair of pants.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance:

MUA has pretty much the same system only instead of “boosts” you collect coins (S.H.I.E.L.D. Tokens) from destroyed objects and defeated enemies and use them to “buy” grades of enhancement for the powers that your experience levels unlock. The XP system can be set to automatically open new abilities when enough points are available at level-up, but I didn’t see much use for the feature.

The whole S.H.I.E.L.D. token collection process is fine for the younger gamers but may wear on the nerves of those brave souls who have already been gathering coins, rings, fruit, gems, tacos, syringes, split-crotch panties, and Jason’s mother’s head for years. Regardless, it’s never more than a minor hassle that is easy to overlook.

On top of leveling the individual characters, if you keep the same team members long enough, they can gain extra attributes as a unit. This kind of group experience system is a nifty added bonus but doesn’t profoundly affect the game.

Both games involve the same system of experience levels and purchasing to achieve enhancement greater than even a spam e-mail could offer.

WINNER: TIE

CONCLUSION:

Marvel Ultimate Alliance is the winner by technical knockout. Though not quite as challenging as Justice League Heroes, the potential for four players and higher action content gives MUA a greater general appeal and stronger replay value. Both currently retail for $40, which may not be an irresistibly good price but for all of their content these games are worth it.

B (3.10) for Justice League Heroes

B+ (3.58) for Marvel Ultimate Alliance

-Baron has been a writer for Shakefire.com since 2006.  Contact him at baron@shakefire.com

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