Activision, Marvel Team for Super Hero Fest

By Digital Trends Staff April 27, 2006

Activision and Marvel are getting ready to bring a whole lot of super hero action your way as they today confirmed development of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, an action/RPG hybrid which will be available for all next-gen gaming systems as well as current-gen, handheld and PC platforms this fall.

In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, according to this Activision press release posted at Comic Book Resources, over 140 Marvel characters will be brought together in the largest roster of comic book characters ever seen in a video game. Players assume the roles of more than 20 Marvel Super Heroes including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Blade and Captain America, and â€œthrough their actions determine the fate of both planet Earth and the Marvel universe â€“ revealed in one of multiple epiloguesâ€.

Features of this all star super hero affair, being developed by Raven Software and C.B. Cebulski, include total super hero team customization, character level up options by individual or team as a whole, a combat system which emphasizes fighting moves, powers and environmental objects, an interactive storyline which is influenced how the story plays out and a multiplayer component where fans can band together with friends as their favorite Marvel super heroes.

â€œMarvel: Ultimate Alliance delivers a new twist on action/RPGs where players’ actions and choices ultimately determine what happens to the Marvel universe,â€ states Will Kassoy, Vice President of Global Brand Management for Activision, in a statement. â€œThis coupled with the game’s enormous character roster will deliver an action-packed experience that comic book fans have been waiting for.â€

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One year ago today, I gained access to the closed beta for an intriguing mobile collectible card game called Marvel Snap. I’d flirted with collectible card games (CCGs) like it before, but had dropped off titles like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra due to problems with their structure, monetization, and complexity. Within a few matches of Marvel Snap, I saw how disruptive it was into the CCG genre, circumventing many of my problems with it. I’ve been hooked ever since.
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Marvel Snap has been praised a lot, especially after it saw a wider release in October 2022, and everything said about it is true. It’s much faster-paced than most card games, as it’s only six turns and both people in a match play cards at the same time. This makes rounds enthralling across all six turns and quick enough that I never play only one battle when I boot Marvel Snap up. Couple that with all the potential deck builds that can be played and possible locations that can spawn during a game, and each Marvel Snap match feels very different from one another. They can be fun, frustrating, and even funny.

That’s even the case if you’re using the same deck for a while. For quite a long time, I was using a Patriot and Mystique deck that powered up cards with no abilities. As developer Second Dinner continued to introduce new cards, I started to experiment with different types of decks, like a Morbius/M.O.D.O.K. discard-focused deck, a Collector/Devil Dinosaur one where the goal is to get as many cards into my hand as possible, and most recently, a High Evolutionary/Hazmat setup that unlocks the secret abilities of some cards and greatly debuffs the enemy.
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