The original Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was punctuated with wow moments. Whether it was facing off against Galactus on the Skrull homeworld, fighting alongside Thor in Asgard or playing a life or death game of Pitfall, the game took a standard brawler and entrenched it deep in the Marvel mythos. Sadly Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360, PS3) is a decidedly earthbound affair.

Taking the reins from Raven Software, Vicarious Visions structures the plot against Marvel’s epic Civil War event. A series of disastrous choices by the superheroes has led to the Superhuman Registration Act – a law which puts metahumans under government control and threatens the security afforded by their secret identities.

It’s a move which pits hero against hero and forces the player to side with Ironman’s pro-registration forces or Captain America’s underground anti-registration movement. Now three years out, the Marvel Universe is still dealing with fallout from Civil War so in terms of dramatic pull, it’s excellent source material. But Alliance 2 pulls its punches, leading to a final boss who appears from left field and an ending which rings hollow.

Setting the plot aside, Alliance 2 delivers a great co-op multiplayer experience (two to four-player online or off). Not counting the DLC, the game offers a 24 character roster to form your four-member team – of course, depending on who you side with, not everyone will be available. Playable characters include recent Marvel movie stars Spider-man, Ironman, Hulk, Wolverine and Deadpool, as well as ones off the radar like Luke Cage, Penance and Songbird.

When you’re talking superheroes, you’re talking superpowers and this is where Alliance 2’s RPG system comes into play. Each character has four key powers (either buffs or attacks) which are mapped to the controller’s face buttons. As you gain experience, you can level these powers up along with some passive abilities which improve your combat performance. The majority of the characters do what you’d expect them to do: Hulk smashes, Spidey webslings, Mr. Fantastic stretches. Standouts include a formidable Susan Storm and Songbird, who has interesting variety to her powers.

Alliance 2 ups the superheroics with Fusion powers. Two characters can use their powers in concert to clear rooms, devastate multiple enemies or deliver massive damage to a single foe. Thor and Human Torch create a fiery tornado. Hulk throws Wolverine for the fan favorite Fastball Special. The Thing hurls a massive boulder which Iceman freezes for extra damage. Each pairing creates a unique Fusion resulting in over 270 specialized attacks.

The Ultimate Alliance games can trace their ancestry back to 2004’s X-Men Legends and Vicarious Visions shrugs off a lot of the franchise’s baggage in this entry, simplifying not only how powers work, but also improving inventory management and letting players swap out characters on the fly. I see most of these changes as improvements, shortening the time players need to spend navigating menus, but I’m not happy that there’s now only one alternate costume per character and that the difference is purely cosmetic.

Instead of dropping loot, bosses now drop medals which add buffs to your team. There are still simulator discs to be collected which unlock challenge missions, but these excursions no longer recall famous comic book battles. Players can level their characters in-game, while the credible AI takes control of their character. Lastly, the trivia minigame returns albeit revamped for a multiplayer experience – which is curiously co-op instead of competitive.

The in-game graphics are an improvement, but level design falls short. As mentioned above, Alliance 2 isn’t as far reaching as the first game, but the linearity was surprising especially with promising locales like Wakanda. Graphics have taken a step back in the rendered cinematics. I fanboyed out my way through Alliance 1, which had one of the greatest opening cinematics of all time. However, more is accomplished in-game, especially during the numerous conversation options available back at bases. (Tip, characters with a shared history should always talk to each other.) And I loved the flashy intros for the boss characters.

There really aren’t enough four-player brawlers; especially ones which allow for in-person co-op play as well as online. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is a big fish in this small pond – and there’s enough polish here to please even those who aren’t members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society – but compared to Ultimate Alliance’s first outing, this entry is less than marvelous.

In the Xbox 360 version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine you earn an achievement for killing 2000 enemies.  And I do mean killing.  With his foot-long adamantium claws, Wolverine dismembers, decapitates, and disembowels his way through some of the best standalone superhero gaming since 2004’s Spider-Man 2.

The “video game of the movie” is typically a tired, obligatory exercise.  Based on Wolverine’s last movie tie-in, X-Men 2: Wolverine’s Revenge  (TestFreaks’ FreakScore 3.2/10), gamers would be right to be skeptical of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.   But, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is more than the typical summer blockbuster throwaway title.   Taking cues from God of War, Wolverine is an epic brawler set comfortably between the X-Men movie franchise and the Marvel Universe.

Following the movie’s lead, Origins starts with a pre-admantium Logan engaged in a black ops mission in Africa.  Logan is part of a mutant team which includes his brother Victor Creed whose mutation parallels Logan’s.  Even without unbreakable bones, Logan is still a killing machine.  By alternating weak and strong claw attacks, players can chain combos unleashing savage attacks against machete and machine gun wielding mercenaries.

While it seems like button mashing at first, Origins has a robust combat system which allows Logan to throw enemies to their death, impale them on spikes, and — most satisfying — lunge at them from a distance.  As the game progresses, Wolverine levels up increasing his health and opening up rage-powered area of effect attacks.  Speaking of health, Wolverine’s healing factor is in place, but it’s more of a nice bonus instead of a game changer — think of it as a replacement for the ubiquitous health kits which litter most games.

Origins bounces between a present day adamantium-laced Wolverine, who’s dealing with severe fraternal issues by killing everyone standing between him and Creed, and the Africa mission where everything went south.  The game resembles the movie’s storyline, but has interesting deviations and many welcome additions.  In addition to an expanded Weapon X facility, Wolverine also tears through a secret robotics lab in the Southwest and the duel with Gambit has been stretched into a multistage battle.

The game pulls from the movie’s dialogue, with some original voice work from major cast members including Hugh Jackman (Logan) and Liev Schrieber (Creed).  I imagine the audio sessions which captured the various grunts must have been hilarious.  Aside from solid voice work (including audio logs ala BioShock), sound is largely unmemorable save for some nice ambient effects.

In addition to the expected boss battles and waves of mercenaries, including specially engineered foot soldiers and jungle mutants, Origins throws a few minibosses against Wolverine and it’s here that repetition sets in.  The first time you figure out how to take down a giant lava monster, it’s satisfying.  But by lava monster number three, the satisfaction is gone.  Later Origins introduces another oversized baddie and you’ll realize that you have to use the same strategy.  And then another oversized baddie is introduced.

Games based on movies have a narrow launch window, often giving them an unfinished feeling.  Origins is more solid than most, but there are a few nagging issues with the graphics including some slowdowns during larger battles and some aggravating clipping issues.  Mostly the levels are well designed — and props to Raven for throwing in some hilarious and timely easter eggs — but there’s definitely pressure to stay on the path.  And it’s a little head scratching that so many environmental puzzles are based on Wolverine trying to open doors, since his claws could easily slice through most of them.

However, these issues pale to the experience of forcing a commando to blow off his head with a shotgun or launching an aerial assault against a fleet of helicopters.  The visceral design of X-Men Origins: Wolverine makes gameplay a compelling (and M for Mature) experience.

Rating: B+