Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: 10 Things It Must Include
3. A Better Combat System
Activision
Fans of Raven Software's old X-Men: Legends games will be more than accustomed to the innocuous, hack n' slash nature of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. At its core, every character has a limited amount of combos they can pull off - move-sets open to everyone with the tiny distinction of the occasional animation change.
Then come the 'Power' moves, which require energy for each hero to pull off. These are all (mostly) unique to each hero present in the series, and while the style served it well a decade ago, it would be vastly inadequate in today's post-Arkham climate.
What we need now is a decent mix of freeflow combat, with the usual trappings of the Alliance brand. That means more enemies, bigger set-pieces, and, most importantly, a greater focus on intricacy. Anything else could potentially devolve into repetitive button-mashing (a flaw all too present in the series' older titles); a change this big necessitates an entirely different combat style altogether.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
