- Solid Xbox Live play
- Best X-Men fighting game since the 2D fighter Marvel vs.
Capcom 2
- Big roster of Marvel superheroes to use in fighting arena with
tons of destructible elements
- Graphics of characters range from
very good (Spider-Man, Human Torch and the Thing) to the
mediocre (Electra, Storm)
- Imperfects storyline, even if it is featured in t comic
series, is not very interesting
- Some characters (Wolverine particularly) are rendered
practically useless in online fighting matches
- A.I. more often than not presents a low challenge in
single-player story mode
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Marvel
Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects
Score: 7.0 / 10
There’s been a recent run of very good
video games released the past few years starring the Marvel comic
universe of heroes and villains. Spider-Man, the Hulk, and even the
X-Men have starred in critically acclaimed titles over the last few
years (compare that to the dearth of good DC comics-based games, which
usually have been awful, including Aquaman, Superman and most Batman
games).
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, a fighting game with heavy
brawler influences, is the latest Marvel universe title trying to join
the in the Marvel video game greatness, but fails to rise to the cream
of the Marvel gaming crop, with imperfections including a schizophrenic
visual presentation and a uninteresting storyline. Fortunately, a rich
Marvel cast of characters, okay brawler features and generally fun and
challenging solid online gaming via Xbox Live redeems Marvel Nemesis.
The game has a large cast of Marvel familiars: Wolverine (my favorite
comic book hero ever), Spider-Man, Storm, Elektra, The Thing, and five
others. But new to this
Marvel-based game are the Imperfects, a
group of villainous beings who have all been mutated and mutilated in
some way by the alien Van Roekel, who’s attempting to create the
“perfect” fighting creatures. The Imperfects have actually been featured
in a tie-in Marvel comic mini-series. The story of Marvel Nemesis is
that the Marvel heroes are being attacked by an alien force that has a
tie to Van Roekel, but it
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doesn’t really translate into an engrossing tale that would carry the
story mode.
In the end, gamers will be more interested in unlocking the levels,
characters, character cards and comics more than follow the tepid plot
of the Imperfect storyline, and the Imperfects introduction in this game
won’t sell many copies of the comic, because most aren’t that
interesting on either a whole or singular level. Most are some variation
on an already-existing Marvel hero, such as Solara, a flaming female
version of the Human Torch.
What saves Marvel Nemesis from the uninteresting story is the mix of
fighting and brawler gameplay. While its fair to categorize Marvel
Nemesis as a fighter just like Dead or Alive 3 or Mortal Kombat:
Annihilation, it has more than a few shared genes with brawlers such as
old-school games Bad Street Brawler and Double Dragon through to today’s
games like
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Kung Fu Chaos and the upcoming Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance (from
Capcom, the makers of one of the Marvel universe’s finest series of
fighting-style games, Marvel vs. Capcom).
Gameplay falls into the same basic category each and every time. Your
hero/Imperfect character is placed in a decently sized fighting arena
(one of only a handful of repeating levels) that range from an
underground lab to a mansion to a city street to a debris-littered
bridge to the top of the Daily Bugle building. There are a few
variations on gameplay (from timed objectives to beating an end boss
that’s one of the game’s heroes or Imperfects). But whatever the
objective of the five or so “missions” for each Marvel hero, it breaks
down to being attacked by a group of Van Roekel’s robotic fighting
machines and you needing to vanquish them.
But because of a pretty poor enemy A.I., it’s not hard at all to get
through the hero “missions” within 20 to 30 minutes for each hero. The
A.I. is easily beaten using the hero’s abilities (Spider-Man and Venom
can shoot webs, Daredevil whips enemies, Elektra throws daggers,
Wolverine slices and dices with his claws, Iron Man shoots projectiles,
Thing just smashes the hell out of everything and everybody). But a good
feature of Marvel Nemesis is that you can use objects lying around the
arena to defeat your enemies.
You can throw gas canisters that explode when thrown or if you’re one of
the stronger heroes like Thing, you can pick up cars and trucks, even
hurl a tank. The environment can be used as a weapon, and almost
everything on the screen can be used to your advantage. The A.I. isn’t
usually very smart, so if you clear out all the projectile-firing robots
first, by moving away from them and throwing debris and objects at them
until they’re beaten, the rest of Van Roekel’s minions can be beaten
with little effort. As long as you stay away from being ganged up on by
more than one robotic enemy at a time, you’ll be able to breeze through
most “missions” in about three minutes apiece.
In fact, most times it is challenging only during the boss battles that
square you off against another “brainwashed” Marvel hero or an
Imperfect. These battles move at a ridiculous pace, as your enemy is
flying around the screen at a too-fast rate. You have to really keep
your thumbs twitching on the game controller to avoid your enemy while
inflicting your own damage on them. After a while, sans the boss
battles, the gameplay starts to become too repetitive to really much
enjoy the single-player side of Marvel Nemesis, even for the most ardent
Marvel fan.
While the gameplay is a letdown, the visuals overall aren’t (although
the female heroes, Storm and Elektra, aren’t very attractively rendered
compared to their male counterparts). EA employed comic artist Jae Lee
to create the character graphics for Marvel Nemesis, and the results are
good for most part. Spider-Man, Venom, the Thing, and especially the
Human Torch, in all his incandescent, “flame on” glory, are all
impressive visually, as is many of the Imperfects. But as good as the
characters look, the environmental arenas aren’t of the same high
quality.
As disappointing as the overall single-player Marvel Nemesis experience
is, at least it is salvaged by multiplayer gameplay, especially online
over Xbox Live. Again, game on Xbox Live move at a superhero blur, and
you’ve got to really be ready to handle some of the better players
you’ll face online. But after a while of acclimating to the speed of
online matches, online gameplay will provide an extreme challenge that
you won’t see in single-player gaming, but as long as you select a good
character for online play. Some characters are totally useless online,
such as Wolverine and even the Thing. The best characters to use online
are projectile-firing beings like Iron Man and the Human Torch, because
you can hit enemies from a safe distance. Wolverine and Thing need to be
up close and personal to beat down enemies, so they stand little chance
against any hero that can inflict damage with some sort of projectile
attack.
Xbox Live gamers will enjoy the online play (if they select a character
that can fire weapons- or powers-based projectiles) and it’s nice to
have a brawler/fighter that showcases the Marvel universe so well, but
an imperfect storyline that just doesn’t draw gamers into the Marvel
Nemesis realm very far and a weak A.I. challenge in the single-player
story mode hold the game back from reaching the heights of previous
Marvel-based games.
