Inspired by my comments regarding WoWs Rogue Killing Spree move and its similarities to Wolverine earlier, I feel the need to write about the wonder that is Marvel Ultimate Alliance (MUA).

I picked this up when it come out on the Xbox 360 a year or two ago, and played it co-op with a buddy.Let me tell you, this game is genius. If you haven’t played it, and you have at least one friend (only one is required, I know it’s hard speaking to people in real life, right) pick this up. By the looks of things there’s a gold edition come out anyway, so it’s probably cheaper than a months play of Archlord or RF Online. Oh wait, RF online got closed didn’t it? oops!

(In your face shitty MMO developers!)

Anyway, as I half mentioned before, MUA is a hack and slash game played out with various Marvel characters from an isometric viewpoint. Not being able to distinguish which character is from which type of comic I just call them all Xmen, but I don’t think they are. So you have 4 characters on screen at any one time and you run around smashing enemies faces in, beating up bosses, and trying your best to annoy your buddy who you are playing with. This is basically my main objective when playing any co-op game with a friend sitting next to me; get through the game whilst causing the most amount of frustration to your partner as possible. MUA caters to this well:

1. Obsessive collections. Part of the game involves collecting little glowy baubles you find lying around on the floor, affectionately referred to as trinkets by me and my buddy. This has spawned a whole trinket related in joke between us, but I won’t go into that. So collecting trinkets allows you to… you know what, I don’t even recall what the point of it was. I became so fixated on collecting the trinkets that it didn’t even matter what the point was, I got my joy from just getting them. Also it means hours of frustratingly slow (for my buddy) progress through the levels as I single mindedly sought out every trinket possible. This caused me even greater joy. Trinkets could be found by killing baddies, or (and more importantly) destroying certain bits of the world; barrels, pipes etc. This leads me elegantly onto my next point:

2. Destructible scenery. A lot of stuff in this game can be broken. Walls can be smashed down, or at least cracked, pipes can be broken, barrels exploded, you get the general idea. Some items can be smashed apart in one attack, whereas others require a concentrated effort; potentially causing your buddy to sit there twiddling his fingers while you spend 5 minutes smashing apart all 3 pipes that are on the screen before moving on. Combined with my obsessive need to collect every trinket, this made playing MUA with me an even more laborious task.

3. Annoying characters. I played two characters almost exclusively; Wolverine and Deadpool. Wolverine is great because he regens health, so is almost invincible. This meant I could charge around trying to kill anything and everything as much as possible, and probably come out on top (even when I didn’t deserve to). Not annoying on the surface perhaps, but when I demand to be Wolverine (arguably the best character) each and every time, it got old fast I’m sure. Later in the game I picked up Deadpool, let me tell you, this guy is amazing if you want to piss your friend off. He can shoot his guns, so you’re able to shoot baddies before they even make it onto the screen, rendering your companion(s) useless/unnecessary. He can do this thing where he jumps up into the air and drops 4 bombs spread out across the screen. This is a pretty good move, but when it’s accompanied by me screaming “DROP BOMBS” like an excitable child, every, single, time I do it. It got old, fast. He also has swords, which are just awesome, I don’t think those are annoying really.

Off the top of my head, other games that are great for playing co-op (and hampering your friends progress):

- The early Splinter Cell games (who needs stealth)
- Gears of War (“don’t worry, I got this”)
- The Rainbow 6 games (Bash door)