Marvel Ultimate Alliance Has Yet to Eclipse Murderworld’s Whimsical Charm

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 26, 2024 13 Views 5 Min Read
Marvel Ultimate Alliance Has Yet to Eclipse Murderworld’s Whimsical Charm



The Marvel Ultimate Alliance series takes players and their ensemble cast to extravagant and iconic landmarks in the Marvel universe. In the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance game alone, each act brings players to a brand-new hub as the story progresses and Doctor Doom’s rule begins to spread. It’s exciting to begin at Stark Tower after Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s SHIELD helicarrier introduction and then move onto Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum for Act 2, and there’s never a dull moment or level considering how many characters or points of interest can be interacted with and having just came from Atlantis of all places.

Act 2 begins startlingly with players tricked into thinking they’re already at Castle Doom before realizing that they’re actually in Murderworld, which is run by Arcade. Players aren’t required to know what Murderworld is or who Arcade is to understand the gist of the level being a nightmarish, silly circus, and Murderworld behaves like an early intersectional transition that would seem superfluous and gimmicky if not for how engaging each available minigame is. Indeed, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is packed with minigames and optional content that deviates from rote, spammable combat as much as possible, and Murderworld is perhaps the best example of why such gameplay direction is spectacular in the series’ original installment.

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Murderworld’s Minigames are One of Marvel Ultimate Alliance’s Crowning Achievements

Murderworld can easily be a grating level to suffer through if players find repetitive tracks bothersome and its Arcade Clown enemies are exceedingly menacing. That said, while it can be a bit of a sensory overload traversing the fair, Murderworld can also be incredibly fun if players embrace the silliness of it, take time to explore and look carefully at points of interest, and enjoy the minigames it has in store, which include:

  • A Pitfall! side-scroller.
  • A pinball sequence with Rhino and Shocker as villains.
  • Intermittent high strikers players can hit with a mallet equipped.
  • A claw machine game that unlocks Blade as a playable character.
  • Bumper cars from a top-down perspective.
  • An interactive Arkanoid minigame.

In one of its most humorous moments, Murderworld presents players with a claw machine minigame where players effortlessly maneuver the claw to retrieve Eric Brooks’ Blade, who then becomes a playable addition to the roster henceforth (assuming players haven’t already unlocked him via a cheat code). Marvel Ultimate Alliance characters are unlocked in creative ways prior to Blade, but unlocking Blade in Murderworld is brilliant as it harps on the playful nature of the circus’ minigames and fanfare.

Murderworld’s Arcade Boss Fight is Marvel Ultimate Alliance at Its Best

Murderworld concludes with a boss fight against Arcade that is highly unique apart from many other bosses in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Here, Arcade is in a giant robot that players have no hope of battling on their own. Instead, players’ assembled team of four characters must have one person slip into trap doors that will properly aim them at Arcade and fire them from a cannon.

A QTE sequence follows where players avoid Arcade’s clutches and damage is dealt to him thereafter.

Players repeat this process until Arcade’s health is depleted—it may not be the most elaborate boss fight design in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but after a potentially long and arduous level it is a satisfying end to a fanciful chapter. Not since the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance has the series had as much whimsy or absurdity work so superbly in its favor, and it would be a godsend if a fourth game could capture Murderworld’s magic or present something else like it.

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