Video Game / Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

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Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is the 2009 sequel to the Action RPG game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance published by Activision. Unlike the original game which was developed by Raven Software, Ultimate Alliance 2 was instead developed by Vicarious Visions. The game was a multi-platform release, being released on September 15, 2009 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with additional ports for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Wii, and PlayStation Portable. The game's story takes inspiration from Secret War (2004) and Civil War (2006).

Following the defeat of Doctor Doom, Nick Fury discovers evidence that Latveria's new prime minister, Lucia von Bardas, has been secretly supplying American supervillains with advanced weaponry. When his attempts to convince the US government to take action falls on deaf ears, Fury assembles a covert team of superheroes to infiltrate Latveria and overthrow the new government. One year later, Lucia von Bardas seeks her revenge on Fury by launching a terrorist attack on Manhattan. This ends up being the latest in a string of incidents that prompts Congress to pass the Superhuman Registration Act that will force all active superheroes to register their secret identities with the US government and operate under the authority of S.H.I.E.L.D..

The superhero community is split in two, with Iron Man throwing in his support for the act, while Captain America opposes the new law. Eventually, Captain America leads an underground resistance movement against S.H.I.E.L.D. to try to get Congress to repeal the act. Meanwhile, Iron Man leads a group of registered superheroes and nanite-controlled supervillains to shut down the Anti-Registration movement before things spiral out into a full-on superhuman civil war.

The game allows the player to choose whether to join the Pro or Anti-Registration factions. Each side has exclusive characters to select and unique missions to play. Which faction you select will also determine the game's ending. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 follows the same formula as the previous game, with players creating a team of four heroes during missions and levelling them up to unlock new abilities. The game introduces new "fusion attacks", which are unique attacks that can be activated with any pair of heroes during the heat of battle to do more damage.

The game received a re-release on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016, as well as a PC port. These releases included the game's DLC content for free.

This game contains examples of:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Venom and Green Goblin join the party before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The reveal that Black Widow was a triple agent (similarly to her Ultimates' counterpart) in The Stinger is not addressed in the sequel.
  • A Post-Credit Scene had Galactus vowing revenge against Earth's heroes for interfering in his destruction of the Skrull homeworld. All that came out of that was a short mention in one dialogue exchange, about how there was a great battle between Galactus and Earth's heroes between the games... but they're not going to say anything about what happened.
• Adaptation Distillation: The game is this for Civil War, faithfully recounting the essential moments of the storyline until the game's original endgame kicks in.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The Secret War's supplemental material reveals that the President was planning on blackmailing Lucias von Bardas with evidence of her dirty dealings to get her to cooperate with the U.S. This part was left out of the game, making the president come off as an idiot.
• Adventure Duo: The DLC created a team bonus for Best Friends? (Cable and Deadpool, Spider-Man and Venom).
• All Your Powers Combined: The final boss, Nanite Nick Fury, has access to the abilities of those infected by the Fold. He makes much use of a bunch of them. When unlocked as a playable character, he only uses four of them: Electro, Spider-Woman, A-Bomb, and Firestar.
• And I Must Scream: It's indicated a few times that those who fall under the control of the nanites are fully aware of what they're doing, but they can't control their bodies or do anything of their own free will. The experience was so horrifying that after being freed from the nanites, Venom and the Green Goblin (both unrepentant villains) agree to join the heroes to stop the Fold without hesitation.
• Another Side, Another Story: You can choose to go Pro-Registration or Anti-Registration for the second act, with both sides having their own unique stages, bosses, and interactable characters.
• Ascended Meme: One of Juggernaut's Heroic Deed Boosts is called "Know Who I Am", a possible reference to the "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" meme.
• Assimilation Plot: The nanites that S.H.I.E.L.D. forces were using to control supervillains launch one after their AI gains sentience, forcing the Pro-Reg and Anti-Reg heroes to reunite to stop it.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Goliath/Yellowjacket battle.
• Badass Bookworm: The Think Tank team bonus (The Hulk, Green Goblin, Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man, or Iron Man) and the Master Minds (Mr. Fantastic, Nick Fury, Iron Man, Spider-Man).
• Big Bad: The Tinkerer, the mastermind behind the Fold nanomachine network.
• Boss Rush: The Insidious Alliance Sim Mission is one of these, pitting you against numerous bosses within a strict time limit, ending with Carnage.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Deadpool, of course.
    Deadpool: And YOU! (points to the screen) YOU THINK IT MAKES ME LESS OF A MAN IF I CAME HERE FOR THE CHERRY FESTIVAL? YOU'RE LAUGHING WITH YOUR EYES! I CAN SEE IT! TIME FOR A BOSS BATTLE SUCKERS!
  • At one point, you can have a conversation with She-Hulk where you ask her about the "strange non-sequitur jokes" she used to make. Shulkie says that she leaves most of those to Deadpool, as it makes him happy. (Before DP, She-Hulk was the main fourth wall demolisher in the MU.)
  • Cameoing as a Senator Lieber, Stan Lee is questioned by a suspicious Deadpool, who says he knows him from somewhere. If you access the character files, Nick Fury says the same thing, and is infuriated that he cannot place what the anomaly is.
• Boss Subtitles: All the bosses get one. In this case, it's simply their name appearing.
• Cassandra Truth: Happens to Nick Fury. Due to both Captain America and Iron Man being too deep in their SRA conflict and a lack of evidence on Fury's part, he's unable to get their assistance regarding an apparent malfunction that caused the nanite-controlled villains to go berserk during the Chemical Plant battle. It's only after Fury is forced to make a Heroic Sacrifice (though he survived) that the two sides are finally willing to cooperate with each other, and by that point the nanites (now referred to as The Fold) have expanded into a worldwide problem.
• Cheesy Moon: Hulk complains in his "Hulk-Ku" that the moon isn't actually made of cheese.
  Hulk: Stark send Hulk to space, but Hulk come back very mad! Moon not made of cheese!
• Combination Attack: The Fusion moves, replacing the Xtremes in MUA 1 and X-Men Legends.
• Create Your Own Villain: Lucia von Bardas, cyborg.
• Creator Cameo: Senator Lieber is very obviously Stan Lee. Deadpool lampshades it by asking if he's seen him somewhere before. Stan Lee's birth name is Stanley Lieber, natch.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Considering Senator Kelly didn't jump on the registration bandwagon, it means he was saved in the first game. Furthermore, since the West Coast of America wasn't destroyed by an asteroid, it's presumed that Lilandra was also saved.
• Dancing Mook Credits: One level ends for the anti-registration side, with a dancing robot, which is a mook for the Pro Registration side.
• Darker and Edgier: While the first game depicted a typical comic war between the forces of good and evil, MUA 2 depicts a tense tale of terrorism, revenge, division, betrayal, and apocalyptic Hive Mind horror.
• Deadpan Snarker: You get a team bonus for putting Iceman, Spider-Man, Deadpool, The Thing, or Human Torch in a team together called "Shut Up Already".
• Death Faked for You: During the Chemical Plant battle, your team is presumed dead by both sides of the conflict after Nick Fury fails to disarm one of the bombs, resulting in them being blown up and buried in rubble. Fury takes advantage of the commotion to retrieve them and get their help in investigating the malfunctioning nanites.
• Defeat Means Playable:
  • Penance initially appears as a boss in the Prison area, but after being defeated, he decides to join your team on the basis that "everyone else is too busy fighting each other to watch out for innocents".
  • After being defeated and rid of the nanites, Venom (Mac Gargan) and the Green Goblin join your team.
  • Same goes for Deadpool as well, who shows up as the boss of the 1st DC level, a Guest-Star Party Member in the second until the end of the level, where he becomes fully playable.
• Demoted to Extra: Happened to Spider-Woman: playable in MUA 1 and an NPC in the second game.
• Developer's Foresight: Numerous lines can be said by all the characters in different situations. For instance, one of Deadpool's lines if he's Pro-Reg is "I'm not just the Merc with a Mouth, I'm the Sensation with a Registration!" and one of Gambit's lines if he's Anti-Reg is "I've been on the wrong side of the law before. Don't bother me none!"
• Easter Egg: Every single playable character (barring Nanite Nick Fury) has a different conversation with Senator Lieber in the Washington D.C level, even if they aren't unlocked until later in the game. Highlights include Lieber sassing Venom for threatening to tear off his face, Deadpool being confused about there being two of him (since Deadpool also appears as an ally in said level) and Lieber calling Spider-Man "Amazing" and "Spectacular".
• Enemy Mine:
  • Venom (Mac Gargan) and Green Goblin feel so violated by being assimilated into The Fold that they decide to join the heroes (for real this time), no strings attached, which, knowing Norman Osborn, is a real feat. Venom in particular seemed to really enjoy the hero thing.
  • Perhaps the most extreme example - thanks to DLC, you can place Spider-Man on the same team as Green Goblin, Venom and Carnage.
• Escort Mission: You have to protect NPC allies, from Cloak and Dagger to Venom. The worst is Songbird's solo mission, in which you must protect three scientists from an army of super-hardy mutants and Moonstone. The scientists tend to put themselves between Songbird and the enemies, making for a frustrating time.
• Evil Laugh: The Goblin. Even when he dies.
• Foe Romantic Subtext: Lampshaded:
  Iceman/Deadpool/Spider-Man/Human Torch: Why are [Iron Man and Captain America] so obsessed with each other, anyway? It's reaching "creepy ex" territory.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • In the PS2/Wii/PSP versions, the characters will directly address the player to get things moving if they are left standing inactive for an extended period of time.
    Jean Grey: I can read your mind, I know you want to play this game...
  • Deadpool will also address the player before his boss battle.
    Deadpool: You're laughing with your eyes, I can see it!
• Game-Breaking Bug: Since many of the bosses are playable characters, replaying missions at higher levels yields the same difficulty, because the boss stays the same level as you. In the "Chemical Plant Escape" level, however, you have to protect Nick Fury from the Green Goblin. Since Nick Fury doesn't level up, and the Goblin does... By level 60, you have literally two seconds to bring the Goblin's health to zero before he kills Fury in a single shot. Unwinnable, or damn near it.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Zig-zagged. Once you pick a side in the Civil War, you're locked out of several characters depending on your choice, only regaining them at the start of the third act. But then in New Game Plus, the entire roster is available to you at all times - yes, even the characters who the story dictates shouldn't be available to you, such as Captain America as a Pro-Reg.
• A God Am I: Nanite!Nick Fury.
  Nanite!Nick Fury: You damn throwbacks are like bacteria compared to us!
• Godwin's Law: The special conversation between Captain America and the holograph of Nanite-infected Nick Fury. To be fair, the two of them literally had fought Hitler's Nazis together. But when Fury states that the Fold would bring an end to all future wars, Cap responds:
  Captain America: Right, once you've taken everything over. Pretty sure I've heard that one before... from an old German acquaintance of ours.
• Hero Insurance: The audio clip that can be found in the gun smuggler hideout is an advertisement for Brand X Gecko Insurance which offers this policy. Does not cover acts of God or gods including Thor and Loki.
• Hulk Speak: As to be expected from the Trope Namer. Hulk even has his own exclusive dialogue options consisting exclusively of Hulk Speak!
• Idiot Ball: A major one is thrown to Iron Man and Reed Richards when they decide to reverse engineer tech from The Tinkerer, a known supervillain who was supplying tech to Latveria to mind control villains into helping SHIELD. Naturally, this backfires immensely on everyone.
• Karma Houdini:
  • A fair bit of the game is Reed Richards' fault, as his plan to mind control mass amounts of villains ends up becoming too widespread for him to control and the nanites start linking minds instead of subjugating them, ending in them attempting to assimilate the whole world. Plus, of course, the whole "mass mind control" bit in the first place. Nobody calls him out on this but Sue Storm if you get a special conversation with him.
  • The President of the United States, who was the one who installed Maria Hill into SHIELD and foolishly thought he could negotiate with Lucia von Bardas despite the fact that she was obviously planning to attack America, which prompted Nick Fury to go behind his back and invade Latveria in a secret op. The overwhelming amount of the game’s events can be traced back to him, and yet he gets away scot free.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: Spider-Man's conversation with Venom (keep in mind this is the third Venom and the former Scorpion).
  Spider-Man: Admit it, Mac, you miss the seven-foot long tail.
  Venom: Not as much as the ladies do.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Characters like Iron Man are useful at the start while Jean Grey or Sue Richards are not. However as you progress further and further, Iron Man starts to get his ass handed to him by the fold and Sue obliterates everything in sight. Something's not quite right there...
• Look Behind You: Ms. Marvel to Shocker, when you find her in the underground weapon-smuggling tunnel. He makes it seem he's not fooled until he turns around... and sees your team there.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • Green Goblin can use his glider to fly and can also attack enemies while on the glider with machine guns and rockets, and is significantly weaker on foot, so it's in your best interest to keep him on his glider as much as possible.
  • Penance has a mechanic where he does more damage the lower his health is. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the PS2, PSP and Wii versions: due to a glitch in these versions, Penance's strength doesn't increase as his health lowers, and will stay at its lowest level even if he's at 1HP.
• Multiple Endings: The game has a more traditional instance in that the side you choose at the beginning of the Civil War decides whether the Superhuman Registration Act gets passed or not.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Ominous Latin Chanting plays during computer hacking.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: The game grants this treatment depending on whether you choose to go Pro-Registration or Anti-Registration: going with the former locks you out of Captain America, Luke Cage and Iron Fist while going with the latter renders Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Songbird unusable. It's later subverted in the third act when both sides are forced to team up.
• Mythology Gag:
  • This dialogue:
    Spider-Man: Great to be working with you again, we should be on TV or something.
    Firestar: Yeah, we really are some amazing friends.
  • Another reference to Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends occurs when Deadpool complains to the game designers that the game wasn't called Deadpool and his Inferior Friends.
  • During the ending cinematic, you can see a news crawl about people's neighbors being Skrulls, a reference to Secret Invasion.
• Nanomachines: The Fold.
• New Game Plus: Clearing the game on any difficulty level allows the player to replay the game on Legendary difficulty with all the stats from the previous runthrough. It also allows any character to be playable at all times, regardless of if you choose to be Pro-Reg or Anti-Reg.
• One-Winged Angel: Nick Fury gets unwillingly powered up with the Tinkerer's experimental nanites, and becomes a nanite-powered cyborg with the ability to take powers from other heroes and villains in the fold no matter how far away they are.
• Optional Party Member: Thor, Hulk and Jean Grey can only be unlocked by collecting 5 of their respective collectables: Asgardian Runes for Thor, Gamma Regulators for Hulk and M'Kraan Shards for Jean Grey.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The Wii/PS2 versions. Besides keeping the same gameplay as MUA 1, various sequences were cut out, like the rescue of Ms. Marvel and the Washington, D.C. level (Ms. Marvel/Deadpool now show up from the beginning). Others were changed/shortened; The Goliath/Yellowjacket fight is practically a rehash of the Galactus fight in MUA 1, and Zombie!Von Bardas plans to blow up Times Square rather than bombing the riverfront.
• Press X to Not Die: The PS3 and 360 versions drop this concept from the first game, whereas the Wii, PS2 and PSP versions use them for every boss fight, giant or not.
• Put on a Bus: On the side of heroes; Doctor Strange, Elektra, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Nightcrawler, Ghost Rider, and Silver Surfer.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Deadpool goes to Washington DC for the cherry blossom festival then challenges the player to a boss battle when he sees them laughing at him for it.
  Deadpool: And YOU! You think it makes me less of a man if I came here for the Cherry Blossom Festival. You're laughing with your eyes! I can see it! Time for a BOSS BATTLE SUCKERS!
• Redemption Demotion: Nanite Nick Fury has only four powers when you get him as a playable character in the second game, but he shows off many more in the boss fight, and some of the powers his playable version has are more powerful when he uses them as a boss.
• Sadistic Choice: The obvious side-choosing; you'll inevitably earn the wrath of either Captain America or Iron Man.
• Secret Character: Hulk, Jean Grey and Thor can be unlocked by finding a number of items relating to them (Gamma inhibitors for Hulk, Mkraan crystals for Jean, and Asgardian runes for Thor.) All three characters are very powerful and well worth the effort of unlocking them.
• Shout-Out: Deadpool's suggests that when they find Titanium Man, they should make him say something like "Moose and Squirrel." Hilariously, Titanium Man actually does say "Moose and Squirrel" when you fight him.
• Sociopathic Hero:
  • Some team bonuses feature these characters— Rogues Gallery and Unrepentant Killers.
  • Judging by the audio cassette of his mind control experiments, Reed Richards approaches this as well.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Goliath is implied to have survived the Pro-Reg boss fight against him, most likely owing to the fact that Robot Thor/Ragnarok doesn't exist.
• Storming the Castle: The first act involves the heroes and Nick Fury storming Castle Doom in Latveria. Next Captain America storms into Prison 42, and the final mission involves storming in one of the Fold towers.
• Take a Third Option: Subverted by the Thing. Rather than take a side in the Civil War, he goes into hiding. When he stumbles upon you later during a boss fight with Multiple Man/Lady Deathstrike, depending on which side you are playing as, he'll either force himself to register or be appalled by what S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing and join the resistance.
• Tempting Fate: Before the final boss fight against Nanite Nick Fury, the player's character says some variation of "It's over Fury! You're alone! You can't possibly.../How can..." At which point, Nanite Nick Fury reveals he can draw on all of the Nanite-infected heroes and villains' powers.
• To Catch Heroes, Hire Villains: The Pro-Registration side uses supervillains to hunt the Anti-Reg side. The difference with the Civil War (2006) comics is that they use nanite technology as a sort of mind control to keep the villains from trying anything funny. It falls apart when the nanites started developing on their own and Turned Against Their Masters.
• Token Evil Teammate: The game features established villains Green Goblin and Venom (Mac Gargan) as usable characters among a hero-focused roster. The DLC also brings back Magneto and adds in Juggernaut, and Carnage, and all of them have hilariously jerkish responses to being asked to do things by NPCs. Senator Lieber points it out if you have the Green Goblin talk to him in New Game Plus:
  Green Goblin: Whoopee. Hurray for us "heroes".
  Senator Lieber: You know in my day, someone like you wouldn't really be considered a hero, but we'll let it slide.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The President of the United States refuses to believe Nick Fury’s claims that Latveria is using American money to plan terrorist attacks on America despite Fury having overwhelming proof of this and thinks he can handle the matter diplomatically. Then when Nick goes and takes out Latveria anyway, causing Latveria to do something they were already preparing to do, he has him replaced with Maria Hill. Everything that happens in the game is entirely his fault. This is due to Adaptation Explanation Extrication.
• [Verb] This!: If you pick the Anti-Registration side, some characters will say, "Register this!", before fighting S.H.I.E.L.D. forces.
• Villain Protagonist: Half of the Thunderbolts fit the role and after beating the game, Nanite Nick Fury becomes available for replays.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Nick Fury chews out everyone after getting this treatment himself at the very beginning. Also, certain conversations allow you to do this as well - with Anti and Pro Reg sides laying into each other for what they've done. Also, after the two sides, the Fantastic Four give this to Reed Richards, who really deserves it.
• Wicked Toymaker: The Tinkerer invokes this trope during his boss fight, using robots that look like smaller versions of heroes and villains with giant windup keys sticking out of them. The level itself is even called "The Tinkerer's Toys".