Marvel Nemesis:
Rise of the Imperfects
review by Big McLargehuge

Wow! This game has everything!! All your best-loved characters from the Marvel Universe are here doing battle against the nameless hordes of monsters unleashed by crazed scientist Niles Van Roekel who wants to… er… um… I have no goddamn idea, and here's the great part… NEITHER WILL YOU! Not only will you get to play as Wolverine, Spiderman, and Daredevil, you'll get to play as Storm, Iron Man, The Thing, er… Electra… er again, The Human Torch, Magneto, and Venom, and a bunch of new heroes who are almost identical to their marvel counterparts, The Wink (AKA Electra), Fault Zone (not to be confused with The Thing although she's a former Russian ballerina, she has all the same moves), Solara (A Female Human Torch), Brigade (ahem… Iron Man), Hazmat (very much the toxic Spiderman), Johnny Ohm (a male Storm), and Paragon (same as Wolverine).

The game has three components, Story mode (which I'll get into in much more detail in a minute), Versus mode, and Online mode (same as Versus mode but the 14 year old who's kicking your ass isn't close enough to slap).

Story mode has everything in it that either Versus or Online has, in fact, Story mode is pretty much a linear progression through 4 arena's per character that pits you first against a horde of mutant soldiers, then against a horde of mutant soldiers, then a horde or mutant soldiers, and finally, against either an altered Marvel character or one of the ersatz Marvel characters above. The arenas for Versus mode are the same cramped and shitty little levels in Story mode so I didn't see the reason to bother to play it more than once.

Okay, so what's the story about? It begins with a nice cut scene of news footage showing our beloved Marvel heroes battling some mysterious spaceship type things and being soundly thrashed. Captain America, gone, Hulk, defeated… You get the idea.

You begin as The Thing on the Brooklyn Bridge and fight your through waves of mutant soldiers until the scant pieces of the mystery leading to the disappearance of the heroes. So far it sounds okay, right? Here's where it falls apart though, each character interacts with his superheroic counterpart one time, usually to say "Hey, there's trouble at the Avenger's Mansion!" Then voom, you start a new short campaign as that character.

By the way, The Avenger's Mansion gets trashed in virtually EVERY four-mission campaign. Eventually you end up confronting Van Roekel, but not as any of the Marvel heroes, you finish out the game as Paragon. She's supposed to be the perfect weapon or something, but the story is so fragmented and silly that it doesn't make much sense.

There, that's the story. But how does it play? Simple…

It plays like Galaga.

Here are all the controls you need to know OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That's right, Marvel Nemesis is a straight up punch-everything-on-the-screen-game and for about the first hour it's moderately entertaining, by the second hour you can almost remember that you're Storm now and not Wolverine, by the third hour "Hey, it's The Avenger's Mansion again!", by the fourth hour ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ… By the fifth hour you are playing by sheer willpower alone, by the sixth hour you begin cursing at a voodoo doll shaped like Stan Lee.

The Marvel characters and battle environments look okay, if not a bit shy on the details. Environments have several items that can be thrown/punched/exploded including cars, a tank, gas drums (why are these all over the city?), lockers, lampposts, and other doo dads. Strangely, they seem to be an infinite supply of them as well, because once you hurl a gas barrel at the enemies it will spring back into the arena 10 seconds later. This makes hurling barrels a critical strategy to defeating the hordes of enemies that swarm you. It also has the added benefit of making Marvel Nemesis completely "gamey" in that you never get immersed in the story or sequence because the environment keeps resetting.

The character movements are suitably dynamic for comic characters, but you won't notice because you'll be pounding the O button in a scrum for most of the time. Speaking of attacks, each character has two sets of combos. Two sets. TWO SETS. O button = Punch, kick, slap, R1 and O button equals "super power" which is usually a ranged weapon – baton, web, throwing knives, repulsor ray, electrical bolt, flame blob, thunder clap… except for Wolverine he got diddly in the ranged weapons department.

Some characters can fly, but it's REALLY hard to control them, others can climb walls which is absolutely useless, other can run up walls, and except for one puzzle-like battle, it's useless too.

The control structure for movement is simple, use the left analog stick. Your character will rotate in place or run in any direction. The problem is it makes for really difficult targeting as there is no way to lock on a specific target, so let's say you are facing two "Obliterators" (mutant soldiers that shoot) and you want to throw a gas barrel at the one in the back to the left, you will spin in place and more than likely throw it into the wall beside you and get blown up.

The L1 button gives you a burst of super speed and allows for web swinging. Pressing the L1 and R1 together with O is just about the only controller command you need. The R1 also regenerates your super power so it's a good idea to hold it down ALL THE TIME, which, of course, limits you to ONE SET of attack moves. The movement controls are jinky and there was more than several occasions where I leapt at an opponent but the character had pivoted 180 degrees and leapt away allowing the opponent to score a nice rabbit punch or hit me with a park bench. If this only happened once and a while I'd chalk it up to operator error, but it was a persistent bug.

Speaking of bugs…

Did anyone QA test this goddamn game? There are more bugs in Marvel Nemesis than you can shake a can of pyrethrin at. The most glaring of which occurs in the battle between altered Elektra and Daredevil where the instructions remain on screen for the entire battle. The instructions take up almost 25% of the screen real estate too, and whenever you fight a "character" character the camera freezes so you can very easily lose yourself among the destructable stuff on screen. Other bugs include guys falling half way through walls, control glitches where specific attacks simply don't work (not that you have a dizzying array of choices to begin with), things that don't blow up that should, and things that do blow up that shouldn't (since when are park benches and mailboxes made of explosives??) and my favorite, attacking inanimate and explosive objects for no good reason. An example of this occurs whenever you are near both an opponent and an explosive piece of the arena. You'll hit the opponent twice, then turn and punch/shoot/stab a gas drum and blow the crap out of yourself. I did this several times when I wasn't even holding the Left Analog stick to make sure I wasn't an idiot and changing my character's direction. Yet another bug is inconsistently applied superpowers. In many cases, even with a half or better amount of super hero power, or when in Rage mode (full unlimited superpower for 5 seconds) a full 50% of the time my super power attack would simply not work, especially when playing as Paragon or Iron Man.

Speaking of the camera… For the battles with the Space Invader-like mutant soldiers you get a typical over the shoulder, character centered perspective. The Right Analog stick controls the camera, which helps see things behind you, sort of… However, when you are fighting another Marvel Character or one of the Imperfects, the camera freezes allowing you to see the entire arena at one time. The problem with this is, unless you have a 54" TV, the characters become little more than dots once they are half way into the arena. Since you can't target your enemy with anything but blind luck you'll often find yourself kicking the ass of that pesky wall while your opponent throws a tank on you. This is a persistent problem in Versus mode as well because the camera stays centered on whichever character is closest to the "front" of the screen.

Cut scenes occur seemingly at random, usually featuring a dramatic angle as one of your enemies is hurled through the air in slow motion, which was very cool the first two or three times it happened because it added a little drama to the game. However, when in situations where you are facing multiple attackers, this little cutaway yanks you OUT of the game and completely saps your momentum. Couple this with the occasional 180 degree pivot bug and you are in for a frustrating experience. Cut scenes that have the same effect also occur when you achieve Rage status.

Replay value in Story mode is non-existent because EVERY single mission is nearly identical, until you get to the end where Paragon has to destroy the Imperfect containers, in that missions it's also virtually identical to every other mission with one minor difference; it can't be completed. Replay value in Versus mode is even worse as you can't simply fight one guy then another then another then another. You have to set how many lives you and your chosen opponent have, then repeat (like 10 clicks and menus) for every match. I was bored with it by the time I'd set it up once.

The voice acting is okay and since the characters say VERY LITTLE other than standard catch phrases you won't notice. There are some moderately interesting origin stories for the Imperfects, but these are tied so loosely into an already incomprehensible story you will be clicking through them before you know it.

Completing missions in Versus mode unlocks comics, cards, and cut scenes. These are not at all interesting if you know anything about the origin of the characters in the game. The comic sets are about Reed Richard's childhood (big whoop… he's not even IN THE GAME!) and one about the rise of the Imperfects that simply mirrors the crap in the cut-scene movies. The cards are simple stills from the game, again, big whoop.

I can't believe they charge $50 for this title. It's a budget title at best, and seems much more suited to the scaled down controls of the PS/P and not the full-blown PS2. Horrifically repetitive gameplay and a stupid/incomprehensible story render this title as a single skull experience.

And I'm being generous — Very generous.