We've been excited for Activision's upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance since we got our first look at the title at this year's E3. The action role-playing game is being developed by Raven Software, and throws everyone and their mother into one big fight to save the world from certain doom. The game is the evolution of the winning formula of character progression and item collection that's been used in the X-Men Legends games, and it tosses in some nice customization touches, as well. We recently had the chance to log a healthy chunk of time with the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the upcoming game and got a good feel for how it's shaping up on both platforms. Our time with the game let us try out a sampling of levels taken from different parts of the lengthy adventure that let us check out several different members of the game's cast of 20-plus playable characters. For those keeping a running tally of the combatants, we tried Iceman, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thor, Thing, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic, Wolverine, Electra, Ghost Rider, Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer, Captain America, and Spider-Man. The heroes featured their own unique moves and abilities that, if used with the right combo of heroes, can wind up being excellent complements to one another. We checked out a whopping 10 levels and saw a number of the eclectic cast of characters being assembled for the adventure, which ran the gamut from playable to cameos. The first two levels we tried were on the now-familiar S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier level at the start of the game and found Cap, Spidey, Thor, and Wolvie responding to an SOS from Nick Fury. The level culminated with us taking on the Scorpion, while the second part of the helicarrier level pitted us against Bullseye. There wasn't much new from a content standpoint in the level which we've played a few times now. The big difference from our previous play-throughs is that the level now contains a number of small polish tweaks that display hints on how to play.
