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Any time that I start feeling down about being fat, broke and unemployable, I sit back and close my eyes and remember the line in Amazing Fantasy # 15 when Uncle Ben gave Peter Parker the greatest advice ever. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Although I was really irresponsible and hated to help others, I still had a dream of becoming a superhero. And now, thanks to Activision and Raven software I finally get the chance, by playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the Xbox 360.

If you haven’t already played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the plot is pretty standard as far as comic book gaming is concerned. Dr. Doom is back and looking to take over the world by forming a New Masters of Evil, which includes Loki, Fing Fang Foom, Enchantress, Executioner, and many others well-known villains. They start off by attacking the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier, manned by the one and only Nick Fury, the head of the S.H.I.E.L.D espionage agency. After the attack barely fails, Fury is given the OK to form a superhero task force. This new task force is headquartered in Stark Towers. For you non-geeks out there, this is the penthouse suit of Iron Man. They must fight through different realms like Mephisto’s realm, Murderworld, S.H.I.E.L.D Omega Base, and others in order to stop each Master of Evil.

The one thing that sets Marvel: Ultimate Alliance apart from games like X-Men Legends is that Alliance gives you the choice to choose any super hero from the Marvel library. Well, maybe not the whole library, but at least 24 playable characters and 100 non- playable characters like The Fantastic Four, Colossus, Iron Man, Wolverine, Ice Man, Electra, Captain America, and of course enough sexy superheroes like Ms. Marvel, Storm and Spider Woman to wet any comic books geeks’ pants. As you trudge along, you can unlock other characters to play, like Silver Surfer and Daredevil, but as I kept playing I tended to stick with a squad that worked.

After playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance I can say that each character felt authentic. It was definitely set apart from X-Men Legends, which didn’t seem realistic, due to the fact that each character did the same damage and didn’t really stand out. Ultimate Alliance gives the characters certain weaknesses that factor in to your process of assembling the right squad for each board, and ultimately to fight each villain. I can say that my favorite characters were Silver Surfer, Captain America, and the Human Torch. They had the most power, and were able to inflict the most damage, so I used them frequently. And the coolest part was that you could scroll through each character while playing the game.

I would definitely say that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is not a next-gen game, due to its inferior graphics and levels that mimic Sega Genesis, but overall the game kept me playing on. I felt that getting into the later levels, the programmers fell asleep or ran out of ideas, because each level looked like previous level, but a little bit different. If I were going to rate Ultimate Alliance I would give it 2 out of 5 tight fitting spandex outfits, because even though I fulfilled my dream of becoming a superhero, I still felt like a bit of a loser.