The strange world of sequels

In the movie world it is commonly known that a sequel can suck. There are so many examples that my hands would bleed from typing them all out. I will quickly mention "Scream 2" though. Or "Transformers 2."

Sorry, the door was open, I had to!

But, in the world of video games sequels are supposed to rock. "Halo 2," "Street Fighter 2," "Resident Evil 2," "Super Mario Bros. 2" and "WWF: No Mercy" (Holy crap, did that game rock back in the day.)

Then what in the blue hell happened with "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2"?

I loved the first one. Like addicted-ly loved it. I must have played that straight through a couple of times. Everything was good; the graphics, the characters, the cut scenes, the voice acting.

Man, what a game.

Then a new company took over.

And all hell broke loose.

I ran out to Best Buy and put down $29.99 for the PS2 version when it came out a few weeks ago. And, within minutes, wanted to either cry or break the friggin' game.

Let's break it down:

The graphics - If the graphics in the first game were good, then why are they bad in this one? Shouldn't they have the same program from the first one? All you need to do is IMPROVE it then, not take several steps back. But, that seems to be a lingering thread here.

The characters - Out of all the "new" characters in the game, you really only get 5-6 new ones. The rest are leftovers from the old game or its predecessor "X-men Legends." And for those who don't believe me then really just compare Jean Grey and Invisible Woman. All of the other characters are from the old games! And with the same powers. Plus, I found some sort of weird bug with Green Goblin which caused him to not have any power to use any of his powers.

The cut scenes - Where the first "Ultimate Alliance" had great cut scenes, I could watch that opening cut scene over and over, this one? Not so much. Most of them are like crude drawings that show us what is going on. Like they ran out of money and memory to do good ones.

The voice acting - Is beyond bad, when it's there. There are a lot of points when one side would talk and another character would just be text.

It is a horrible excuse of a game with a ton of glitches and bugs. Save the three citizens and still can't continue on? Well, just reload the level a couple of times. And don't get me started on the Auto Save "feature" or as I like to call it "The Let's-Make-Tim-Pissed" feature.

Save your money and then be mad at NSpace. Of course... they also made the "Hannah Montana" video game.