When EA decided to create a marvel game and involve the word imperfect, they were not kidding. Despite my joy of brawlers with destructible environments, this one fell flat. The character controls were irritating, especially with the flying and aiming. Plus any game that has Magneto play like a wimpy old man is pretty much wrong on many levels.
For a guy with a BFA in Sequential Art, I am not a big fan of many decisions Marvel makes story wise. Be it Jean Grey’s bi-polar power range, Spider-man’s his clone saga, or when the X-men started fighting aliens instead of discrimination. Rise of the imperfects takes the war of the worlds approach as aliens visited earth over a hundred years ago, abducted a girl who physically and mentally better than anyone in existence, and stuck around for seeming to be no apparent reason. Then either the girl or one of her many clones broke out and ran off to New York City. Being the intelligent and wise corporate aliens they are, they sent millions upon millions of robots/aliens to New York to find her. Of course the quickest way to find a scared and confused girl in a power suit with armed energy weapons is to just swarm the city with UFOs and start brainwashing heroes into becoming glowing green villains. Also, despite being aliens with vast amounts of space bound bases across the galaxy, they put their main factory for the girl clones under New York City. And to add the final nail in the bad storyline, the head alien has created his own group of warriors called the imperfects. Most of them have been put through tragedy after tragedy by the head alien himself, so he could turn them into super-powered freaks.
The game play is cumbersome and uninspired. Moving around is difficult and irritating with inaccurate swinging and awkward flying movements. Fighting gets especially difficult, at random moments, the computer will take a successful attack and turn it into a mini cut scene where the player loses control over their character and the can easily be hit by the non-frozen computer characters. The bosses also seem to randomly use an instant kill move on the players. Controlling where the players throw something is also irritating, with the aim not working well. Though there is a variety in moves, they all pretty much do the same thing. Many of the characters also seem to be just slightly edited templates, so even though the character looks different, there is really nothing new game play wise after the 5th or 6th unlocked character.
Graphically, the game is all right to a degree. There seem to be a shortage to level design, so players tend to destroy the Daily Bugles sign several times in one night. As well as players will visit the same location over and over again. Plus many of the high-tech environments look pasted together and too simplistic period. The music is overdramatic, but forgettable.
Ignoring my rant above about the bad plotline, the game did little to link up any sense of chronology or explain why they traveled to five different locations inhabited by no one except for when the alien-bots decide to teleport in front of the hero. The hero may start fighting on the city’s rooftops, be thrashing in the basement of the Avengers Mansion, and the go for a showdown in the subway ruins.
As for unlockables, there are of course the standard play to unlock more characters that fight exactly like all of the others, intro movies for EA fictitious villain group, and creepily narrated versions of the first issues of Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men. The comics are especially out of place, considering that the Ultimate line is non-canon for the regular Marvel universe. But then again, we can only hope that the Imperfects are considered non-canon and this will never appear in any comics ever.
The game has bad plot lines, mediocre environments, horrible controls that make Digimon World 4’s aiming functions seem world class, and the bitter taste of a rushed cinematically driven game. I’m not going to bother with a pros and cons on this one, but I will advise that this game should be a rental only. The only good thing is that despite its lack of everything, it maybe longer than Ultimate Spider-Man. But a short bit of fun is always better than a long migraine.
