Conquering the Masters of Evil

Facing off against Dr. Doom and his malevolent Masters of Evil in Marvel™: Ultimate Alliance is no easy task, even for an army of Marvel's finest superheroes. To help you with your goal of defending the world from evil, we present these tips to help you get ahead and save the world in style.

Looking pretty nonchalant for a planet eater.

A Balanced Team
You can barrel your way through the first few levels of Ultimate Alliance without much regard to the composition of your team, but when you get the chance to build your own custom superhero team, you need to put some thought into the membership. As a basic rule, you should try to have two melee heroes and two ranged-attack heroes on your team. Here are some of your options:

• Melee: Captain America, The Thing, and Wolverine are staunch melee combatants that can not only dish out the damage, but take it as well.
• Ranged: Iron Man and Dr. Strange both offer quality ranged attacks that can rip apart enemies from a distance while the melee combatants keep them busy.
• Well Rounded: A third option is to include at least one hero that is proficient in both ranged and melee attacks. Spider-Man is an excellent example, as he can whip rapid-fire web-bullets at his enemies from a distance, as going toe-to-toe with melee combos.

Barrel Cracking
Littered throughout every level are breakable objects like barrels and crates that contain energy and health orbs, but more importantly, SHIELD credits. You can use these to purchase new costumes with upgrades (like extra health), but watch your spending. Take the time to search for every credit you can find, and use them wisely to beef up your team.

The Thing, Blade, Spider-Man, and Ghost Rider? That's a new team-up.

Over the Edge
Keep a sharp eye out for pits, cliffs, pools of molten lava, and any sheer drop you can dump an enemy over. When overwhelmed with a platoon of goons, it's a lot faster to grab them by pressing X and throwing them overboard by pushing in the desired direction with the left stick than it is to fight it out.

End Boss Tactics
For mid-level bosses like Scorpion and Shocker, you can cast trickery aside and take the fight right to them, but every level contains one end boss (like Mephisto or Arcade) that you can't attack straight on. When you face off against these bosses, ignore the action and attacks, and instead look for the way to defeat them.

Most often it will be an element of the environment that you can use to your advantage. For Fin Fang Foom, for example, use the laser cannon to shoot him out of the sky. For Arcade, you have to use the trapdoors to activate the cannons, which you can then use to shoot yourself at him. Then you can trick him into knocking himself out.

That's a lot of debris to web up.

A.I. Melee
If you prefer to play a ranged character and take out your enemies from a safe distance, let your allies engage the enemy first. You can ensure they'll step up by setting your team A.I. to aggressive. To do this, simply pull the left trigger and press up on the d-pad. Of course, this won't help if you're playing co-op and your buddy is a wuss, but every little bit helps.

Action Figures
Hidden throughout the first several levels are tiny action figures of Black Panther and Daredevil. If you collect all five of each, they will be unlocked as playable characters! So as you play, make sure to check every room after you clear it of enemies, and pay special attention to the side rooms, even if they aren't important to clearing the level.

With a Friend
While the A.I. can certainly get the job done, the best help you can get is that of a friend, so check your Friends List for a bit of co-op action over Xbox Live®. The ability to communicate and set up combined attacks makes a world of difference, particularly during the boss encounters.

Portal Use
You have the SHEILD Portal for a good reason, so don't forget about it. The ability to teleport back to your base and save is handy, and you should take advantage of it often, especially before end-boss encounters.

It's handy not having to play your way back to the end of the level if you lose, but what's really handy is using the save the mix and match your teammates to find the best possible combination for defeating the boss.

Article by Ryan Treit