Auto-Spend

This is one of our favorite new features that many gamers might be unaware of.  The first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance provided a simple auto-spend system that would spend points as you earn them to automatically upgrade the powers of your team.  When we started developing MUA2 for the Wii, we examined this system and tried to think of ways to make it even more useful.  Our solution was to implement a priority system that allows the user to prioritize the powers they wish to buy via auto-spend. 

For example, if you prefer Captain America’s “Shield Throw” over his “Shield Charge”, then you can assign “Shield Throw” a priority of three and give “Shield Charge” a priority of zero.  This means that “Shield Throw” will upgrade itself whenever possible, but no points will ever be put into “Shield Charge”.  These priorities and ranks can be assigned and changed from the Hero Details menu.  After arranging these priorities, you can hit a button to completely reallocate all points based on your new rankings.

This powerful system gives players three options when it comes to auto-spend:  1) They can micromanage their points by spending everything manually, 2) They can direct the auto-spend by setting priorities for certain powers, and 3) They can allow the system to completely manage all points automatically.  Auto-spend preferences can also be changed at any time.

In addition to revamping the controls for the Wii version of MUA2, we also looked at some of the existing systems to see what additions or improvements could be made to make the overall experienced more streamlined, user-friendly, and tailored specifically for the Wii audience.

Profiles

We’ve added proper profile support to the Wii version of MUA2.  The first MUA simply saved your points and coins based on the controller number you were using.  In our game, each player can create and personalize their own profile which stores stats such as time played, coins collected, points to spend, and total enemy KOs.  Gamers can also choose to play with a guest profile, allowing them to jump directly into the game.

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Scoring and Awards

Our new Scoring and Awards systems show the player how they did after each map using scores and letter grades.  This helps to keep the cooperative experience competitive among your friends.  While the entire campaign is played cooperatively, you are still competing to get the highest score and rank at the end of each level.  You also compete for the Most Valuable Hero award per map, and hope to get the best descriptive awards at the end of each stage as well.  These awards range from the complementary “MUA2 Master” to the less desirable “Death Becomes You.”

B.R.A.G.

What good are scores and awards if you can’t gloat?  Our “Broadcast Realtime Accomplishment Gloating” system lets you brag to your Wii Friends about your scores and rankings.  Just finish a level in either a single or multi-player game and select the friends you want to gloat to.  The B.R.A.G. system will do the rest, sending a snapshot of your score and grade to the Wii Message Board of your friends!

The concept for the B.R.A.G. system was born from a highly competitive Wii Sports Bowling rivalry in the office.  We would take digital pictures of our scores and upload them to our Wiis in order to mail them to each other’s Wii Message Boards.  We figured there had to be better way, and now there is!  This innovative feature was implemented long before the recent announcements of a similar Facebook connected feature for the Xbox 360.

Online Leaderboards and Replay

See how your scores compare with the rest of the world with our online leaderboard system!  At the end of each single player level, you have the opportunity to submit your profile name along with your score and rank to our worldwide leaderboards.  It doesn’t matter if you finish 1st or 1000th, you can submit your score and see how you rank!  Not happy with your score?  Simply replay the level via the Mission Replay computer and submit your improved mark.  MUA2 for the Wii allows you to completely replay any mission at your current upgraded party level.  It will dynamically increase the levels and difficulties of the enemies in that stage to compensate for the strength of your party.  For example, this allows you to replay the first stage of the game while your party is at level 50.  You can still receive a score and a letter grade which can then be uploaded to our worldwide online leaderboard.

Boost Medals

Boosts provide passive abilities that are applied across your entire team.  These medals are earned by defeating specific bosses, random enemies, and by performing well in some of the Bonus Missions.  You only have one active boost slot at the beginning of the game, but you can unlock up to four by progressing through the story.  Boosts add tremendous replay value to the game.  With 100 different boosts to earn it might take several playthroughs to find them all!

There are four categories of boosts:  Melee, Power, Defense, and Special.  Each boost category holds 10 unique boost medals that affect your party in different ways.  Melee, Power, and Defensive boosts can all be found in 3 different levels:  Bronze, Silver, and Gold.  When you find an upgraded boost, it automatically replaces the lower one.

Special boosts never drop randomly from enemies and must be earned by succeeding in the game.  These boosts truly are special and have the most interesting and varied effects on your party.  One of our favorites greatly increases the melee damage your team deals, while also putting giant green Hulk fists (shown in the clip below) on the hands of everyone in your party.

Well we have one more day to post on the MUA2 Wii Diary where we’ll go into the details behind our take on Fusion and what exactly makes it unique in the Wii version of the game - plus we’l be posting a FAQ of the most common questions we’ve received since the game’s release. Stay tuned!