This past week has been a very busy one for my family, but over the weekend we managed to squeeze in some Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. For our first play through, we played as Iron Man's side. For the achievement's sake, and to experience the other side of the war, we decided to continue the game on a tougher difficulty, rather than loading our pre-choice save game.
It was a bit of an humbling experience. Our characters, all well into their 30s in level, struggled with even relatively small groups of bad guys. The typical tactics of button mashing that worked adequately on normal were ineffective. Combinations and liberal use of superpowers were absolutely necessary, and even then, we all died horribly and had to reload from the last checkpoint often. It was getting to the point of frustration when I decided enough was enough.
"Fellas, that's it. I've had it with dying all the time. I'm going to bring in a big gun!" I said to my boys. The youngest whooped, and the eldest just rolled his eyes a bit. "Who do you think I'll pick? The Iron Man-like Ms. Marvel? Maybe wisecracking merc Deadpool? HAH!" I exclaimed. "These pale in comparison to the most powerful character of all..."
"THE INVISIBLE WOMAN!"
You could have heard a pin drop. I could almost read their minds. What was Dad thinking? Why would he play as... a... girl? And one with a boring costume, to boot? She didn't even wear a mask or anything. But they changed their tune rather quickly. No longer were small groups of enemies a problem. Matter of fact, large groups of enemies hardly even made us break a sweat.
The Fantastic First Lady of the Marvel Universe's best power is Binding Field. This sends out a wave of invisible force, that binds lesser enemies so that they can't move. She's like the frost Sorceress from Diablo 2, or the Enchanter from Everquest: fantastic crowd control all wrapped up in a pretty blue package. Add in the fact that she can grab enemies in a giant invisible hamster ball and throw them into others with her Kinetic Sphere power, and you really don't need to worry about mobs of bad guys when the Invisible Woman is around. I didn't care for her Invisible Mine-laying ability, but Crushing Force is a doozy. Overall, she's one of my favorites, and easily one of the best characters I've used in the game.
I think the boys have a bit of a different perspective about the Invisible Woman now. Sure, she doesn't have rocky skin, the world's greatest intellect, or the ability to shoot balls of flame. But she can make GIANT INVISIBLE HAMSTER BALLS. That may be the best super power ever.