Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 Carnage Hands-on

It hasn't even been a month since Spider-Man, Captain America, and all of their friends stormed stores in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, but Activision has already announced the first Marvel heavyweight you're going to be able to download and use in your game.

If you need a refresher in Marvel folklore, Carnage is kind of Venom's son -- kind of. See, when the black symbiote reunited with Eddie Brock in jail to form Venom again, it left behind a symbiote offspring that got into Brock's cellmate's bloodstream. Soon, the serial killer known as Cletus Kasady was overtaken with the symbiote's red and black goo and power. He's super-strong, can morph the symbiote into all kinds of weapons, and bat-crap insane.

The first thing I noticed when loading Carnage onto my team screen were the super-long, super-sharp fingers he's rocking. He's got the whole red and black veiny suit you'd expect, but these digits are gross on their own and only serve as a warning to foes of why they should not engage the man in hand-to-hand combat.

When I got the symbiote loaded into my game, I discovered Carnage runs on all fours, talks with one of these echo-y/modified voices, and has a number of deadly superpowers. From the get-go, the Symbiote Surprise will probably be the most visually appealing move he's got. Here, Carnage stands on two legs and projects a bunch of razor sharp tendrils out of his body to stab any bad guys in a given area; it's similar to the tendril attack from Prototype. Right now -- at the beginning of the game -- the effect's pretty small, but I'd expect the radius to get bigger and bigger as you pour Power Points into the move.

The other move Carnage has unlocked when you start is the Lunatic Leap. Here, the villain charges bad guys and bites them. In all honesty, I thought the move was just a simple charge attack because the biting isn't played up that much, but after having him do it at the camera, you can see this enlarged red head actually chomp at bad(der) guys. Rounding out Carnage's moveset were two powers I didn't get to play with. The Berserk Blade allows the villain to throw a "razor-like" axe at opponents and the Slice 'n' Dice has Carnage slashing ahead with blades.

If you want to talk about abilities you'll be able to pour your points into, "Homicidal Tendency" raises the chance of critical hits, "Bloodthirsty" gives you hit points for every defeated foe, and "Battle Frenzy" gives you stamina for everybody you take down. These upgrades are of course building on base stats, which for Carnage are a 7 for Strike, 4 for Focus, 72 hit points, and 104 stamina points.

Slashing at dudes with my giant claws and running around like some kind of creepy dog was fun and fit in well with the game. It was a bit odd when I would double jump and Carnage would swing from invisible weblines, but hopefully that's a visual that can be fixed in the final product.

Still, when I did my first Fusion with Carnage, I thought I was destined to be disappointed. Teaming the serial killer with Wolverine led to the two just running around the map clobbering people. I sighed, teamed him with the Thing, and was blown away. Here in a targeted attack, Thing throws Carnage up into the air so that he's off screen before the creature hurtles back to Earth headfirst and eats the intended target (assuming he's a grunt). Carnage just gulps him up and slams into the ground causing all of these cracks in the pavement. Best of all, after the guy was gone, Carnage says "Your spine: it's what's for dinner."

So far, Carnage's dialogue actually seems on par for his character. "It's a scream," "Dinnertime," and "It's more fun when they fight back" all fit the insane maniac Kasady's supposed to be -- and the Freddy Krueger-like voice gives me the willies.

Personally, I'll probably download Carnage for fun and go after some of the Trophies/Achievements that are still out there for me to grab. Of course, my willingness to pay for the content will probably depend on price, and Activision isn't saying how much Carnage will set you back. In fact there's no word as to whether he'll be part of a pack of characters, if there will be new missions, or even what the release date is for this stuff.

by Greg Miller