Marvel Ultimate Alliance - Walkthrough - Act I

Marvel Ultimate Alliance (for PC): Walkthrough/Hints for Act I

This is one of our Marvel Ultimate Alliance walkthrough / cheats / mods posts. For an index of all Marvel Ultimate Alliance posts, click here.

Act I - Part 1 - Helicarrier

• The campaign starts here. For tips on a few things you can do at the very start of the game, see our post on Starting a Game.
• Bullseye is the first tricky boss you will face. Your currently controlled hero is always "Bullseye's Target" and takes a lot of damage from each chunk of rock he throws.
• He doesn't seem to want to throw anything if you can keep him in melee with your currently controlled hero. Try to push him into a wall or corner and keep at him.
• If you need a breather, you can try entering the room he came from (but you can't activate the console until he is defeated).
• You can also try using Luke Cage and his "Rebound" power, which seems to make Bullseye stop throwing for the duration.
• You can block and wait for an opening to dodge closer to him.
• If you have rapid-fire ranged attacks like Ice Man or Dr. Strange, you can try to out-gun him: Every time you hit, your target recoils briefly, which means a rapid-fire ranged attack could keep a target off-balance indefinitely.
• When you first encounter Winter Soldier and Radioactive Man, if you hurt either one of them enough, both will be recalled by Dr. Doom. Winter Soldier is easier to take down this way because Radioactive Man can briefly make himself invulnerable.
• Fin Fang Foom:
• The fight with Fin Fang Foom is actually very easy except that the AI is incredibly stupid: When your characters attack robots, the animation may move them forward and into one of the fires -- thus taking damage. If they end up past a fire in this way, they don't know how to jump and they will try to move forward, take damage, and turn back. In this way, they keep burning themselves and ultimately KO themselves.
• If you have Ice Man, his ranged attacks can put out the fires on the deck (and smaller fires everywhere throughout the game), removing that hazard. You can now probably hold out indefinitely, gaining easy XP and SHIELD drops if you chase Fin Fang Foom away but don't man the gun to shoot him from the sky. However, it is probably easier and faster to get XP and SHIELD drops by using one of the Comic Book Missions.
• If you have fire-immune characters, they can run through the fires on desk, but Fin Fang Foom can still hurt you by breathing on you if you are manning the gun.
• If you have a character with a Healing Factor (e.g., Deadpool, Wolverine), they can last indefinitely in the gunner's chair because you can recover all the damage between Fin Fang Foom's attack passes.
• You can shoot down the flying ships, but it doesn't seem to do anything or give you any SHIELD Credits.
• The easiest way to shoot down Fin Fang Foom is probably to wait for him to swoop in from one of the sides, and angle the gun either up or down as you do so, depending on whether he is coming in high or low.

Act I - Part 2 - Omega Base

• After the Helicarrier mission, you end up in Stark Tower, and there are small tasks you can do for various characters. Do NOT complete any tasks yet. Wait until Part 3 (Atlantis) when you can form a team and collect Reputation Points for doing them.
• You will encounter shield-carrying units here who have the attribute "Shielded". They are more or less invulnerable to frontal attacks and although the tooltip says to get behind them, this can be hard.
• You can try using your popup or trip melee attack. They won't always pop-up, but most characters can damage them even though the attack was frontal.
• Attacks that come up below them, such as Ghost-Rider's Ravaging Flames, can harm them normally.
• Thor's Mjolnir's Might will hammer through the shield and knock them down.
• You can grab their shield and after a short contest rip it from them.
• The elevator bombs can be irritating to handle.
• It appears that you must approach from the side. If you approach the bomb from the front or back, you may not get the message saying you can try press "F" to disarm the bomb.
• To automatically succeed in the disarm minigames, you can go to ...\scripts\act1\omega\omega3b\ and copy bombwintxt.py over bombfail.py .
• Between elevator 1 and 2 there is a room. If you fail to defeat the mutant soldiers there and protect the computer, after the game there will be a mutant genocide event.
• Mysterio is another tricky boss because he will try to swarm your currently controlled character and keep you off balance with constant attacks.
• Storm and the Human Torch both have continuous area effect damage powers that can hurt them even when you are turtling in a continuous block.
• If you start a power and are charging it, Mysterio does not do combos that can break your charge-up.
• Instead of finding which Mysterio is the non-illusory one, all characters can just use area effects to hit multiple Mysterios. Since they all eventually drop health and energy orbs, just keep fighting until you hit the right one.
• If you switch characters, Mysterio will generally redirect his efforts to that character.
• You can try blocking until you get an opening to do something.
• Back into a corner to limit the number of clones that can get at you.
• MODOK is pretty easy once you have cleared enough of the AIM soldiers picking away at you.
• When you switch characters, MODOK will also switch his attention.
• It's easy to tell when he is charging up, so just turtle into a block and then when he's done, chip away at him again.

Act I  - Part 3 - Atlantis

• As soon as possible, start your team to start picking up Reputation Points. Return to Stark Tower and complete the various small tasks that come up in dialogue (e.g., Pym's Cybernetic Helmet from Omega Base).
• Starting in this mission, containers sometimes drop orbs that replenish team Xtreme power-up bars (momentum). The amounts are distributed among all team members, and if everyone has a full momentum meter, the orb won't be picked up. Grab some characters from the base to power them up with spare orbs before switching back to your team, instead of leaving them on the map where they can be hard to find later. Each orb can fully restore 1 character's momentum bar, and give the other three characters 25% of their momentum bar.
• Watch for dark green seaweed, which can give out healing orbs.
• If your ranged attacker cannot seem to hit the floating mines, swim them to a higher elevation so their attack flies directly to the explosive and not the chain. Some ranged attacks (e.g., Ghost-Rider's Ravaging Flame) cannot be used to destroy the mines. Others will auto-target the mine rather than the indestructible chain.
• Atlantean Champions can  resurrect the bigger Atlantean grunts. If you let them do so, you can defeat the grunts again for health and energy orbs.
• At the Temple of Negrete, when Namorita opens a portal for you to short-cut your way out, the portal disappears. BUT if you return to the Temple and go to approximately the portal's location (still showing on your minimap), you can use the portal again.
• Attuma and Tiger Shark: They swim around too quickly to attack easily, and wait for an opening to rush and knock down whichever character you are controlling.
• The intended way:
• You can activate either of the panels at the sides of the room. This causes water to be sucked down, and pulls them down with it. They are a bit easier to attack at that point.
• The easier way:
• Get an instant-speed shooter like Spider-Woman. Her Venom Blast attack has very long range and discharges very quickly. When you see one of the villains pause to change directions, release your attack and you should hit. Go down into one of the pits to limit their direction of approach. Sometimes they will come up close, in which case switch to melee.
• The even easier way:
• Stay near the entrance: Neither villain can exit the room, so they can't bull-rush you, which is their normal attack in this encounter.
• Use a ranged attack that manifests at the target location quickly, such as Ghost-Rider's Ravaging Flame or the Human Torch's Inferno. Because they do not have to travel any distance to the target, it doesn't matter how quickly the villains are swimming at the power will just appear right under them. Keep blasting till they are down.
• The Kraken: You must defeat the Kraken by dropping the four pillars onto it.
• Move behind a pillar and wait for the Kraken to claw it open. An arrow will appear inside the pillar base. Move any character to the arrow. A mini-game will start. You must succeed at about 5 maneuvers to basically dodge the Kraken's attacks. If you fail any one, the Kraken claws you out of the pillar and you must start all over gain.
• If you really want to try the minigame (and you must do it four times -- once for each pillar), go solo with one of the Healing Factor heroes, like Wolverine or Deadpool. The Atlanteans that come out of the pillar are fairly easily defeated. After that, you can hide behind the pillar until your health is recovered and then try the minigame. If you fail and your health is low, hide behind the pillar and block any squid projectiles the Kraken shoots -- they have limited tracking and/or their burst can actually go through the wall of the pillar if you stand too close.
• Going solo here is easier because it is easy to defend or hide from the Kraken, and there are no teammates the AI can send against the Kraken.
• To sort-of-skip the minigame, find the directory ..\scripts\act1\atlantis\atlantis5\, and copy challenge_win.py over challenge_fail.py . Then whether you win or lose the minigame, the pillar will fall on the Kraken.

Act I  - Part 4 - Mandarin

• You can sometimes push or cause enemies to move off the platforms in the cave-like areas. Even bosses like DragonMan can accidentally step off, causing them to fall to their death instantly and their dropped items added to your inventory automatically.
• Dragonman - He walks slowly, so outrun him and use ranged attacks.
• Ultimo - He is too tall to go under a doorway, so back away and shoot him with ranged attacks.
• Grey Gargoyle - He tries to encase the current hero in stone, so keep switching heroes and try to keep your distance.
• If you keep your distance with your current hero, he will only occasionally make radial attacks but can't freeze anyone because he will only attempt to freeze your currently controlled hero.
  
• Definitely switch if the current hero is encased since you can't do anything with them for several seconds anyway.
• Don't bother with the Shaolin Healers as they are hard to take down because they quickly turn to stone and heal, and in melee they will throw the attacker. They don't attack, so concentrate on the Grey Gargoyle. Leave the room if you need a break or to regroup, rest, and try again, especially if you have a healer like Spider-Woman or Dr. Strange.
• If you do want to take down the Shaolin Healers, your best bet is probably with a rapid tap ranged attacker like Ice Man or Spider-Man since rapid tap powers can keep the attacker off balance and keep them from doing anything or running away.
• Mandarin
• To reach the Mandarin inside his control rooms, you need to first lure one of the exploding bugs onto the teleport pad. An easy way to do so is to control a flying hero. Have them hover between the teleport pad and the wall. That should cause the bugs to walk onto the pad on their way to the hero.
• Stay at range with your currently controlled hero so he can't Whirlwind your party (in the same way Storm and Thor can with their Whirlwind and North Winds powers).