Marvel Nemesis ready for battle

Gaming comic-book fans today have a tough choice of what to spend their allowances on. Earlier today, Activision announced that X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse has shipped to stores. The PC, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube role-playing game features several Marvel superheroes and supervillains teaming up to take on a common foe through hack-and-slash gameplay, experience points, and leveling up.

For those who prefer their superheroes to jump straight into combat with one another, publisher and Activision rival Electronic Arts offers Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. The Redwood City, California-based company today announced that the game has shipped for the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube. A PSP version has been given a new ship date of October 11, pushed back from its previous release date of late September; a DS version will hit shelves October 24.

Rise of the Imperfects is all about superbrawling. The versus mode will pit two characters against each other. The barracks are full of well-known characters from the Marvel universe, such as Iron Man, Wolverine, and Spider-Man, as well as a whole crop of characters, the Imperfects, made exclusively for the game. These superpeople were designed by Marvel and EA designers and have been featured in a six-issue comic series that kicked off in May.

Each arena will be destructible and littered with objects that can be used as weapons, such as the everyday exploding barrel. Characters can fly, swing, or be old-fashioned and just run across each level, emitting a barrage of superpowers that includes Spidey's web slingin' and Fault Zone's seismic rumblin'.

Gamers can hook up with friends online or in-person in the versus mode, or play through a series of characters in the single-player mode, learning the ins and outs of each character before taking them into the arenas.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects was codeveloped by Nihilistic and EA Canada, retails for $49.99, and is rated T for Teen.