You know I have owned a blue million superhero games from Iron Man to Thor, many different Batman games, Superman Returns and on and on and on. I love comic books, I am partial to Marvel my favorite character being Thor, but I still love the main characters from the DC universe as well. As long as there are heroes and villains there will be games to come out to represent them. Developers out there are often times given the task to create a Super Hero game and sometimes coinciding with a film release. Movie license games are generally poorly designed and adding a super hero can make it worse.
Sometimes the developer hits it out of the park like Rocksteady did with Batman and Treyarch did with Spider-Man,or even Beenox who made Spider-Man: Next Dimension really made a fun and fantastic game. But still others out there like Liquid Entertainment who made Thor or Warner Brothers who made Superman Returns, often at times don’t get or understand the character and or the comic. I bought the Thor game as a matter of fact around my birthday when the movie was released and I enjoyed it simply because I love Thor but it needed so much more and Liquid Entertainment really tried to make it into an action heavy brawler which I could understand because it’s Thor. Here is the problem: I am an avid reader and collector of Thor comics, Liquid Entertainment obviously isn’t and it shows when playing through the game. Even the unlockables are generally a let down. Different colored lightning is a boring unlock, having only four costumes to get and two of which are already unlocked. I wouldn’t call two of those really costumes, one is movie Thor costume with helmet the other is the same thing without the helmet. Really? The other two are Ultimate Thor which is cool and Thor in the Destroyer armor. Ok, how about Classic Jack Kirby Thor? (which by the way the Wii version has but it’s made by someone else.) Or how about Beta Ray Bill or playable Loki? Odin the warriors three don’t even make an appearance. And what’s worse is you can’t even fly…Thor can fly! That is one of his staple powers! We get at least a flying sequence of some kind but no we get points to swing our Mjolnir and it automatically takes us to a new location….boring….
Superheroes are this age’s mythic creations much akin to the Greek heroes of the past and so many developers out there will take on a project just so they can add another game to their resume. If the game is poorly designed and received why would you want that on your resume? I understand you have to work but developers should also understand that they can say “No, we don’t wish to work on that game”. Some companies out there are given a second chance. For example: Iron Man 2. Nothing really wrong with Iron Man 2 it does play and feel better than the first one, and you can play as Warmachine. Although the opportunity for co-op play was given, it wasn’t even present in the game. Generally as well the environmental graphics were terrible. I mean, at the first level the dam that you fight at there is a tunnel that you have to fly through once the level is complete. The tunnel is not only one of the lowest resolution textures I have seen since the days of PS 1 or N64, but when you fly into it it’s a flat texture you simply disappear. Really? That is complete laziness on the part of the developers. It goes to show you that they were contracted to do the game and cared little for it.
Superheroes for whatever reason fare better in fighting games than anything else. Marvel vs Capcom is an excellent fighting game although unbalanced at times (Dante and Virgil spamming combos). Or one of my favorites on the Gamecube, X-men next dimension. Fighting games based on these heroes and villains are always given love and attention but stand alone titles are often lazy, uninspired, and downright ugly at times. It’s sad really, these comic book creations of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Bob Cane, and countless others deserve so much better than what they get in these video games. Hollywood has taken decades to finally get superhero films right for the most part so video game developers out there need to as well. Look at Rocksteady and the Batman games they have made, they took it seriously and made two very successful games both of which garnered perfect 10 scores.
So I leave you the developer with this, if some publishing company stops by and wants you to make a video game based on a comic book and you know that your heart is not in it, just say “No thanks”. Who cares about the money because for what you put into the game you’re not going to get back, and any other game you put out from now on will be scrutinized. If for whatever reason you want to make the next super hero game then for the love of god please go buy some comics and read them over and over and talk to the fans and talk to Marvel or DC or whomever and get it right, because you will find the rewards far outstrip the failures.
very imformative, enjoyed reading it