SuperHero Games

While there have been many, most of them have been garbage. Special Exceptions go to Batman Arkham Asylum, Infamous and Prototype. Why do they suck though? Well, it's very hard to capture the feel of being a Super Hero in a video game, seeing as you can only do so much. Say your super hero can fly. What's the difference between making your hero fly and making a plane fly? When making a game, you want your hero to feel unique, do things which other characters can't do. Take Spider-Man for instance. He swings on webs and climbs walls. There aren't many people who can do that, so you want to focus on what makes him different. 
Another problem with Super Hero games is that they are normally released as a movie tie-in, which leads to short development time, which leads to poor results. The best super hero movie games by far are X-Men Origins Wolverine (Uncaged edition) and Spider-Man 2. Wolverine felt like the character he was meant to be. He sliced and diced anything that got in his way and Spider-Man was able to swing across all of New York as people saw him do in the comics, saving people and fighting crime. 










What makes or breaks an action game is the combat. Each Super hero fights differently, so each game has to be different. Since your hero is more powerful than everybody else, he has to be more powerful than everybody else, otherwise the player doesn't feel like a hero. Generally, superheroes that are more human, like Batman and Ultimate Spider-Man make for better combat because we expect less of them. I mean, if you saw Superman beat up the Red Skull, you wouldn't be impressed, but if Captain America did, then you would be impressed, because Cap is weaker than Supes. What can make combat dreadful in Super hero games is the amount of enemies. Since no-one is as powerful as your hero, the devs will probably send thousands of goons your way, to try and make it challenging. This is why most Super hero games turn into button mashers. 
To make good combat, it needs to be strategic. Take Batman: AA for instance. In face to face combat, you have get as many hits as you can to build up the freeflow combo, which does more damage. You need to counter at the right time, because enemies to a lot of damage to you if you get hit. You also need to take time to defeat the tougher enemies like the knife wielding goons who block your combo's and can perform unblockable attacks and the taser guy's who have to be dodged over for damage to be done. Oh, and watch out for guy's who want to use the gun's in the room. And the Titan inmates. And the environment. And I haven't even started on invisible predator...
Ultimate Spider-Man's combat was also similar, but it had waaaay more boss fights than Arkahm Asylum. It wasn't quite as good as AA, but the boss fights were great. 


Boss fights are important in Super Hero games. It's the one time in a game that another character can be more powerful than a hero, which is why boss fight's are better hard. What some games do is fill in the boss fight's with goons, which is pretty cheap. Boss fights need to be great. I mean, take a look at this one:








Super Hero games are so common these days, but few ever really deliver. That's why all of us comic nerds are hanging out for Spider-Man Edge of Time and Batman Arkham City. And remember, with great power, comes great responsibility