[Poll] Superhero/ Comics Video Games

[Jason Liang]

Where does Midnight Suns rank among all-time comics video games? There have been bad ones, sure, but there have been great ones as well.

Also, which comics would you love to see as a video game?

Poll is excluding manga for space reasons.

 

[Falksi]

The Punisher Arcade/SEGA Megadrive...

Batman SEGA Megadrive...

Batman Returns SNES...

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Any Capp

 

[Abu Antar]

You forgot Arkham Origins.

My favorite official superhero game is Arkham Asylum. I liked City, disliked Knight, and Origins is on second place.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance is fun in local co-op.

There are some fun side scrolling superhero games. I liked the Turtles game on NES, and the one on SNES.

For "made up" superhero games, I like inFAMOUS and Freedom Force the most.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Would add a vote for the Punisher arcade game. I voted for MvC2 and Arkham Asylum/City.
Played both Injustices, liked the second one better. UMVC3 has a good roster but plays like crap. MVCI is gathering dust in some corner because the roster sucks ass...

 

[Roguey]

Poll is missing a bunch of Spider-Man games, particularly the one from 2000. It's a bit jank, but that was the first Spider-Man game that truly felt like you were him. Funny script too.

 

[Jason Liang]

This game has no physical copy release O_o Has my boi Barracuda too:/


The comic book had mixed good and bad, but it seems like it would make a fun video game. This one's fidelity to the source is questionable though.


Lovely game, but Namor shooting force lightning is kind of offbrand.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Combining superhero and comic games seems funny. Since not all superhero games are based off comic books, while comics can be anything from superheroes, to Tintin, Asterix, Blueberry, Druuna and some stuff based off 2000 AD and Heavy Metal comics.

The PSX-era Spider-Man game was pretty great, even if it basically ignored the web-swinging aspect. The boss fights were pretty well-done and I think the combat system was used in the PS2-era titles.

Of titles not mentioned, Prototype was pretty interesting. More of a supervillain game, where you play as an amoral scientist turned into a mutant by a virus capable of shifting his biomass at will. Had a pretty intriguing story involving a series of military coverups involving the originator of the virus, before it gets loose in New York City, turning people into its mutated slaves. So you know, slightly more dangerous than modern New York.

 

[Jason Liang]

There's been several Garfield video games, but I can't tell if any of them were actually any good.

Actually when I was around 10 years old I fantasized about designing a Calvin and Hobbes video game. I don't think the technology of that time could do it justice (but then again Earthworm Jim would have been close) but that definitely has untapped potential.

 

[Dadd]

Don't know if this counts but I liked this:

 

[Jason Liang]

Some obscure ones:









The Heavy Metal game. I remember it had Julie Strain.

 

[Dodo1610]

Guardians of the Galaxy
The Batman Arkham Trilogy
Injustice 2 (even though I am terrible at it)
X-Men for Gamecube

 

[mediocrepoet]

Part of the issue is that these games are generally in wildly different genres, so I kind of tried to grab bag to represent multiple genres.

For recent (in some cases "recent") games though, the best of the lot imo are: Arkham series, Midnight Suns, Guardians of the Galaxy, TMNT Shredder's Revenge, and that recent Spiderman title. I didn't vote for that last one though not because it's not a good game, but because I felt it was already genre represented by the Arkham games and I wanted to save some love for MvC.

 

[Jason Liang]

Marvel Avengers Alliance had a lot of issues and I'm still PISSED by the game getting abandoned and servers wiped, but it introduced a superhero rpg class system that made sense for superheroes (brawlers, scrappers, infiltrators, tacticians, blasters and generalists), and creatively and faithfully adapted an enormous roster of cool Marvel superheroes. RIP to this unique game. There's a fan project to revive it, and Playdom should have released it as a standalone game with all the assets they had built up with a toolkit for players to build their own campaigns.

The game made me a fan of minor characters like Satana, and Magik, Magneto and Ares were kick ass.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I used to be of the opinion that Arkham Asylum was the best of the Arkham games
But after completing City for the first time last year (after not having touched the game since 2012), yeah City is an improvement over Asylum in almost every regard

Just to give a small example, compare the Predator Arenas in both games
In Asylum there's little variety between them in terms of level design - they are most often a box shaped arena with 3 layers of elevation - you fully understand the extent of their dullness once you realise the gargoyles brake any challenge remaining to these encounter - you can simply perform an inverted takedown on 80% of the guards
City fixes this pretty gracefully: for starters level design - predator arenas get far more interesting with their layouts and now gargoyles are mostly placed in spots where you can't abuse inverted takedowns - them there's the improvements to AI - guards generally avoid passing directly bellow gargoyle and they will shoot down all gargoyles if you use inverted takedown

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Asylum is well loved because it was the first game, it did good things, and it ended up being a decent metroidvania with Batman on it. City is better, but the switch to a more generic open world probably made some upset.

 

[Abu Antar]

Asylum is well loved because it was the first game, it did good things, and it ended up being a decent metroidvania with Batman on it. City is better, but the switch to a more generic open world probably made some upset.

I wasn't personally upset about it, but I preferred the structure of Asylum. They did improve the combat in City, though.

I would have liked Knight too, despite some decline, but I couldn't stand the bat tank... I mean mobile.

Knight did look great when you were gliding around, though.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Asylum is well loved because it was the first game, it did good things, and it ended up being a decent metroidvania with Batman on it. City is better, but the switch to a more generic open world probably made some upset.

I wasn't personally upset about it, but I preferred the structure of Asylum. They did improve the combat in City, though.

I would have liked Knight too, despite some decline, but I couldn't stand the bat tank... I mean mobile.

Knight did look great when you were gliding around, though.

Yeah that nu-Batmobile design that was introduced in that movie trilogy is super gay. I've always hated it.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Imo Captain America and Iron Man are perfect characters for action games

 

[Lokiamis]

The first one was good too. There was a code to play as the Green Goblin through the entire campaign, complete with the glider, a unique moveset, and some slight changes to cutscenes.

 

[Jason Liang]

How so? I can't think of a single video game where Iron Man has been fun to play - in Ultimate Alliance I remember it's most fun spamming AoE attacks like Luke Cage and Deadpool, and he's also the worst character to play as in Marvel's the Avengers. I think the issues are that Unibeam always has a big cooldown, repulsors deal shitty damage and aren't AoE, and mosr of these games don't implement Iron Man's flying well. And in games with huge rosters like Avengers Alliance, there's always someone cooler like Ares, Magneto or Omega Sentinel.

I guess that's something game devs have yet to figure out - how to best implement flying superheroes. Not any good Superman video games either.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Marvel Avengers Alliance had a lot of issues and I'm still PISSED by the game getting abandoned and servers wiped

first '00s, there was a fan made flash game which was vaguely similar to that, but only offline and the interactions between characters were based first on lore and then on numbers. marvel had it removed, i can't even recall its name. apparently it was awesome, i can't say because i knew nothing about marvel.

btw, best superhero game: superman for n64. it makes you truly experience how difficult and frustrating his existence is.

 

[Bigg Boss]

The PS1 Spider-Man game was pretty good but fairly limited compared to the newer ones. Ultimate Alliance is the best RPG-like Marvel game for sure but each one after it decreased in quality by a lot. I wanted to pick Maximum Carnage but it would be mostly nostalgia.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Iron Man ... perfect characters for action games

How so?

He has an incredibly versitile arsenal of awesome destructive power, yet he's not so powerful that you'd need some crazy shit kill him (even something as "grounded" as a tank is a good threat)
He can also fight at both long and close ranges, he can fly, he has the brains and pockets to build cool tech and he has a very diverse range of villains and threats you can set the game in pretty much any type sci-fi scenario

In regards to game structure
Imo the best way would be to make it mission based
That way the devs could make each level its own unique experience - busting out of his captors cave with the Mark 1; dogfight over the Atlantic against an AIM flying super carrier; infiltrating an underwater Hydra base with Namor as constant torn; battling the Crimson Dynamo over the peaks and valeys of the Alps; finding and capturing the Hulk on the Grand Canyon; surviving an assault by Living Laser, Ghost and Blizzard on Stark Tower with one of the more simple suits; big mech fight against Ultimo; dungeon crawl through Doomstadt; liberating a small island nation (with the caveat you can't harm civilians); showdown agaisnt the Mandarian in a dimension of his own creation.

Gameplay would be largely dependent on the suit used
Mark 1 could largely play like infantry power armor - heavy, clumsy, can't sprint, no repulsers, can tank anything bellow .50 cal, can carry very big machine guns, has flamethrower and 2 missiles equiped, bestows superhuman strength - but perhaps with some serious vulnerability because it was built in a hurry with scarps (say the back isn't plated, like we see in the 1st movie)
Mark 2 would be the simplest version of every armor going foward - weakest protection but no vulnerable spots, no oxygen tank so Tony can't fly very high or go underwater, only weapons would be the repulsors and unibeam, can sprint and perform complex melee moves and since it's the lightest armor it has the fastest takeoff, flight speed and draws the least power from the arc reactor
Aside from these 2 suits, all other armos would be player created with a multitude of custom parts, weapons and stats to keep track of their performance - of course there could be a few other pre-made suits for specific missions, like the hulkbuster unit, the giant mech for the fight against ultimo, perhaps even a secret overpowered suit that can only unlocked by completing a hard challenge
Finally keep cooldowns to a minimium - intead use ammo for "convencial" weapons and energy drawn from the arc reactor for every other suit ability/weapon (unibeam being specially costly), with dire consequences for losing all power to the arc reactor

how to best implement flying superheroes.

Nothing to it
Despite the shitshow, Bioware's Anthem actually did that quite well
So did Just Cause 3 and 4, with its jet wingsuit
Fuck GTA4's Iron Man mod did it relatively right, even with the jank I still had a blast with it when I was 13

 

[Jason Liang]

Have you read the Iron Man "Stark Resilient" story arc? Now that you mention it, it could make a cool video game.