Great Super Hero Games That Are Not Arkham City Or Asylum!!!
Its fair to say most of us have at least played Batman Arkham Asylum by now and a load of you guys have most probably played Rocksteady’s masterpiece of a sequel as well. This is something I decided to do for fun, yes the two Batman games are awesome beyond belief and I like many would go as far to say they are the best comic book based video games out there. What I am going to do today is let you guys know of some of my favourite comic book video games. I have been a comic book fan since I was a kid added with my love of video games, comic book video games have made me happy and made me want to Hulk smash something at the same time. Now if you’re personal favourite game is not listed here please do not get your panties in a twist Mary Jane, this is purely for fun and I had to narrow it down to just 5 that I could never put in any particular order.
X-Men Origins Wolverine Uncaged Edition (360,PS3)
Wolverine is my all time favourite comic book character, just how much do I love this little hairy Canadian? Well I named my very first son after him. This game so far is the only video game that has made me actually feel like I was Wolverine. This game was brutal and I mean that in a good way. Wolverine did not mess around in this title you literally could rip people in pieces. While I really enjoyed the X-Men movies, one thing that they never did was let Wolverine cut loose and do some serious damage, this game more than makes up for that. There was nothing cooler than flying half way across the screen and impaling someone with your claws. As far as the story goes it does not just copy and paste the plot of the movie, sure its not going to win any writers awards but its fun and has some cool characters that were not in the movie. This game also had a ton of fan service including some really cool alternative costumes. Peoples opinions may have been split on the movie its self but it did spawn this amazing game that if you are a Wolverine fan you will still enjoy the mindless killing spree that you can go on.
Batman The Video Game (NES)
I had a love hate relationship with this game as a kid it was side scrolling action at its best but man was this one tough SOB. Based on the Tim Burton Batman movie starring Michael Keaton this game had you kicking all kinds of bad guy ass. You also had a few power ups that you could use to help you on your way as you completed level after level until you got to face The Joker. One cool feature of this game was the wall jump where you could jump onto a wall and hold on for a split second and then jump off again. While the game was tough as Bane it had nice tight controls that if you put the time into the game you could really master it. This game is fondly remembered for mainly two things one its soul destroying difficulty and two its excellent soundtrack. This without shadow of a doubt was The Dark Knights best outing on the NES. This is one game that had the perfect balance of being tough but it wasn’t really cheap.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance (360, PS2, Wii, PS3)
We already had two amazing games in this franchise with X-Men Legends and its amazing sequel Rise Of Apocalypse. Feeling like they had done all they could with the X-Men Universe they decided to take on the whole world of Marvel. Featuring a blockbuster cast which on 360 was then extended with some great DLC this was one great action RPG game. You fought in iconic Marvel locations such as the amazing opening on the Shield hellicarrier, Thor’s home turf Asgard, and the kingdom of Atlantis. Each location was different than the last. This was just a great action RPG that had a ton of fan service with loads of great little cameos and 4 different costumes for each playable character; this was a Marvel fans dream. One thing I want to touch on that never gets mentioned about this game and the reason I picked this over its sequel is this. 2 player arcade co op you could play this game in 2 player with all the RPG elements turned off and basically just play the game like a old school beat em up like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. This alone makes this one of my favorite video games of this generation. Not many games have that old school beat em up feel these days, but trust me if you play this game in 2 player arcade co op then you will have a blast.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 (SNES)
TMNT was the very first comic book I ever got as a kid, my uncle got it for me and ever since that day I have been a Turtles fan. This game is side scrolling beat em up action at its best. I love Streets of Rage, Final Fight, The Simpsons Arcade Game but this one here blows them all away. Taking what was great about the arcade game and making it even better this is an absolute masterpiece of 16-bit gaming. For a scrolling beat em up the game can be surprisingly deep. Yes you can just run through it mashing attack but there is so much more with the right skill you can ground pound foot soldiers or even throw them right into the screen. The controls are so tight and smooth if you die it will because of something you did not because the game is cheap. As well as being amazing to play the game is pure eye candy and has a classic soundtrack that I can still vividly here even to this day. Sadly this game was re made in HD on 360 and PS3 and I am not sure what happened but it lost a lot of its charm that it had on the SNES, it was not a terrible re make but I would recommend sticking with the SNES one any day. This game is that it has always made me wonder what magic Konami could have done had they been able to port The Simpsons arcade game to the SNES.
Spider-Man (PS1, Dreamcast, N64,)
I had to have a Spidey game mentioned in this article but what one I was torn between this and Spider-man 2 but in the end I went for this bad boy. Much like I said about Wolverine making me actually feel like I was Wolverine, this was the first Spidey game to make me feel like Spider-Man. I was totally blown away; each chapter of the game was like a part of the classic Spider-Man animated series. It had these cool CGI cut scenes that just looked fantastic for the time. There was some great fan service featuring some fun cameos from other Marvel characters and even the man himself Stan Lee was involved in this game. The game at the time was great to control and I can still pick it up and play through it now and have a hell of a time. However for someone who has never played this game before but has played any Spidey game since Spider-Man 2 you will probably find this very hard to play and be shocked at the lack of free roam that you have. It was followed up by a sequel that really I always felt was more of an expansion than a full blown sequel. If I am honest of the 5 game on this list this one perhaps made it by nostalgia, but I can still fire this up and have my self some spiderific fun.
So there you have it 5 super hero games that in my opinion are great it was hard to pick just five but it would be great to read your guys views no mater if you agree or disagree with my choices.
