Game Review: Captain America: Super Soldier

“Captain America: Super Soldier“

I always find it so interesting to look at the three biggest fascinations among the popular culture fanatics, Video Games, Comic Books, and Movies. They are what drive the lively hood of this cult made up of mostly geeks, gamers, and fanboys (and girls) alike. However once you start to mash these three things together, you are often faced with poor quality, fan outrage, and gamer disappointment.  That’s not to say that you can’t combine some of these elements together. The quality of comic books adapted into films has clearly been on the rise, and it’s safe to say that good comic books films are slowly working to outweigh the bad. On the flip side we have seen for a long time that comic books can make a great game, more recently Batman: Arkham Asylum is the best example there.  When you try to combine all three however, and make a game based on a film, based on a comic book. It usually spells disaster. And why shouldn’t it?  Movie tie-ins in general are nothing more than merchandising that come out to accompany a film’s release, and capitalize on the hype, along with toys, t-shirts, and $5.99 Wal-Mart posters. That’s why it’s a rare treat, as a fan of comics, films, and games when one of these mash ups work. Captain America: Super Soldier is one of those.

By no means is Captain America a great game. In the grand scheme of things it is still through and through a “movie tie-in game”. But stacked up against other games of its kind, it’s easily one of the best to date. There is a clear reason why Captain America is an enjoyable game. You can instantly begin to see that the developer, the independent Canadian based Next Level Games (known recently for the Punch Out reboot on Wii, and will be soon bringing us Luigi’s Mansion 2 for 3DS) drew direct inspiration from what is arguably the best Comic Book video game to date, Batman: Arkham Asylum . That is not an exaggeration, nor is that necessarily a bad thing. The gameplay in Batman worked very well for the setting and environment of its character, and so does Captain America, and that’s where the similarities begin. Like Batman you are secluded in one place, a lavish castle estate that has been taken over by the Red Skulls Hydra army to do whatever evil things comic book villains like to do, make bombs, conduct experiments, etc. You don’t have to worry too much about the games story, which isn’t directly based on the events of the film, but falls somewhere within its universe. It’s an okay story, though there isn’t much to it, all you need to know is that you are going in to rescue your imprisoned comrades, and along the way to must fight through hoards of “grunts” (that’s what the game itself refers them as), and a decent variety of heavies as well, though once you fight each a couple times and learn the trick they become as easy to defeat as any other grunt.  And of course each act of the game has you tailing a particular boss that will be talking to you, as well as commanding to the goons over loud speakers and… sigh. . . Honestly, just imagine Batman: AA and you will get the idea how this game plays out.

I really hate to keep bringing up Batman, because this review is really supposed to be for Captain America, I promise. However, the combat in this game is also very very similar. This time instead of using bat-gadgets you get to use The Caps shield in a variety of really fun ways. From simply pounding the baddie into submission, or filling up your standard video game power gage thingy enough to unleash a series of different attacks. This includes pinpoint targeting, that allows you to go into a zoomed in target mode and mark up to 4 characters to knock out with your shield with one throw. You can deflect bullets back at snipers and take them out, or my personal favourite, charge at the enemies shield first, which gives a very satisfying gong sound at each thwart. The combat really is the best part of this game, and as you unlock new abilities it only gets better! There are certainly more then what I have listed but I will leave some things as a surprise.

Besides great combat, the gameplay can be fun, but if you have it on the lower difficulties it becomes jokingly easy.  The game will hold your hand for everything, including one button QTE acrobatics which make it almost impossible to mess up and it tells you exactly where an enemy is firing from and when to block. If you play on the hardest difficulties it makes for a much more challenging experience, including taking away your regenerating health. On top of all that, the game basically tells you everything you need to do at every turn by having Captain America talking to himself about what is to be done next. This can get extremely annoying.

If you like collectables, this is the game for you. There are a TON of items to collect, some are merely for experience purposes, but there are actually a lot of interesting things to find, including film reels that explain certain character, and enemies, among other things, including diary entries and enemy weapon schematics. It’s an OCD gamers paradise!

Captain America also looks really good. The character model of the Cap himself is amazing, though in comparison everyone else does not look nearly as good. It’s a great setting with lots of nice backdrops, and some really great set pieces that is carried through by an incredible score!  There is also a very cool underground tunnel system with secret entrances that work together to link areas of the castle for easily returning to previous areas to find and 100% those many collectables!

What can I say? This is really a pretty great game in its own right; I haven’t enjoyed a Comic Book Movie game this much since Wolverine. Which to be honest was jaded by the fact that it had amazing M rated brutal and bloody goodness. Despite all that, it’s not even that great of a game. Captain America on the other hand is. Yes it’s a watered down Batman: Arkham Aslylum clone, but we have all played that game and it’s amazing, and we are all eagerly awaiting Arkham City right? In the meantime I do recommend playing Captain America, because it really is the closest thing to a great comic book game we will see for a few months.

-Jeff Wildman