Posts Tagged ‘marvel’
Friday at the Movies: Captain America Civil War
Video games are an interactive experience and whether it’s that fact or something completely unrelated the stories in them, well, mostly suck. Comic books (as well as other media) somehow get lumped into the same world, which is completely without merit. Perhaps it’s that both started off as a target for kids, but whatever the reason this is a myth that is often regarded as fact. Comic books have incredible story lines, character development, and even rival contemporary films in terms of quality content. Captain America Civil War has to be one of the best translations from comic book to screen I have ever seen.
Podcast: Excelsior!
This week Chip Cella (@CaptinChaos) and Andy Urquhart (@damien14273) from the Agents of Shieldcast join Fred to discuss retro titles featuring Marvel Characters. They learn that the distinction of titles early in gaming were almost nonexistent and perhaps Marvel having Disney behind it may actually be a good thing. Listen on true believers!
Review: The Punisher (NES)
Console: NES
Released: 1990
Developer: Beam Software
Publisher: LJN
Difficulty: Moderate
Instruction Manual: Not Necessary – Link
Played as a child? Yes
Price: $5.88 (used) $27.47 (complete) $130.00 (new) pricecharting.com
Famicom Version? No, this was Nintendo only
Ports: Gameboy (differences, see below)
Digital Release? No
In probably one of the most doomed to fail ideas, I have to admit that in my childhood The Punisher was my first taste of what would later establish a love for light gun and first-person shooters alike. Ironically, this title is neither. It takes the crosshair light gun motif we first saw in Operation Wolf and adapts it into a third-person shooter (without light gun) that integrated upgrades and even brawler elements to an otherwise rote shooter title. Released in 1990, and despite the common license and title that holds no similarity to other games, The Punisher was a licensed LJN game that proved you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. In short, I loved this flawed, aggressive shooter.
Your task is to take down some of the biggest criminals the city has to offer, including longtime Punisher nemesis Jigsaw, in a series of levels. Interestingly enough, you aren’t forced into linear progression; the game allows you to choose any of the three initial targets to go after. As you take out each one, the remaining two targets become available levels until your final option, Kingpin, becomes the only level and boss. With each target you are given two levels to conquer, each containing power-ups, ammo, and grenades to help build up your arsenal, and a final encounter with the target themself. Unfortunately the power of choice, at least for me, is tarnished by the fact that doing the levels in their obvious order (from left to right) seems to be the only viable way to complete the game. Along the way you will take out a massive army of the game’s three or four enemy types and eventually make your way to a boss. The biggest hurdle is that if you run out of lives, it’s game over. No continues, no second chances. This isn’t really a deal breaker, it just establishes long bouts between attempts to finish the game.
Review: The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin (Sega CD)
Console: Sega-CD/Mega-CD
Released: 1993
Developer: Technopop
Publisher: Sega
Instruction Manual: Helpful – Link
Difficulty: Moderate
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $8.88 (used), $39.99 (new) (pricecharting.com)
Other Releases: Yes – Simply known as Spider-Man on Genesis, Game Gear, and Master System
Digital Release? No
As we sometimes see in the 16-bit era, first party published titles became interesting exclusives on either side of the console wars and among the various Spider-Man titles I have to say this is my favorite. Amazing Spider-Man vs. Kingpin (or better known on all other ports as Spider-Man) tasks you with defusing a bomb set by the nefarious Kingpin within 24 hours (pretty sure that’s not real-time) by collecting keys from different foes in the Spider-Man universe. This was the first game I played that gave me exactly what I expected out of a superhero title. It allowed me to play as Spider-Man, it had solid controls that included web slinging and wall grabbing, and it did it all in a side scrolling platformer/brawler. Not only that, but the game embraces a non-linear structure where you visit locations throughout the city and face whatever is in certain locations, which felt like it freed the game up to your personal pacing, something quite uncommon in the days of early platformers. While the plot centralized around the Kingpin, you will take on almost all of Spider-Man’s key foes including Venom, Doc Oc, Lizard, and Electro, just to name a few. Graphically the game had that semi-real grit that Sega titles all seemed to offer in the early 90s with great animated storyboard art throughout.
