After watching some gameplay footage of the new Captain America game on the X-Box 360 this weekend at the New York Comic Con, it’s fair to say it has some promise.
However, it’s far from perfect.
Right off the bat however, this game impresses as it brings out the finer points of the character and the ones that real fans want to see in a video game, but have never gotten the opportunity to. Lets face it; this character should have had his own game for a while now. Nothing against Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Marvel vs Capcom or even the Super Nintendo’s Captain America and the Avengers, this character has never had the spotlight on him in the video game world. With a great origin story and a unique fighting style, this game has the opportunity to be different.
From the look of the demo, Next Level has taken serious steps to try to capture all of that.
With that being said, Captain America’s shield looks to be an integral part of his fighting style in this game, as he of course, has the option of throwing it at his enemies. As well, he can even deflect bullets back at them, if his timing is right. This makes for the type of fights that are essentially grabbed from the pages of the comic.
On the whole, aside from some bugs with the animation, as Cap looked like he was floating a few inches from the ground during one fight and stuck in the air for a few seconds in another, the melee system looks fun and intuitive. Cap can use his enemies’ momentum against them if his timing is right as well, creating several aikido and karate-like counters, making good on his military training.
Overall, it’s fair to say that Next Level Games and Sega have created a battle system that away from all the bells and whistles, is unlike any other comic book-inspired game currently out.
Where it begins to go wrong are the slow motion induced battle scenes that take from games such as “Max Payne†and “Wet.†During the demo, hordes of the same exact looking jobber-enemies were appearing as well, which could lead you to believe that the game has a beat-em-up feel to it at times. Through this, it’s easy to see that with enough practice, the action could get predictable and repetitive. However, to counteract this, Next Level has said that Cap will have a horde of moves to spice up the combat system.
The biggest head-scratcher was the acrobatic scenes that gave the game a “Prince of Persia†feel. At some points, you may even feel like you’re playing a Spider-Man game with all the jumping and swinging Cap does. Next Level said they wanted the game to not be so combat heavy, so they felt that the platforming elements would add more depth for casual gamers. However, while Captain America is fully capable of performing these types of maneuvers, when can any comic book fan say they saw him swinging around poles over buildings like Dick Grayson?
Aside from that, the look of the game is interesting, as the shadows and lighting effects do a good job of depicting the areas presented. A new story, completely independent from the upcoming movie could go a long way here too, making the game more than just a license tie-in.
Because of that, in spite of the few big misses, there seems to be enough cool stuff here to keep a hardcore Captain America fan interested until the game is released.
Nonetheless, it’s hard not to feel that this game still needs some serious work before it’s capable of being in same league as some of the better comic book-inspired games out there.
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