The Energon Pub

In your humble opinon, what do you feel are the best, worst, and kinda "meh" superhero games, from all time periods? This could help a lot of fans like me who like to play superhero games, but wish to avoid the crap. Also, I'm basing it on what I have, and have played extensively, with the exception of the....

NES era:

The Bad: I don't own any NES superhero games, but from just basic playing on emulation, I know that X-Men and Wolverine are really, really bad games.

X-Men defies description, and if you played it, you know why. The graphics are bad, the gameplay is confusing, bad controls, it's just one of the worst game I ever played.

Wolverine is slightly better from what I remember, but you get hurt when you pop out your claws. It's a 2D sidescroller, but it wasn't much fun.

Super NES era: My largest superhero game collection resides here.

The Good: X-Men, Maximum Carnage.

X-Men has some really good graphics for being a Super NES game. Five selectable characters, each with thier own unique strengths and weaknesses. Level and boss layout is pretty good, and the controls are good too. Been awhile since I played it in depth though.

Maximum Carnage is a side scoller beat 'em up. Maybe I'm looking through rose colored glasses, but I always found this game to be great fun. The graphics are ok, but it's quite fast, and you can be Venom. The bosses Demogoblin, Doppleganger, Shriek and Carrion are also kind of a highlight, as this is the only game their in. Couple that with several "summonable heroes" for quick and powerful attacks, I really liked it.

In-Between: Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems.

War of the Gems is a psudo sequal to X-Men. You can be Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, and Wolverine. They each have their own unique powers. The graphics really are pretty good for a Super Nes game, and the controls pretty good too. The main problem with the game is that it's boring. Your enemies are evil dopplegager clones of Marvel characters like Puck, Vision, Daredevil, Iron Man, and a few more. The problem is that it's all you fight, and they get kind of repetetive after awhile. Another thing is that there are only four real bosses in the game, the rest are just overpowered dopplegangers. They attempted to add an element of strategy by allowing you to collect power-up gems, which helps, but it still is too repetetive.

The Bad: Captain America and the Avengers

I was tempted to put this in the in-between, but I can't. The graphics aren't that spectacular, but that's not the point: it's TOO HARD! I mean it, the game is just way too hard. Normal generic robot enemies take off quite a bit of life, and there are only a scant few engery power-ups to be found. They also take way to many hits to kill, and are cheap. Add to that limited continues, and it's just too frustrating to beat alone. I hear the Genesis version is better though.

PS1: Only have one game, but it's a good one.

The Good: Spider-Man.

Quite possibly one of my favorite superhero games. Varied levels, decent graphics, funny dialogue and voice acting, lots of bosses, good control, I love it. There's even alternate costumes. The first really, really good Spider-Man game in my eyes. Plus, put in a code, and there's even a comedic "What-if" mode that's worth a second play through.

Sega Dreamcast:

The Good: Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Not technically a super-hero game, but one of my favorites. 23 Marvel Characters ranging from well known to niche. Fast, furious, and not too difficult. A really fun over the top game.

PS2:

The Good: Ultimate Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man was a really fun game with one major flaw: it was too short. There are a lot of side events like races and saving civillians, but they got repetetive. Still though, it's fun being Venom, the city is nice and big to explore, and the boss battles are creative. I've read only a few issues of the Ultimate comics, but even I think the story is good. I'd recommend it.

In-Between: X-Men Legends, X-Men: Next Demension

X-Men Legneds I put here because I found the game got too tough too fast. It does a lot of things right, but I thought your guys were too weak, and took too much damage. If not for that, I would have ranked it higher. Also, too much micromanagement of equipment and stuff, plus load times were a bit of an annoyance when equipping stuff. I think X-Men Legends 2 took care of a lot of this stuff, but I don't have it yet.

X-Men: Next Demension. A rather forgettable fighter, that's a bit on the cheap side. Blob was extremely cheap. But it's not the worst game ever I guess, and has a decent store. It's been a while since I played this one in depth either.

The Bad: Spider Man the Movie.

Talking about the original movie game. Didn't care for it, thought it was boring, with too many inside levels. There was also a lack of good bosses, since it was a movie game, and they couldn't put any really good villians in. The Goblin mode was neat, but not enough to make me want to play through it again.

Well, there's my stuff(I know, it's long), what's yours?

Everyone knows that superman 64 sucks.

My twofavorites though are Spiderman the movie 2 for the ps2, and if it's considered a superhero game: Marvel vs Capcom.

The Good:

Spider-Man 2 (I played it on Gamecube): Free roam + webswinging + tons of cool tricks = Kickass!

Ultimate Spider-Man: It took away a lot of tricks, but it gave a bigger map and better voice acting. (I thought Tobey Maguire was a little too bland in that game) Not to mention, playable Venom!

The Hulk: Ultimate Destruction: It had annoying missions, but outstanding gameplay. Spider-Man 2 with the Hulk, basically.

The Punisher: It had average gameplay, and some missions were annoying sometimes, but it had cool interrrogations, and an awesome story.

The In-Between:

X-Men Legends II: It's okay. The story is a little played out, what with Apocalypse taking over the Earth for the Umpteen millionth time. It has cool FMVs, though. And good voice acting, except on Magneto. If they could get Patrick Stewart to be Xavier, then why couldn't they get Ian McKellen?

X-Men: The Official Game: It tells what happens between X-Men 2 and X-Men 3 (Such as why Nightcrawler wasn't in X3), but the cutscenes are just still pictures, with alterations when a character makes a movement. Although Nightcrawler and Iceman have some pretty cool gameplay, I found that Wolverine's missions are annoying as hell.

The Bad:

Justice League Heroes: It had very nice cutscenes. It really did. The voice acting was good too. (I was sceptical about Crispin Freeman as Superman, but he sold me) Unfortunately, it's just watered down X-Men Legends, except with DC instead of Marvel, and only two characters at once instead of four. When you picked up an item, the character who picks it up only says one thing (For instance, Superman says "Super!" ), unless your inventory is full, in which case they'll give you a line about how you have to drop something. They'll give you this line every time you so much as brush the item with the end of your cape.

Superman 64: I haven't playe dit, but you know the story.

Aquaman: I only heard about this one on an old episode of X-Play. It made me think "People don't like Aquaman. Period. Why would they think he's good fro a video game?"

So, all in all, Marvel can do a way better game than DC. Was Superman Returns any good? I thought it looked pretty sweet, but I haven't really heard anything about it.

The Good:I rather liked the original spider man game for the playstation. just cause of all the cheats and costumes like peter parker, captain universe, etc.

The BadThis game about a superhero called captain novolin, and this review from EGM will state it more perfectly than I can.

"This game is just a dirty trick to teach children about diabetes: it's the story of aliens coming to earth and taking the form of sugary diabetes-promoting snacks who can only be stopped by Captain Novolin, a diabetic crusader. but since diabetic scientists haven't developed a ray gun capable of defeating snacks, Captain Novolin only has one ability: hopping. Er, well, we guess he has three skills if you count how he can:
1.)hop into a speedboat and
2.) suck.
Keep in mind, though, that since the control is so bad, he can't do any of these things very easily. You have the same chance of getting Captain Novolin to jump if you control your Super Nintendo with a bananna.
Your main enemy is a bouncing donut, which will randomly jump up and hit you with it's deadly donut flesh while you're trying to hop over it. So even on the rare occasion when Captain Novolin jumps when you tell him to, it's completely up to fate whether you actually make it safely over the donut. If you can;t find Captain Novolin at your local game store, you can re-create this exciting experience exactly by flipping a coin while you're having a seizure.
In between levels is a bonus game where you must inject yourself with the right amount of insulin. To do so, you have to match the color on your needle with the color of your blood sugar. Don't worry, however--getting it wrong doesn't do anything except make a funny noise and, of course, leave you with the crushing realization that you can't even match two colors in a game about diabetes."

This is the EGM review Verbaitam, The only reason that I didn't post a link was because I could not find one.

The Meh Spider man for the DS.[/u]

Shadowman wrote: Was Superman Returns any good? I thought it looked pretty sweet, but I haven't really heard anything about it.

In my opnion no I liked the fact you can fly around and use all of his powers but basically you fight the same clones over and over again. The cut scenes sucked and some of the side missions like finding cats were annoying. I did like the Bizzaro missions were you could destroy everything but even that got boring after awhile

Turns out I forgot I had another Superhero game, and that fact should make it obvious it falls

In Between: Game Boy Color: Spider-Man 2: Revenge of the Sinister Six.

The reason why this game falls into the category is that it really is a very big "meh". I played through it last night/finished today just to be sure. The graphics are good, bright and colorful, and you can do most things a spider-can, but it's boring and repetetive. One thing I think why is because instead of making it a side scrolling beat 'em up or platformer, they kind of make it a little bit like an adventure game. In each level you have to search for switches or a key to unlock a gate to the next area, and then do it again, then you fight the boss. To know where to go, you stop for a second and let your trusty Spider-sense point you in the right direction. However, I didn't find the searching to be all that fun, and the enemies are kind of dumb. Even the bosses have only a couple moves in their arsonal, and repeat the same pattern throughout the fight. Also, it's not very hard at all, which adds to the boredom. There's also the length factor, it's very short, probalby two hours tops. Spider-Man also has a limited number of moves. If it was on an older system I would have probably recomended it, but there have been better Spider-Man games before then. All in all, a forgettable side-scroller.

And an update for X-Men for the Super NES!! I played through it the other day and yesterday cause I hadn't done it in a while. I forgot to mention that one of the big factors that separates it from other Super-Hero games of the time frame is the fighting game style powers. You have unlimited use of your superpowers as well. If you want to do Cyclops optic blast for example, all you have to do is press down, down diaganal, and then forward plus Y to do it. Ya know, like a Hadoken. Also, each X-Men has a specific level to them at the begining of the game, and a specific last level of the game. Also there's a nice touch during the final boss battle (it's not a shocker). Whatever damage he recieves during the battle stays with him even if you die. So when you fight him again, he wouldn't be at full strenth, which is good cause some X-Men are actually at a disadvantage during the fight. Another thing I forgot to point out was that each X-Man has their own set of lives, and there are slightly different endings to the game, depending on who you beat it with. Still though, the game is short, but one of the better Super NES Superhero games.

War of the Gems for SNES also has the same fighting game style moves. Another thing is that both X-Men and War of the Gems are done by Capcom, so if your familiar with the fighting games the Marvel charactersa are in, you'll notice some similar animations and character designs.

My 4 favorites are:

Maximum Carnage for SNES-Awesome sound track and great graphics combine with a comics inspired story line of one of my favorite Spiderman arcs. Playing with Venom is a nice bonus as well.

X-Men Mutant Appoclypse for SNES - Some of the best graphics on SNES combined with a Mega Man X reminicent soundtrack mixed with 5 selectable characters with street fighter inspired special attacks make one of the best SNES games out there.

Hulk Ultimate Destruction for PS2 - Free roaming, totally enjoyable, ultimate destruction. Oh yeah, there's a pretty decent story line in there as well.

X-Men Legends 2 for PSP - A ton of x-men and villans, with plenty of custimazation make this one of my favorite PSP games. It's got a high replay value as well.

These are pretty much all Marvel games except a few:

The Good:

Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage (Sega Genesis) was awesome. Too bad the sequel wasn't nearly as good.

X-Men: Madness in Murderworld (PC). A very simple game and tough as nails, sure, but I loved it. X-Men 2 (Fall of the Mutants) was good, but not as good as the first. I wish I could find a workable ROM of this, but unfortunately it seems they, like Half-Life 1, just don't like my computer.

And I might be a bit jaded, but I liked the Ultimate Alliance games (and X-Men Legends) (played on PS2 and Xbox 360) very much. And #2 gets points for including Speedball (albeit he was Penance, but still...).

There was a PC game around 2000-2001 simply called Spider-Man, which was great because unlockable stuff allowed you to pick Spider-Man's other costumes (for some reason it never worked on mine, but I liked the idea). And to boot it was a cool game.

Turtles in Time (arcade). C'mon. How can a list not include this? The hands-down most fun beat-'em'-up in the arcade.

Wolverine movie tie-in (Xbox 360). Yes, I said it. I love that game, though have yet to finish it. It's one of the many I-just-got-RE5 casualties of play.

The in-between:

There was also a Spider-Man arcade game called, simply enough, Spider-Man, which was very fun, but it loses points for picking "sidekick" characters that have nothing to do with Spider-Man: Namor and Hawkeye (and Black Cat, but she *does* have to do with Spidey).

Rise of the Imperfects (PS2). I can't really fault the game for trying, but it's too Wolvie-centric at the beginning when I want to see newer characters and it just didn't have the appeal.

There was another Spidey game (PC) where he had to save MJ from Mysterio. Very simple and the graphics are very dated, but it was fun. Not as great as a nostalgia game, but it was an early 90's game that fared well. And it had a bug that allowed you to go straight from the start screen to fight Mysterio. Can't remember how to work the bug, but I remember "winning" in that way once.

War of the Gems (arcade). I played a different one than the one mentioned above. You had a choice of 8 or 10 instead of just 5 characters. It was cool, but characters like Daredevil and Ghost Rider are pushed out in favour of Shuma-Gorath and Darkheart? No evil doppelgangers in this one, unless you can consider that Spidey could fight Iron Man or Captain America without remorse, though this is no different from any other 1-on-1 Street Fighter-type game.

Spider-Man (Original Gameboy): Fun, but repetitive and easy to get the hang of.

Spider-Man Friend or Foe (Xbox 360). A letdown. Not a huge one, but still kind of meh. I bought it and it was cool for a while, but just too "kiddy" and easy for my taste. And the fact that even Spidey's most hardened foes can be won over in a 30-second cutscene made the game repetitive.

X-Men arcade: A bit dated, but back in its day (1990-91?) was pretty fun.

TMNT (Wii). Was good, but just wasn't as good as it could be.

The bad:

The horribly worst was Captain America the Avengers (arcade) ("YOU will be the one escaping!"), but I have to agree: that NES X-Men game stank too. Maybe even worse.

Superman Returns Tie-In (PS2): Ugh. Unplayable after the first few minutes. Yes, Shadowman, that bad. It got way too hard on the second level. And, considering the first level is the trainer, that's way too early.

Spidey and Captain America: Doctor Doom's Revenge (PC). I liked it, but I imagine it would suck if stacked up to comparable games.

Honourable mention for bad: All Batman games aside from Lego Batman and Arkham Asylum. I put them as honourable mentions because I've never played any, but this is the overwhelming opinion.

On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Me, Grimlock! wrote:On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Spiderman Web of Shadows is awesome! Its my favorite super hero game of all time! You get to play as the red and black suit whenever you want while taking out symbiotes. Which is awesome. I beat it 18 times!

SlyTF1 wrote:

Me, Grimlock! wrote:On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Spiderman Web of Shadows is awesome! Its my favorite super hero game of all time! You get to play as the red and black suit whenever you want while taking out symbiotes. Which is awesome. I beat it 18 times!

I second this. It took the webslinging free-roam of Spider-Man 2 and added a combat system is the style of Devil May Cry.

AAAAHHHH! ZOMBIE THREAD!!! Please don't eat my brain(you'll still be hungry....)

Hard to believe it's been three years on this thing. Anyway...

The Good

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Even though the first couple levels are a little blah, once you get to Arcade's level I found the game to be really fun. It's a dungeon crawler, and is good for what it is, but I have to admit I never really liked these types of games all that much. At the end of the day, it's really hard to get excited about being Spider-Man when you can't do whatever a spider can, and since he plays generally like every other character. However, that's personal preference, and all the cameos, references, and general gameplay made this a worthy superhero game. Oh, another plus is that health and special energy is ususally in good supply, so that nixes my complaints from X-Men Legends.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows(Wii): I got this back when I didn't have a 360, and might get it for the 360 if it was cheap enough. It's been awhile, and I only beat it once, but it was a pretty fun game. I don't recall having too many problems with the motion controls, and the story was good, even includes The Tinkerer, which not many games do. There's also a really cool part I'm remembering on a Prison Island.... Luke Cage and Wolverine also pop in, but I don' think there were many cameos beyond that, and sadly Spider-Man's villian roster in this game wasn't very high. Overall, I'd say it was better than the movie games(personal preference), but not the same level as Ultimate Spider-Man or Spider-Man PS1.

Hulk(Movie): Ok, I haven't played Ultimate Destruction, but I really enjoyed this game. Plenty of destruction, varied missions, and you really do feel like the Hulk. Hulk gradually powers up throughout the game, and that's neat. I also enjoyed the side missions and the hunting down of the Enclave. Plus, about the destruction, you can literally bring buildings down. For some reason doing to much of this caused my 360 to freeze up every now and then, but overall that was fun. There's even a couple cameo's, like movie versions of the U-Foes, Bi-Beast, and Hulkbuster Iron Man Armor.

In Between:

Iron Man(Movie): This game didn’t garner very good reviews, and I agree with them. So why is this on the in between pile? Because for better or worse you ARE Iron Man. The gameplay was well suited to him, even if it was a little unpolished. Plus, I’ll admit, I did get the game because it interacts with the Hulk Movie game. However, unlike Hulk(where the unlockable skins mean didly to your abilities), the Iron Man Armors in this game actually felt different. For example, Hulkbuster Iron Man has no booster jets, and is slow as molasses. But he packs a punch. Moving on, I also found the voice acting to be funny at times, and I guess the story was pretty good. It also had easy achievements if that’s your thing. All in all, recommended for cheap, you might get a kick out of it.

The Bad

The Incredible Hulk(U.S. Gold, Genesis): Picked this up at the Flea Market a couple weeks ago for $2. Played it a couple times, and it really is a stinker. I haven’t beaten the game, but I probably will sometime. Anyway, why is it bad? Because normal enemies take a few hits to kill, and when you hit them they move backwards, no combos. You can pick them up and throw them, but they don’t die immediately, and you have to wait for them to get back up to attack again. But the worst part is when they shoot you, Hulk gets pushed back ever so slightly, and their bullets are near impossible to avoid. They do very little damage, but it adds up. Add to that uninspired levels and music, and the whole experience is just generic. You can become Bruce Banner if you take too much damage. There are certain passages only Bruce can crawl through, but he can’t attack unless he has a gun, and usually can only take one hit to kill. I also think there’s only one continue. On the plus side Rhino is a boss, as well as Tyrannus and Absorbing Man. Tyrannus is just rare in general for a video game, and it’s cool to see Rhino outside of a Spider-Man game. Absorbing man is cool, but I died against him.

My favorites are Spider-man 2, Ultimate Alliance (the first one only, the sequel was decent at best), X-men Legends 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and inFamous.

I hated Superman 64 (never played it and I still hate it) and the Spider-man 3 game just pissed me off.

Ultimate Alliance 2, Both Fantastic Four movie tie ins, and Web of shadows all where a disappointment to me.

I also wish that in every Spider-man game they didn't have to include a chase sequence. I hate chase sequences. Its the main reason I have trouble completing GTA games. Stop with them. Hopefully Shattered Dimensions doesn't have one.

I am a huge superhero fan, but I haven't played much games, but still...

The best: Batman: Arkham Asylum. It's my most favorite game out of everything i've played. (I have not played War for Cybertron yet...)

Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It was a great game, ecspecially with the sub-objectives, and every thing you do or don't effects the universe.

In between: Lego Batman.Its fun at first, but at some point, it gets... repetitive. But I like it.

The Bad: well, I've never played a super hero game that was bad.....

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Me, Grimlock! wrote:On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Spiderman Web of Shadows is awesome! Its my favorite super hero game of all time! You get to play as the red and black suit whenever you want while taking out symbiotes. Which is awesome. I beat it 18 times!

I second this. It took the webslinging free-roam of Spider-Man 2 and added a combat system is the style of Devil May Cry.

Exactly why I like it! But for some reason the swinging in Spidey 2 feels more...realistic.

SlyTF1 wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Me, Grimlock! wrote:On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Spiderman Web of Shadows is awesome! Its my favorite super hero game of all time! You get to play as the red and black suit whenever you want while taking out symbiotes. Which is awesome. I beat it 18 times!

I second this. It took the webslinging free-roam of Spider-Man 2 and added a combat system is the style of Devil May Cry.

Exactly why I like it! But for some reason the swinging in Spidey 2 feels more...realistic.

I noticed that, I think the web lines in that game actually stick to buildings where WoS it'll work as long as you're close enough to something. It's been a while since I played and my 360 is dead, so my memory may be off.

Batman Arkham Asylum is probably the best super hero game right now. The fighting is just so much fun to watch, and brutal looking.

City of Heroes is another great one, though mostly for the character creator. You can even choose the colors of your super powers effects now, which was not available for a long time. I have turned the green radiation power into red and yellow beams of light, thus making it a whole new power if you ask me. It is really fun to go around taking out bad guys using laser eye beams.

Unfortunately the City of Heroes game also lacks in gameplay. You just end up bashing guys in an endless grind. There is "loot" in the game now as well, but it is minor and generic feeling. 75% of the reason to get loot in an MMO game is to equip it and have people stop and look at it.

Awesome. Thanks for the recommendations. I'll have to pick up Web of shadows next time I get some money.

My favorites are Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Juggernaut, Thor FTW) and Batman Arkham Asylum. im hoping the sequal is just as good

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Evil_the_Nub wrote:

SlyTF1 wrote:

Me, Grimlock! wrote:On a sidenote, how is Spider-Man: Web of Shadows? Any recommendations?

Spiderman Web of Shadows is awesome! Its my favorite super hero game of all time! You get to play as the red and black suit whenever you want while taking out symbiotes. Which is awesome. I beat it 18 times!

I second this. It took the webslinging free-roam of Spider-Man 2 and added a combat system is the style of Devil May Cry.

Exactly why I like it! But for some reason the swinging in Spidey 2 feels more...realistic.

I noticed that, I think the web lines in that game actually stick to buildings where WoS it'll work as long as you're close enough to something. It's been a while since I played and my 360 is dead, so my memory may be off.

Yeah, the webs in WOS stick to the air as long as you're close. I think SM2 does stick to things.