Comic Books... Come Out To PLAY-AY!!!

If I'm not careful, this blog could transmute into a "gripe about my work week" writing exercise on the weekend.  I'll keep it fairly simple, and say while I'm giving my best and all to my current job, I am REALLY crossing my fingers and attempting for something less physically and mentally strenuous.  And while I'm glad to help a friend of mine celebrate her wedding, later tonight, there's a small... selfish... part of me that wishes I would've just passed on the invite so my girlfriend and I could just LOUNGE ABOUT, tonight.  Sigh...  Oh well, one thing I SHOULD start doing on the weekends is, while writing blog entries, I should also start scheduling blog entries for following weekends.  This weekends' subjects were REALLY haphazardly selected after one particularly exhausting day on the job, since it's becoming more and more difficult to get some brainstorming time/energy during the working week.  I'll see what comes to mind for next weekend, tomorrow!  But thankfully, I had a few tricks up my sleeve for this weekend.  But before you read today's entry... Do you have any spare quarters on hand?  You might need them for extra credits...

I've sort of touched upon this subject during my coverage of the X-Men animated pilot, "Pryde of the X-Men".  Namely how that particular animated pilot served as basis for a future Konami arcade brawler.  It feels, sometimes, like as soon as the proper dawn of the arcade/video game market hit its stride, it was only a matter of time that the settings of comic books would be integrated into the entertainment medium!  I remember one of the earliest comic-related games I was exposed to was Nintendo's "Popeye" cabinet.  (HEY!  It was a comic strip!  IT.  STILL.  COUNTS!)  For a stretch of time, it felt like super-hero adaptations were more planned out for home consoles, as various advertisements I've seen in comics showcased with Atart versions of "Spider-Man" and "Superman".  (I'd recommend if you wish to see these games in action, check out the Angry Video Game Nerd retrospectives about these characters' video game histories on Youtube.  Educational, entertaining... and it gives you GREAT cursing combinations to use in real-life!)  But technology advanced nicely for our four-colored heroes to receive their own upright arcade consoles to suck away our time... and BUCKETS of quarters... like Count Dracula would go to town at a sorority party!  I present to you my history of experiences with Comic Book Arcade Games!

Superman- A year before "Batmania" swept the globe in 1989, Taito Corporation decided to collaborate with DC Comics to give us the side-scrolling beat-em-up adventures of the Man of Steel to the arcade!  "Superman" may be seen as somewhat "generic" to current gamers... because it's not like their muddy-colored first-person-shooters are WIDELY VARIED, in turn... but for YEARS it was probably one of the most effective Superman adaptations to the video game medium.  I would dare argue against ANYONE that for all this game's weaknesses, this is STILL WAAAY better than the Nintendo and Nintendo 64 "Superman" titles.  The game falls into two types of gameplay styles: side-scrolling fighting, and side/above view scrolling shooting.  Superman, as a character... along with his eerily-Captain Marvel-colored second-player avatar... displays multiple powers to use in the fight against crime.  They can punch and kick foes into digital afterlife, and if you hold the punch button down, Superman can apparently launch a... Hadouken energy attack?  (Er... WHAT?)  Superman and a second-player CAN freely hover and fly during any given stage, even discounting the flying levels.  The flying levels, specifically, highlight the heat-vision beams to use against flying enemies.  The graphics for the game are pretty nice and colorful for the time period, and even a digital version of the John Williams "Superman March" is enough to give you a boost to want to kick some major BUTT!  But like all games of the time period, it can become repetitive over time if this isn't your style of gaming.  Another hindrance is the lack of familiar villains to fight against.  I recall there is some weird version of Brainiac for the main villain of the game, and I THINK Toyman shows up for a level, but no Lex Luthor... No Bizarro.  Still, for some of the game's hordes, you get to battle pink bunny women with blue boots, and NICE... er... "powers".  What else do you need in life?!?

Spider-Man- SEGA had a pretty healthy relationship with Marvel Comics for most of the early 90's for game publishing.  They managed to publish MULTIPLE games based off of Marvel's two hottest properties: the X-Men and Spider-Man.  (For the former, those games manifested themselves into 2 titles for the Sega Genesis, and I BELIEVE about 3 titles for the Sega Game Gear.  The latter snagged the company one title each for the Genesis, Sega CD, and... if you were like me and CRAZY enough to own one, Sega 32-X.)  But Spidey-Senses could freely tingle in a very unique arcade game from the early 90's!  In a way, it somewhat mirrors the gameplay mechanics of the aforementioned "Superman" title.  One format of gaming was the popular "Double Dragon" multi-tiered combination brawling game, while the other was a side-scrolling semi-shooter/brawler gaming style.  But unlike "Superman", you had your choice of crime-fighting avatars to take into action!  The game featured, for selectable characters:

• The friendly-neighborhood Spider-Man
• The curvaceous Black Cat
• The braggable bowman, Hawkeye (Whom I don't RECALL showing up too much as a Spidey guest star, but hey... WHATEVER!)
• The squishable Namor the Sub-Mariner (Okay, so Subby DID guest star with Spidey more than a few times, but... Him as a selectable character?  Sure?)

Another difference for this game, compared to "Superman" is a CHERRY-PICKED listing of familiar Spider-Man baddies to do battle with as main bosses!  (You also have to trade fisticuffs with LEGIONS of what appear to be Hellfire Club guard members!)

Doctor Doom do be the mastermind of the collection of foul felons for this game, but check out the list of villains you do battle against as level bosses!  All valid classic Spider-Man villains representing for character histories.  Two of the more modern additions to the rogues' gallery, because this IS the 90's we're in, are Hobgoblin... and probably MORE telling for the time, Venom.  As a fan of "Double Dragon"-form brawlers, I give this game a solid pass.  The comic-book presentation of level transitions and storytelling are ALSO very neat.  But I will concede one MAJOR weakness of the game: it is FAR too long!  A brawler that lasts more than an hour to play, even I can find rather exhausting!  But if you have the chance to give this game a try, by all means do not let it pass you by!

Captain America and the Avengers- Data East had their success with the brawling market.  (Have we already forgotten the heroic campaign to rescue President Reagan from the Dragon Ninja clan, to later share a burger with, in "Bad Dudes"?)  So with such success to their credit, the company combined with Marvel Comics to bring together some of Earth's Mightiest Heroes in an EPIC crusade against the Red Skull... and other villains... in "Captain America and the Avengers"!  And who did Jarvis the Butler nominate for this grand adventure in multi-tiered brawling, with ANOTHER mix of side-scrolling shooting action?

• The Star-Spangled Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America!
• Tony Stark, who makes you feel, he's a cool exec, with a heart of steel, Iron Man!
• A REPEAT performance from the Ace Archer, Hawkeye!  (Geez, did Clint Barton have stock in the video game industry?)
• The Android Dynamo, Vision.  (Alas, not the classic yellow-and-green with some red mixed in.  We get the cream-colored clean-slate of a character from the then-current continuity.  It would have been REAL nice to see a selectable female character for the game, like maybe then-current member Black Widow.)

But those are NOT the only Avengers repping in the game!  Assisting you as power-up delivery characters are Quicksilver and the Wasp!  And aside from battling HORDES of robots and power-suited thugs, you also face off against some of Marvel's most sinister criminals!  Some that come to mind are Whirlwind, Klaw, the Living Laser, the Grim Reaper, a "VERSION" of the Juggernaut... Hell, even the X-Men let the Avengers borrow a SENTINEL to battle against for a shooting level!  One other neat addition for the side-scrolling shooting levels includes non-flying characters Captain America and Hawkeye freely using the Avengers-standard flying transports for their aerial combat!  And all of these struggles lead to a space battle against that dastardly remnant of the Fourth Reich, the Red Skull!

I feel that, compared to Sega's "Spider-Man", this particular game doesn't overstay its welcome with UNBELIABLE gameplay length.  Your selectable Avengers also make sense to the time-period the game was released in.  For a fun quarter-sucker brawling/shooting game, you can't do much better than "Captain America and the Avengers".  (You ALSO have to play this game for the "killer" audio samples that are present for the game dialogue.  Yeah... They're that memorable!)  But in case you cannot gain access to an arcade version of the game, the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo have you covered with home versions of the game to sample!

X-Men: Children of the Atom- Capcom, by this point of this game's release, had probably released 20 of their 100 versions of "Street Fighter 2".  So obviously, they were no slouches for the one-on-one fighter game genre.  Before the "Marvel VS. Capcom" legacy was launched, Marvel decided to give Capcom a test-shot with the "Street Fighter" tournament treatment for their "Merry Mutants", the X-Men!  Thankfully the story for this game is thinly constructed, so all you need to know is this: You pick a character, you fight everyone else on your way up the ladder to the final boss, Magneto.  But while the aforementioned games had a bit more of a "story progression", this game makes up for with fighting style depth.  "Street Fighter 2" had, in its 51st update by this time, refined its combo system, and "Children of the Atom" had only elaborated on this fighting style.  So, who are your selectable combatants to place against your foes... and even fellow TEAMMATES?

On the X-Men side of things, we have:

• Current jerk of the Marvel Universe, the master of the optic blast, Cyclops.
• A character I REALLY need to level up more in "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" on the PSP to make my girlfriend's selected team actually last in fights, the mistress of weather supremacy, Storm.
• He's cool as ice, the Iceman!
• We go from one alien "Man of Steel" to a former Soviet "Man of Steel", Colossus.
• Mistress of psychic powers, and maintainer of a very uncomfortable pair of panties, Psylocke.
• Of course... This being an X-Men game, we HAVE to have Wolverine.  DUH!

Magneto wouldn't be playable until the home version of the game, but shoring up the arcade version of the dark side of genetic mutations, we have:

• Six-armed bundle of lovely assassin fun, Spiral!
• Perennial honorable jobber of the Marvel Universe, Silver Samurai!
• 90's "hot button" character, the possessor of the carbonium coils, Omega Red!
• Mutants good and not-so-good have to watch out for a representative of the robotic "gene cleansers", the Sentinel!

For my last stop in Comic Book Arcade Blends, "X-Men: Children of the Atom" plays the most "modern" of the listing of games.  It also doesn't hurt that pretty much ALL of the Capcom "Street Fighter" style games hold up strongly after nearly 20+ years of existence.  The arcade experience of the game was not to be forgotten... even if I could NEVER remember how to pull off any of the character's moves.  (I believe, just for sheer natural combo nature, I would often select Spiral, because even her basic attacks involved multiple hits.)  But if you wanted to play this at home, the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn had your back.  I've often heard the latter was FAR superior to the former version of the game.  If the comment about lack of load times was true, then I HAVE to agree, because the loading segments of the PSX version of the game were PRETTY unbearable!  So hopefully you still have some change for some comic purchases after that trip to the arcade!