More like Captain A-meh-rica.
Stop me if you’ve played this game before. Superhero goes to an island full of bad guys planning large-scale chaos. Rhythmically flipping between each as he goes, he beats up five or ten henchmen at a time. Along the way, he fights a line-up of his classic rogue's gallery, uses a special vision mode to scan his environment, climbs around the place like a ninja, unlocks various powerups, and picks up all manner of meaningless doodads. Finally, once the day is saved, there's an array of extra challenges he can attempt to earn gold medals.
No, I’m not talking about Batman: Arkham Asylum, but you’d be forgiven for thinking so. Captain America: Super Soldier doesn’t have an original bone in its body.
The basic premise has the player, as Cap, infiltrating a Hydra castle in WWII to halt the plans of a terrorist named Zola. Along the way, you tussle with some other big bads, such as the Red Skull, and uncover a plot revolving around ‘perfecting’ the super soldier serum that made Steve Rogers who he is today.
No, I’m not talking about Batman: Arkham Asylum, but you’d be forgiven for thinking so. Captain America: Super Soldier doesn’t have an original bone in its body.
The basic premise has the player, as Cap, infiltrating a Hydra castle in WWII to halt the plans of a terrorist named Zola. Along the way, you tussle with some other big bads, such as the Red Skull, and uncover a plot revolving around ‘perfecting’ the super soldier serum that made Steve Rogers who he is today.
Cap's character model looks very good, particularly the shield.
The combat system in the game is ripped right out of Arkham Asylum. It is designed around combating multiple foes at once. You’ve got one button for basic attacks, one for stunning opponents, one for dodging, one for reversals, and one for throwing your projectile (in this case, Cap’s shield). However, there are worse games to steal from, and battles do feel intense, with the odds being suitably stacked against you. The issue here is that Cap has a hard time quickly transitioning from punching one goon to another. It typically took me an awkward second or two to stop what I was doing and move over to the next guy, which interrupted any combos I was building up. It’s fun, especially when you work the nine possible upgrades into the equation, but the combat is very flawed.
When you’re not fighting in Super Soldier, you’ll usually be scouring the environment for the next path you need to take. Like with Batman’s Detective Vision, Cap has a special viewing mode that, when activated, points out important objects and things that can be climbed. Actually, Next Level seems to have avoided a common issue Arkham had with Detective Vision; since it never ran out, there was little incentive to ever turn it off, thus making the game seem unsatisfactorily easy. When Captain America turns on Super Soldier mode, relevant objects flash for a second or two, then disappear again. This is fairer, giving us a quick tip while still making us figure the problem out ourselves. I’d like to see this implemented in Arkham’s upcoming sequel.
When you’re not fighting in Super Soldier, you’ll usually be scouring the environment for the next path you need to take. Like with Batman’s Detective Vision, Cap has a special viewing mode that, when activated, points out important objects and things that can be climbed. Actually, Next Level seems to have avoided a common issue Arkham had with Detective Vision; since it never ran out, there was little incentive to ever turn it off, thus making the game seem unsatisfactorily easy. When Captain America turns on Super Soldier mode, relevant objects flash for a second or two, then disappear again. This is fairer, giving us a quick tip while still making us figure the problem out ourselves. I’d like to see this implemented in Arkham’s upcoming sequel.
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