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Videogames based on Comics

Posted: 26 Sep 2024, 17:33
by ThePurplePantywaist
Videogames have been around quite a long time, comics even longer.

In this topic I will publish my thought on some of videogames which are based on various comics.

Pre-Nes Era

From the top of my head I could not name any comic-based videogame before the NES. At least there are none, I can say anything of interest.

NES Era

There have been quite a bunch of NES games based an comic book characters, although I guess that the animated cartons played an important role.

Wolverine, Spiderman, X-Men, Asterix are a bunch of titles, which were difficult, somewhat janky and not extraordinary great jump'n'runs.

Batman is held in rather high regard.

I'd also like to mention Silver Surfer, not because it was that great, but it was a (very difficult, but short) shoot'em'up with pretty great music.

There also have been several NES games based on cartoon series.
A few were made by Capcom (known for eg Street Fighter, Mega Man, Monster Hunter and Resident Evil) Duck Tales is well known and was pretty good. It had a less known and less beloved sequel. There have been 2 Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers games, which were pretty easy, but featured couch-coop, what most of the other titels mentioned so far lack. There also has been Tales Spin, which was a classic scrolling shmup, but you could turn your plane around and fire backwards, again something which I have not seen in many shmups. The last Capcom title I know is Darkwing Duck, which is somewhat similar to Mega Man. These games have been re-released on PC recently. I replayed them, and they are still enjoyable as they were ~30year back, although I would not recommend them over more recent, better titles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may not be forgotten. It was very difficult, had different gameplay elements (although mostly some form of platforming) and pretty great graphics for the NES. Its 2 sequels went more in direction of Beat'em'ups like Double Dragon.

There might be more, but those are games I have memories.

Videogames based on Comics - SNES/Megadrive Era

Posted: 26 Sep 2024, 17:57
by dejost
Videogames based on Comics - SNES/Megadrive Era

Spiderman & Venom: Maximum Carnage was a beat'em'up on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, which followed the eponymous comic story, about Spiderman & Venom trying to stop Carnage for the first time, both sides supported by a bunch of heroes respectevily villains.

This is a somewhat personal game for me, not only because I enjoyed it a lot, it was the game which led me to start read Spiderman and subsequently many more Marvel comics published from the 1960 until somewhen around 2010. Then - I write about that from time to time - the soap opera nature of long running comics ruined it for me: every villain who dies returns again and again and again. And again. Every marriage ends in divorce, than often remarriage, and redivorce. Everything gets retconned again and again. Also everything is so interconnected and powercreeped - ok, the 3rd apocalypse this week. The Avengers handled the last one, but why are only Spiderwoman Nr 2, the 2nd Cpt Marvel and the 4h Ghost Rider here to deal with this one? What about West Coast Avengers, Defenders, Fantastic Four, X-Men Team Blue, Thunderbolts, Midnight Sons...? And don't get me started on multiverse travel.
(Sidenote: This has recently all started happening in the MCU movie franchise, which has been less and less successfull).

Enough digressing.
Maximum Carnage is a competent beat'em'up in the vein of Final Fight, but it's most glaring strength is the brilliant adaption of the comic story line (which did not have those problems yet - it was the first story of the first carnage).
I could not name another video game which adapts it source material this well. Granted, many video games have their own storylines (eg. Batman Arkham has a better story), but still.

GBA-Era

I fainlty remember playing a Daredevil, a Ghost Rider and a Iron Man plattformer each, most likely on GBA, which all were pretty meh.

PS 2

I quickly mention "Ghost Rider". It was critizes as being an God of War ripoff. I played Ghost Rider, found it mediocre, and decided to never try God of War because the gameplay did not interest me so. I have yet not played any God of War, although the 2 recent games are very different.