Nah, not this guy. This guy has enough problems with the sliver screen, much less his gaming career.
Everyone loves fantastical elements in their stories. Because it improves upon the escapism and immerses us in something we don’t quite understand in our own lives. That’s why superhero games are a mixed bag. It matters upon the realm and the setting and the person being regarded as the hero in the game as well as his or her fans and their story being considered all at once. A different representation of these characters presented by the designers may take well, or not so well. Luckily, an original story still can easily make for an interesting perspective of the heroic mythos and protect the common man….all that matters is the character.
But there are a number of heroes who have yet to have their own time in the digital spotlight. Most of them have such incredible accolades in their own comics and compilation series, but haven’t brought their own unique perspective to videogames. Many of them deserve such a chance, to be honest, so let’s go down the list.
5) Blue Beetle
The Third Beetle: Dorky stick in the mud imbued with alien super-weapon. The most well-armed normal kid this side of the solar system.
And not just one of them; at least three of the blue-wearing heroes of great intellect, wisdom and willpower made into a technological marvel built into his neck. The Blue Beetle is known for his logic and unending idealism in all his iterations, from an eccentric scientist who drives around in giant beetle flying machines and hung out with a stuck-up dude from the future, to the inner-urban home boy who wishes for dentistry. The game that could be built from this is simple; action and logic puzzles.
Hell, one could even throw in a little strategy too. None of the long-standing iterations of this hero really boil down to tactical thinking and supreme firepower rolled into one. With the second game, it becomes more of a detective story as the newly donned hero must use the power of his almighty token to read the minds of others…and Jaime would just be a simulation of his normal life with combative elements. Pour on the description and the character growth…and give the big guy best-friend of his a large stick for alien invasion, and you’ve got yourself a game.
4) Animal Man
JUMANJI!
Conventional activism in a video game about animal rights? Surely you jest, I hear you say. Hold on, my friends, for that’s only the beginning of the story of Buddy Baker. Sure, he’s that kind of environmentalist who you want to slap around incessantly without regard, but he’s also a superhero who talks with and maintains the strength and physical capabilities-such as flight and the like-from the animals around him. The power was granted to him by yellow extraterrestrials and then he goes off to fight things like other superheroes, poachers and especially bad writing, if Grant Morrison’s run and self-depreciation have anything to say about it.
The game could be a simple 3d roaming platformer with Megaman-equse ability gain; find an animal and absorb its abilities over a large sprawling expanse like a suburbia. Traveling around like an animal is only enhanced by your well-developed supporting characters such as your wife and two children giving missions while defeating bad guys. Provide help for animals and their captors by freeing them to fight back as the humane society is called. It really does provide a lot of gameplay all in one blonde superhero.
3) Black Canary
Make no mistake: With even a small glance at her suggestively…or non-suggestively, she will end you. With one finger. Ask that pile of blonde and green and arrows over there. And she likes him.
Talking about kick-ass blondes, Dinah here would make one of the best people to build a side-scrolling, combo-based fighter around with a special ability. The Canary Cry-a burst of sound waves that could blow someone through a concrete wall-could be used as a long-range bomb weapon that only is required as some form of panic button; Dinah is one of the few martial artists who could actually beat a death-seeking female assassin who could knock Batman-and all his lack of proper sanity-on his ass. Why is that, then? Because said assassin trained her and sent her to her own people-a community of people ready to die-in order to make another death-seeking assassin.
Dinah had a shaky start, and authors certainly like her to experience more trouble than she requires-which is something I imagine to happen to this game. However, when push comes to shove, she should be the one to handle it herself. After all, she wrangled the Justice League into shape. And she managed to have three small children-two girls, one baby boy-in her immediate circle, have them interact and work with superheroes to effectiveness, and surprisingly not have them killed off due to editorial fiat. That takes some doing, especially in DC.
2) Deadpool
That essentially sums him up. Next!
My descent into Marvel is a descent into madness on this countdown. Deadpool is a mercenary trying to live out his life the best way he can…by breaking the fourth wall and not paying for the damages. Truly, Deadpool is the ultimate parody of the singular “always present” superhero such as Wolverine and Superman. Not even a conventional hero, he does whatever he wants whenever he wants because the stars are right and the muffins are warm. Death, being a girl in the Marvel Universe, has a crush on him so Thanos gave him a healing factor so he can never die. Which leads to all kinds of zany, downright cartoonish levels of violence levied on his person without a care or concern about how much he gives back in return.
The game really should just follow his everyday life in terms of an adventure story. Sure, you’re reading it like a comic reader would, but the interaction is the point….since all the choices can be right in some fashion. What matters is the enjoyment you’d get from watching some lunatic speak directly to the player, get smashed with a sledgehammer covered in titanium instead of iron, and enjoy every minute of it while he talks to his gun and fat-ass secret agent-equse sidekick as if they were simply pets. Oh, and speaking of insanity.
1) Nextwave
Nextwave: Unlike Deadpool, there are no words. If you get the reference, have a cookie.
As Deadpool is the singular version of off-the-wall bonkers in comics, Nextwave is the teamup version. Created by Warren Ellis, Nextwave is what happens when you give a drug-addled writer some really good munchies and a good imaginative scale to go with them, a group of very unstable superheroes all in one room, and tell him to go nuts. Nextwave is what Suda51 wishes he could be; in the very first issue, we find that the main villain is a Nick Fury exspy with an inferiority complex and is funded to chase after our rogue heroes with not only an aircraft made by welding submarines together, but he fires bears at them. Missiles armed with bears armed in the lethal art of kung fu. I seriously am not making this up.
The only way this game could be any less awesome is if you had the workings of both Suda51 and Warren Ellis behind it. I will not even begin to guess just how they would even define or place the game in any genre convention. It literally is not even feasible in my mind just do to the level of sheer crazy in both these men. The chances of it collapsing into itself and creating a dense neutron star of pure, unbridled insanity cannot be understated.
