{"id":22096,"date":"2014-01-28T15:03:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T20:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=22096"},"modified":"2014-01-28T15:03:16","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T20:03:16","slug":"experienced-points-superheroes-that-should-be-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=22096","title":{"rendered":"Experienced Points: Superheroes That Should Be Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which is more amazing, that Arkham Asylum games were so good, or that we haven’t been flooded with DC, Marvel, and the other IP holders trying to do the same thing? It’s odd, I tell you. The closest we came to someone trying to crib from Arkham wasn’t a superhero, it was Lara Croft. But if any of these companies do<\/em> decide to enter the “Arkham genre”, what heroes would be a good fit<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The article was already long, and there are literally hundreds of quasi-notable heroes to choose from, so the cutoff for making my list was pretty arbitrary. Here are some other heroes I think are worth mentioning:<\/p>\n

Hulk<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hulk’s entire powerset revolves around smashing things, so to do it right you’d need destructible environments. It’s not technologically impossible<\/em> to mix open-world with smash-able scenery, but it is challenging and probably risky. Also, I’d be worried his gameplay would get a little one-dimensional. Down-time things like item hunts and environmental puzzles are kind of at odds with the whole “unstoppable ragemonster” idea. Again, not impossible, but problematic.<\/p>\n

Thor<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m not a huge Thor fan. Never read his books. I left him out of the list because I have no idea how well he’d work or what his gameplay might look like. <\/p>\n

Rorschach<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I guess we already got one of these, and like a lot of superhero games, it wasn’t particularly good<\/a>. But what if they gave him another chance, and gave him his own game without Nite Owl II and the movie tie-in baggage dragging him down?<\/p>\n

I’d love to play as Mr. Jumbleface, but I have serious doubts the AAA industry has the deft to handle the character properly. His normal foes wouldn’t be mad scientists, super-powered people, spies, or other exotic adversaries. He does most of his fighting in the gutter. He doesn’t save the world. In fact, he really doesn’t seem to save anyone. He just tracks down guilty people and gives them the hurting. Maybe at the top of the pile he’ll find a bent cop or sleazy politician. In a proper Rorschach story, the final confrontation would ask (and leave unanswered!) a lot of questions about how much damage you can do in pursuit of justice before you start to worry that the cure is worse than the disease. <\/p>\n

At least, that’s where I’d go with the material. Basically, it’s a free pass to go all the places you’re not allowed to go with Batman.<\/p>\n

I think that’s an awesome hook for a game. I’d play that in a heartbeat. But I seriously doubt that would get funded. Instead, we’d get an unambiguously good Rorschach fighting to save the city from some evil corporation or something else inoffensive. Eh. I’d play it, but I’d spend the whole time wishing I could play a REAL Rorschach game.<\/p>\n

Spider-Man<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just release Spider-Man 2 for PC. Please? My Game Cube is long gone and I’m not going to bust out some ancient console just so I can play the one good Spiderman game. <\/p>\n

I would also accept a re-make.<\/p>\n

I would also accept it if you stopped with the damn quicktime events and the cutscene-heavy presentation and just gave us a sandboxy tour of Spider-Man’s New York.<\/p>\n

Aquaman<\/strong><\/p>\n

HAHAHAHAHA! Aquaman joke!<\/p>\n

Spawn<\/strong><\/p>\n

Would never work. There’s no way anyone could get the cape to look right, and the cape is 85% of the costume<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also Spawn sucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which is more amazing, that Arkham Asylum games were so good, or that we haven’t been flooded with DC, Marvel, and the other IP holders trying to do the same thing? It’s odd, I tell you. The closest we came to someone trying to crib from Arkham wasn’t a superhero, it was Lara Croft. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}