Captain America and the Avengers scores 8/10 in the verdict of The Games Market editorial team.
Once Upon a Time
Captain America and the Avengers
by Simon Larocca·June 17, 2024
Can you hear it too, right? The iconic fanfare that kicks off the opening titles of every Marvel film and TV product, complete with the logo on a red background that celebrates the epicness every saga from the House of Ideas exudes. And perhaps, at a time when suspicion was far from it, the developers of Captain America and the
Avengers also imagined music of such high emotional impact resonating in their creative minds when they came up with the concept for the most famous side-scrolling beat ’em up of all time, at least as far as the Avengers and their astonishing adventures are concerned!
Quello for Sega MegaDrive is just one of the many ports of the title I’m talking about, since it had a
successful series of versions on many of the home and handheld consoles
popular in those years: we’re talking about 1991,
and if Super Nintendo and Game Boy certainly didn’t miss the chance
to get their hands on the title that had emptied a lot of wallets,
thanks to the successful cabinet
virtually present in every bar and arcade out there, there must be a reason. In fact,
I’d say more than one. Not to mention that Data
East, the game’s developer, for anyone who lived through those years
or is studying them as a video game communicator, was synonymous with quality.
Partiamo dalla history, an essential element when
telling the adventures of superheroes born on paper and brought to the screen:
Steve Rogers, alias Captain America, leads the original Avengers, the first-hour ones, so to speak: Hawkeye with his suit perhaps a bit
kitsch but undoubtedly beautiful, together with the billionaire Iron Man and none other
than Vision, the highly advanced android with powers comparable to those of a
god.
Il loro avversario principale è Red Skull, historical villain of Captain
America and official antagonist of all the Avengers in the stories that
see them starring together, or as the American hero likes to say, assembled. And assembled are also the
enemies that the red-skinned undead gathers to face the league of
heroes: the Mandarin and the invulnerable (or almost) Ultron are just some of the
characters that we will see parade through the five levels of the game and that will give us
quite a hard time, I assure you!
Although it is side-scrolling,
we will be able to move everywhere on the game
field, making full use of the “directional pad” which will allow us to
move in all possible directions. Interaction with objects and
weapons is good; we will have the ability to throw cars as if they were
toys and fight with the typical moves of the chosen hero: Iron Man
will be able to levitate thanks to his thruster rockets, Cap will make the goons of Red Skull feel
his vibranium shield on their teeth, and so on.
As a longtime lover of R-Type- and Gradius-style shooters, I greatly appreciated the gameplay sections in which the gameplay will shift into a frenetic shooter, which highlights the game’s arcade side and above all allows the player to take a break from punches and kicks, providing variety and a good dose of training for our superhero reflexes.
Come all titles of this kind, great licenses entail great responsibilities and Captain America and the Avengers is no exception to this dogma: the game itself adds nothing new or truly significant to the history of side-scrolling beat 'em ups, however it holds its own well, the technical side does its dirty work, and taking command of the Avengers, humming the Marvel theme tune, certainly helps in completing the most important main quest of all.
Make them have fun.
Videogamers… Assemble!
8
Pro
The original cast of the Avengers, without winks or unnecessary fan service
Shooter levels that break up the typical monotony of side-scrolling beat ’em ups
Contro
It suffers from a certain repetitiveness over time, a weakness of almost all beat ’em ups of the era
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
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