Captain America And The Avengers

In 1991, if you actively discussed anything to do with comics obsessively to people who didn't care, you would be at the receiving end of a Vibarnium shield. Nowadays however, people get that reference and Thor is now considered an acceptable role model for young children. (Especially young children who aren't aware they are frost giants) So perhaps it's fitting that I pander to an audience obsessed with a film about fighting aliens that have weak motives for invading earth.

Captain America and the Avengers came from a time when comic book plots didn't have to be grounded in some semblance of reality, where Hawkeye thought purple and blue were acceptable costume colours, where Nick Fury was white; where the destroyer armour hosted his own chat show. (discussions with destroyer) It's a game that doesn't try to win over the unconverted by offering hilarious quips from iron man, or jokes about Captain America not knowing about modern things. Which is just as well as the translation efforts courtesy of Data East prove that even the symbol of American justice (racism) cannot escape misguided dialogue translation. "It is you who is not escaping" says whirlwind after being ambushed by a group of heroes who have no intention of escaping...thank you Japan!

Avengers is your typical arcade scrolling beat em up, by which I mean after the initial euphoria of beating up the same non-marvel endorsed robot enemy for 20 minutes; you soon become aware that there isn't much else. The four avengers (Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man and the Vision) all play exactly the same. The only difference of course being that everyone wants to play as shiny Iron Man while Hawkeye is often neglected on account of archery not being a super power.

It's clear that Data East couldn't afford to splash out on many of the Marvel A-listers for this game so boss battles are fought against the likes of obscure favourites "The living laser", "Ultron" and "Klaw". Classic Marvel villains that laugh maniacally for extended periods of time and make puns out of their names. "You wont live against the living laser!", "It's time to face the long arm of the Klaw!", "You thought you could beat Ultron, you are Ult-Wrong!" and so on...luckily the red skull appears to remind you that Marvel is not all Klaw and Laser, but this is by the end of the game so no amount of Nazi/Communist sympathisers can save you from the boredom you've already experienced.

Captain America and the Avengers reminds us that adaptions of comic book franchises into any other medium don't always end well. The enjoyment of this game is very much short lived with most of the entertainment coming from poor translations and the occasional sound bytes courtesy of the Super Nintendo hardware. People who complete the game will be disappointed at the absence of an end of credit teaser, but given this was made in 1991, nobody cared who Thanos was anyway...SPOILER!