The latest Marvel series on Falcon and the Winter Soldier figures, despite not shine as brightly as WandaVisionYes, it has left me Captain America’s monkey. And how long ago we back-analyzed the classic Captain America and the Avengers from Data East, this time I opted for a game that my mind had completely forgotten: the Captain America: Super Soldier from 2011.
Edited by SEGA a decade ago and under the development of Next Level Games, a studio that can give you a jewel like Luigi’s Mansion 3, but also a blushing product like Metroid Prime: Federation Force or one that was canceled at the end, like the recently remembered one Super Mario Spikers, that adventure of “Capi” was not well received, something similar to the uninspired happened to him. Spider-man: Friend the Enemy
Captain America was inspired by the Dark Knight
As a general rule, any video game on a license is inspired by the mechanics that prevail at that time. And in the case of this official Captain America video game, the influence is quite evident: Batman Arkham Asylum, 2009.
We are referring, of course, to the mechanics of their fights, which since then have marked a whole wave of games thanks to the success of their choreographies against countless enemies at the same time, penalizing the pounding of buttons that try to anticipate the counterattacks. attacks or other types of technical movements.
This is applied in a lighter and less polished way by the “Cap”, without being as agile (or of course as versatile) as the Dark Knight game. The reason is very simple: Batman has more gadgets, while Captain America only has his shield. But… What a shield! Anyone knows that.
Initially we have few movements, but as we gain experience from documents or defeating enemies, for example, we will be given access to different improvements, among which the possibility of bounce the shield off multiple targets, make a counter-attack (frankly useful against enemies who shoot at us, since we return the bullet and kill them instantly) or hit the ground very hard to stun nearby rivals. The game keeps getting better as we go along.
Let’s not fool ourselves either: It is far from the level of the Arkham of Rocksteady Studios. And certainly the way this starts Captain America: Super Soldier it is very disappointing, when leaking in tight space environments. It takes time to show its potential, although it sins from the same thing that Spidey’s game suffered, when it became repetitive in its mechanics and without frights in the plot.
Account in your favor with a series of resizable maps that we can explore with semi-freedom, seeing a good part of the collectibles to obtain. Here the absurd and disproportionate number of documents scattered around the stage is quite striking, giving rise to ridiculous situations, with three or four documents in the same room. They sing a lot, well …
Despite the dimensions of some settings, it is actually a very linear adventure and without any original challenge. There are a number of puzzles that are repeated, such as crack the Enigma code looking for a repeating pattern (a letter or a number) or sparking some terminals by controlling both sticks.
This video game is based on the movie Captain America the First Avenger, released that same 2011, by the way, although its resemblance to it is testimonial when experiencing other types of situations in front of the terrorist organization Hydra. Without going any further, we are presented with a new character, the Madame Hydra, expert in poisons and torture. Now, there is no shortage of familiar faces such as Bucky Barnes, Peggy Carter, Howard Stark (yes, Tony “Iron Man” Stark’s father), Arnim Zola, Baron Von Strucker or Red Skull, of course, his great antagonist.
The first avenger deserved better luck in 2011
Captain America: Super Soldier did not seem a bad game to me, and that I have played it ten years late. But it does show that it took more cooking time to polish all its sections, being affected by the evil that these licenses have, which have to coincide with the film and offer something different.
The combats lack a greater forcefulness, since they are usually a procedure as soon as we unlock the first skills. To this must be added the schematics, a type of collectible that unlocks passive buffs to deal more damage to enemies by knowing all their vulnerabilities.
There are collectibles to bore, as we anticipated, even having a series of Zemo audios and some videos to know the background of the plot. This, which in itself makes us worry about exploring every corner, also translates into a small dose of replayability through some combat challenges to unlock, but with a pace and quality generally lower than the Arkhhams.
It is appreciated, on the other hand, that the actors who starred in the movie have participated in this video game contributing their image and voice, although in the Spanish version we had to settle for a dubbing into Spanish … different, and certainly much less fortunate. There are certain scenes that are surprising due to their poor quality in terms of acting. A shame
Although it was an adventure with a dynamic third-person view, in certain sections he played with the view of the camera from fixed shots, especially facing the acrobatic moves of Captain America, in a succession of Quick-Time Events of easy resolution where good coordination was rewarded.
It was still a bit ironic, because there was a certain roughness in Cap when it came to moving, missing a bit more agility with the combos or, above all, with the distances of the enemies, that Batman was capable of performing a choreography in which the rhythm was not lost. And when we tried to refine our aim with the shield, the seams were already noticeable due to automatisms.
As a supersoldier that he is, here we could demonstrate our enormous power by filling a special bar, having a first forceful blow that consumed a piece of said bar, until unleashing other much more powerful movements when doing the same with two, three or the four bars of blow, as if it were a fighting game. And here the one in which we stole the heavy weapon of a highly protected enemy was very useful to drop lead in front of the others.
Unfortunately, excluding mobiles, this Captain America: Supersoldier is the latest official video game starring this Marvel superhero. And, without being a marvel, the truth is that it is not as bad as it was painted in its day. Although we are not fooled either: the comparisons are hateful compared to those of Batman.
