I'm not really sure where this article is coming from. Games based on comic book superheroes have always worked rather well for me, the exception being movie tie-ins. That is a different problem however, and has nothing to do with the superheroes themselves.

I mean we have Batman: Arkham Asylum, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Marvel Versus Capcom, most of the Spiderman games, X-Men Legends. There's nothing wrong with superhero games.

I was about to continue reading the fine details about the critical failings of licensed games more closely, but:

quote

I think part of the answer to this is that no one knows what it is like to have those abilities. We know what it is like to shoot an M-4 so that experience can be translated to a game pretty well.

He lost his credibility with this sentence.

i sorta understand what he's getting at here. let me try to translate a bit.

he's saying some superhero games work, like Batman, because Batman is a normal human and thus if he gets shot, only the kevlar in his suit can protect him, so its easier to make the game challenging realistically for him.

Superman on the other hand, traditionally, is pretty much invincible. you need Kryptonite or someone insanely strong like Doomsday beating the crap out of him to do anything to him, from a comic book sense. but in order to give the player a challenge in a video game, you pretty much have to give him a life bar and allow it so "normal" enemies can hurt him, where as if it was in a comic book that wouldnt happen.

same thing goes for the Hulk. if the games were like the comics, you should be able to play almost the whole game without the Hulk really taking any damage as long as youre only fighting humans. but to make it work in a game he has to have a health bar and take more damage from guns, missiles and things than he should.

this is because in a game, all the player usually is able to do is related to combat, so characters that should otherwise be really hard to hurt have to be changed so that the player has to upgrade their powers or take damage from normal enemies. thats probably why the Batman Arkham games work the best.

for every great game theres 10 shitty games of the same type. here's a few super hero games that did work well and are great games. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Batman Arkham Asylum, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Origins: Wolverine all great games and all based on superheros not from games made into games. then there are new super hero games like infamous which are really great too. many super hero games do work and like all types of games many do not work.