It’s been a week since E3 ended and news and details about the onslaught of upcoming superhero video games are still pouring out. This week we’ve rounded up all the trailers, demos, and screen shots for all the games that have us comic book geeks frothing at the mouth.
The game I’m personally most excited about is Batman: Arkham City. Leading into E3 the game’s developer, Rocksteady, announced that Catwoman would be a playable character, and released an awesome Catwoman trailer. See it here. All last week Rocksteady sat down with industry media and played a live demo of Arkham City with both Batman and Catwoman gameplay. Don’t worry; playing as Catwoman is completely unique from playing as Batman, so you’re not just playing as Batman with a Catwoman skin. So far the game looks like a Batman fan’s dream come true. The scope of the game is ridiculous, and October 18 can’t come fast enough. See the demo in its entirety here. Early in the video, Sefton Hill (co-founder of Rocksteady) mentions that the game will be available on Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U. I’m very curious to eventually see a demo for that version of the game.
Also, it was confirmed that Robin (Tim Drake) will be a playable character, but only in the game’s all new challenge modes, not the campaign, and as a special download extra when you pre-order the game. I’m happy they got the Boy Wonder in there somewhere!
We got all the details on Spider-Man: Edge of Time, and it looks awesome. Activision is quick to say Edge of Time is not just the next Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension, but that it’s a much more narrative focused experience, which sounds great to me since the game is written by Peter David. The demo gave us a great look at the game’s story, which has you chasing Anti-Venom, and dealing with crazy time paradoxes. Things you do in the present as Peter Parker are directly affecting Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099) in the future.
The combat looks much grander and much more explosive than Beenox’s last Spidey game, but we get a preview of some new weird spider abilities for Peter Parker that so far appear questionable. Abilities like a strange looking new super speed-like power. And, sadly, there’s no multi-player. See the demo here.
The game I was most curious about was X-Men: Destiny. We saw our first glimpse of actual gameplay, and while it looks cool, it’s the story I’m not yet sold on. Destiny is an action RPG, and you play as one of three new mutants who have just come to realize their powers. As you go through the game you can add and customize mutant abilities while teaming with top tier X-Men. I love the idea of customizing your mutant’s abilities, I just wish we were able to build our own characters from the ground up like in Mass Effect or Fable, instead of playing as these predetermined wannabe X-Men. Here’s the demo.
How many modern movie based video games do you know that are actually cooler than the movie itself? I really didn’t care for the Transformers sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, however, I very much enjoyed the video game adaption. With Transformers: Dark of the Moon on the way, so is the video game counterpart, and as you can see in the demo here, the game seems to resemble the gameplay from Transformers: War For Cybertron, which is great. The game takes place several months before the events of the new film, and is completely single player, but there is plenty of online multi-player. I’m very much looking forward to it.
The game that took me by surprise when I first heard about it was The Darkness 2. The Darkness was a really cool under the radar first-person-shooter, but I never thought a second game would ever materialize. The key fundamentals of gameplay have returned and little appears to have changed, but the game just looks beautiful, and if it’s as satisfying as the last game then it should be great. Here’s the demo.
Monolith Productions released new screenshots for the download exclusive Gotham City Imposters, and the game looks awesome! No word yet on when the game will be hitting PSN or XBLA, but hopefully it’s soon!
While you’re waiting for the fall for these titles to release, Zen Studios is launching Captain America Pinball as part of the free Pinball FX2 game on XBLA and PSN. Captain America joins the ranks of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, and Blade with his own Pinball theme. All the Marvel Pinball tables are awesome and addicting, and even if you like Pinball just a little bit, it’s absolutely worth the download. See the trailer for Captain America Pinball here!
This year was a great E3 for superhero games. This fall is gonna be a busy one for my Xbox 360. What games are you most looking forward to?
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Andrew Hurst
andrewhurst@comicattack.net
@andrewEhurst
Arkham City and The Darkness are the two I’m most excited about getting to play. Gotham CIty Imposters has piqued my interest and seems like it’ll be a fun distraction from time to time.