What’s the best superhero game?

Cliff Notes – What’s the best superhero game?

• Limited Options: The article highlights the scarcity of quality superhero games, particularly in the action genre, with the focus primarily on Batman and Spider-Man titles.

• Character Accuracy: While acknowledging the technical limitations of Batman games, the piece argues that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 excels in capturing the essence of its titular character and his heroic actions.

• Sales Uncertainty: The discussion raises concerns about the difficulty in assessing a game’s success shortly after release, pointing to the need for clearer metrics in the gaming industry.

Games Inbox: What’s the best superhero game?

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – the ultimate superhero game? (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

The Thursday letters page hopes Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has a sense of humour, as another reader calls for Star Wars: Battlefront 3.

Binary choice
An interesting article about Superman in video games, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone will bother trying to crack the concept when there are easier heroes to put into games. It is still amazing though, how there still aren’t that many superhero games in general, even though the peak of the MCU has been and gone.

So the question I’m going to ask, of which is the best superhero game, has far fewer options than there really should be. Personally, I think it’s probably Midnight Suns, but if we limit ourselves to action games it’s really only down to Batman vs. Spider-Man.

I would say that Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are much better games than any of Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, even though Insomniac rip-off so much from the Batman titles. However, I’d also say that Spider-Man 2 is a better superhero game, in that it gets the character exactly right in terms of character and what he does.

The problem with the Batman games is that they’re all set in enclosed spaces and even by the time you get to Arkham Knight, everyone’s been evacuated from Gotham, so there’s no civilians and you don’t get to prevent any random crimes, which you absolutely should be doing in a Batman game.

I always figured that was a technical limitation but since we’ve never had a proper sequel the problem has never been solved.
Archie

Expert, exclusive gaming analysis

Unknown success
Interesting article about game sales and how it’s difficult to tell whether a game is a hit nowadays, or at least not until many months since it was out. I say this because I’m curious right now as to how Death Stranding 2 is doing. I loved it but it is clearly not a cheap game to make, and I don’t know anyone else that’s played it and I don’t remember anyone writing into the Inbox about it.

I see some talk of 1.4 million sales in June, but that doesn’t seem very much. Not for a game like that. I know that GC said 1 million is considered the bear minimum for a hit but it’s dependent on budget. So what does Death Stranding 2 have to do to break even? We usually know that for a movie but never for a game.

It’s frustrating. I hope the game has done well enough that Kojima won’t be impacted but we probably won’t know unless something really bad happens.
Damdon

Quick turnaround
A surprisingly interesting set of results for US game sales in May. I certainly didn’t get the impression Elden Ring Nightreign did all that well and it’s almost funny how Switch 1 sold 44% less than last year and it still outsold the Xbox Series X/S. How they think they’re going to come back from that sort of performance in the next generation I don’t know. But I do know telling us that the killer app is AI isn’t going to work.

Love to see the revival of Star Wars Battlefront 2 too. I’m not sure if it’s quite extreme enough for EA to make a sequel though. Even if they started right now it’d take them something like five years to make a new one and whole knows what stay the games industry or Star Wars will be in by that point. Mind you, it was only two years between Battlefront 1 and 2, which is very short nowadays, so maybe they can make it quicker if they use the same tech.
Maister

Remaster masters
I try to support games and studios I really appreciate with day one buys and think I’ll be doing that with Nightdive Studios’ System Shock 2 25th Anniversary Remaster, with its slightly delayed release on console on the 10th of this month.

I’m on board with and think they do an excellent and thoughtful job of their manifesto of ‘bringing lost and forgotten gaming treasures back from the depths.’

I have played System Shock 2 before but will relish a fresh playthrough but have really enjoyed for the first time Powerslave Exhumed and Killing Time: Resurrected from Nightdive Studios.

There’s so many games I’d love them to take on, like Deus Ex, that maybe might happen if this release does well.
Simundo

GC: They’re definitely the gold standard when it comes to 90s era Western games.

Lite preference
Spoken to a couple of gamers in real life and one doesn’t think there will be Nintendo Switch 2 Lite. I am banking on it. No way am I fetching this version of Nintendo Switch 2. Battery issues, weight, and a myriad of little things not quite right… see YouTube.

Games full price around £70 for download keys, maybe if physical. I only want one game, Fast Fusion? I missed out on Fast RMX – a super rare game for Switch 1.

I hope Nintendo see the complaints and do what they did with original Switch and make a Switch 2 Lite version, please.

Thank you Metro for airing, this so to speak.
Simon

GC: What battery and weight issues? And no game-key game is £70.

Lighten up
Won’t playing The Last Of Us Part 2 in chronological order mean the flashback at the museum is the first scene? Isn’t that going to be really weird? Not that I’m likely to play the new mode. I really liked both games at one point but they feel so overexposed nowadays that I’m just tired of hearing about it, to the point where I don’t even know if I’ll watch season three of the show.

Season two changed a lot of stuff that didn’t seem to make any sense, but its biggest problem is that it was so boring. I think it’s going to be a mistake dragging the second game out for three seasons, even if it is a longer story overall.

I really feel Naughty Dog needs to move on from The Last Of Us and just make something with a little optimism for once. Even the last Uncharted was kind of grimdark, with no supernatural stuff. They need to cheer up a bit, or more importantly try to cheer us up.

I don’t need to know that the world and everyone in it is awful, I need hope that maybe they’re not. And no, the ending of Part 2 does not count towards that.

I’m not sure what Intergalactic is about but I hope it’s more about fighting robots with not-lightsabers than banging on about religion and faith. I’m not asking them to go back to Crash Bandicoot, but there has to be a middle ground between than and the ultra seriousness of The Last Of Us.
Kubert

Proper strange
Every time it gets pointed out that Valve hasn’t made a ‘proper’ game since Portal 2 it seems so weird to me. I remember 20 years ago when they were being described as the best game developer in the world and the ‘Pixar of gaming.’

Now I doubt anyone under 30 even realises they used to make games. What saddens me most is it shows Valve were just making games to pay the bills. If they were doing it for the love of the art, they would’ve carried on even after they made their billions with Steam. I guess sitting around counting your money is more fun?
Rascar

The lost generation
I’m going to be honest here and say that I think the general dislike of the Wii is perfectly justified. I don’t think anyone hates it but for me it was the least generation by far for Nintendo. If it wasn’t for Super Mario Galaxy there’d barely be anything worthwhile on the whole console and ironically that one sold quite poorly compared to rubbish like New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

I guess Mario Kart Wii was okay, since motion controls couldn’t ruin that, but Zelda: Skyward Sword was awful and all the new Nintendo franchises were junk like Wii Sports.

That game is definitely an important milestone for gaming but it’s horribly shallow and barely even pretends to be anything other than a tech demo. I don’t hate the Wii, but I do consider it a non-entity that I have no interest in.

It was important in terms of getting Nintendo back on top of the game, and no longer bleeding money, but as a console with a lot of enjoyable games… I’d much rather have a N64 or GameCube (I would say or a Wii U but I’m not going to lose credibility by stretching my point too far).

We can see today how little Nintendo has kept from that era. A few motion controls in the odd party game and gyro aim. That’s it. PlayStation and Xbox don’t even have that, so you can easily say that the Wii had no lasting impact on gaming, and it’s hard to prove you wrong.

Strange that it was the number one selling console of its generation and the Xbox 360, which was the most innovative, did the worst. You could maybe argue that Wii opened up the idea of making games for non-gamers but I’m not sure even that had any lasting impact, beyond mobile games – and they were more influenced by the DS.
Tony T.

Inbox also-rans
Anyone upset about Codemasters not making rally games any more should take a look at this purposefully old school game. Looks great.
Edrona

I notice there’s only a small number of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 review out so far and they all seem to be America. Did you not get sent a copy, GC?
Ansel

GC: We have one now, but it arrived late. Given how there are no UK reviews yet, everyone else seems to be in the same boat.

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