Captain America: Super Soldier 3DS

Captain America is an all American hero fighting in the battlefields of World War Two. Reading the comics, watching the movies or even resorting to Wikipedia will tell you that the Cap is the Marvel equivalent of Superman. This one man wrecking machine is on a mission to save Prisoners of War and defeat the evil HYDRA unit, a group headed by the maniacal Red Skull. A man so diabolical he makes Hitler look like one of the Care Bears.

Like Thor before it, SEGA have taken their time to create a 3D version of Captain America for the Nintendo 3DS. However in taking an extra 6 months to deliver something of an improvement, what is presented to us is a condensed version of the somewhat disappointing Wii incarnation. A few changes have had to be made of course, the camera has been freed somewhat, appearing to be less fixed on the Captain’s behind.

The camera, although less rigid is still “stuck” behind the Captain’s backside which makes exploring a pain. Not that backtracking or exploration is something that will be happening on a regular basis. The game has a very liner approach, with each mission progressing through the castle peice by peice. The extras such as Finding POWs, disabling bombs and the “hidden” challenges are always on the path of the level and require little exploration, and the reward for completing each of the challenges is always some form of artwork.

The hidden Zemo challenges highlight another big problem with Captain America. They revolve around breaking as many targets as possible in a specific time by using the primary weapon – the shield. The targeting system has been moved clumsily from pointing at the screen with the Wii Remote, and placed into the 3DS’s touchscreen. Because of the camera issues, to target anything at all is a clunky and time consuming practise that is just infuriating when under pressure from a countdown clock.

Targeting problems aren’t the only thing our American Captain has to worry about, he may well be a Super Soldier, but he isn’t half slow when scrapping with the Nazis. With a fight system based on the brilliant Batman: Arkham Asylum, the idea is to bash one button and counter when prompted. However where this comes unstuck is that Batman is tight and responsive in his movements. Captain America is slow on the uptake which results in a punch to the head to the character.

A punch to the face doesn’t solve the Captain’s woes either. The environments are an offence to the eyes. Just like in the Wii version, everything is a colourful shade of grey. Running around a castle one would expect colourful paintings, beautiful murals hanging from walls, or even a lush carpet or two. Nothing of the sort in this game. The walls are bland and lifeless and the castle is just filled with the odd chair or vase and enough scaffolding so that Jackie Chan can fight off 100s of baddies.

From the Wii to the 3DS, Captain America: Super Soldier seems to have worse graphics than was ever thought possible. Even the original Nintendo DS would have no problems pulling off the graphics. The 3D is non existent in the game. It makes no difference having the slider up or down which begs the question: where were the 6 months between the Wii and the 3DS versions spent?

With Thor, SEGA refined, developed and created a better game for the Nintendo 3DS than the console counter parts. Annoyingly, Captain America: Super Soldier isn’t the same story. It feels OK to play but ultimately it’s the console version we played 6 months ago. There are some saving graces, it is much harder to progress than the Wii version and the voice acting isn’t half bad. Time was needed on the targeting system, graphics and speeding up the Captain so he doesn’t get hammered in battles for no reason. As it stands, only the hardcore fans of Captain America will enjoy this outing as it remains mediocre, at best.

Captain America: Super Soldier

Captain America has not seen a video game console release since the early 90’s when he teamed up with the rest of the Avengers in a 2-D side scrolling action/adventure. With the imminent cinema release of The First Avenger, it is with convenient timing that Marvel and SEGA have decided to rejuvenate the franchise and bring the 1940’s war hero to the 21^st century. Much like Thor: God of Thunder, Captain America is not a movie – game tie in as such, instead opting for a separate storyline as an alternative take on the big screen release. As with Thor, SEGA have employed Chrsitos Gage – one of the writers of the comic to pen the story for the game. Also Chris Evans lends his voicing talents reprising his role as the Captain.

The game starts with the Captain being dropped behind enemy lines in the 1940s on a mission to stop the terrorist organisation HYDRA and Nazi Germany from destroying the world. Headed by the evil Red Skull, HYDRA set off on a mission to create the ultimate Super Soldier in an attempt to defeat Captain America and win the second world war. It is a race against time for Captain America and the Allied Forces to find and destroy HYDRA. With little help from any kind of weapon, it is up to the Captain to use strength and his most useful item – his shield to achieve his goals. The shield can be thrown to stun enemies, used as an aid to climb walls and deflect bullets of the bad guys.

Controlling Captain America with the analogue stick is simple enough however on occasions, the camera will either get stuck or be facing the opposite way to the action. All actions are performed with “A” button but take slightly too long to action. This results in a fit of infuriating button bashing just to jump up two or three ledges. The combat system is much the same as the rest of the controls. Bashing the “B” button in a group of enemies will dispatch them without too much trouble. This is a stark contrast to Thor: God of Thunder where combos where used to spice up the battles. Just pressing B and occasionally Z for the odd defensive manoeuvre, does get very stale very quickly.

For the times where a more long range approach is needed the shield comes into it’s own. Firstly if a hand gun is fired at the Captain, bullets are pinged back at such a rate it does quickly stop the enemy onslaught. This brings an element of fun to the game and slightly redeems the lack-lustre melee combat. Using the shield as a trigger, is a clever idea, throwing it like like a Frisbee to make bombs explode or open doors. However using the Wii remote to aim is not as responsive as one would hope and once zoomed in, the camera becomes static so there is no 360 degree aiming.

While Captain America may not move as easily as he could do, at least he and all the character models look good. They are scaled back versions of the high definition counter-parts which means they look above average for what the Wii can produce. The same cannot be said about the environments in which the characters roam. Level design in the game is for the large part plane and unimaginative, such as the trenches in the first level look exactly like the castle in the next. There are a staggering number of items to collect in each level – American P.O.Ws, war dossiers, treasures & HYDRA planted bombs to disarm. This may seem like a tough call as each level is surprisingly large. Items to obtain are so frequent there isn’t many places that they could be hidden so the game becomes more of a chore to find everything and everyone rather than an exciting search for treasure.

Captain America: Super Soldier is another example of having all the key elements in place, the writer of the comics, the actor who is Captain America, even a well established publisher/developer in SEGA. Yet, the game itself falls short in almost every way. The combat system is clunky and requires no skill, neither does finding every item in the game. In a typical good vs evil story, Captain America had to pull something out of the bag that sets it apart from the crowd. Unfortunately, it does the opposite as the dull levels and uninspired camera controls makes the game quite content to be quickly forgotten – it does not embody the American type cast of being loud and in-your-face. There are a few glimmers of hope with the game, the levels although mundane, are big. Each one in fact lasts around 20-25 minutes. Also making enemies shoot themselves does bring a comical value to the game. These two reasons alone do not provide a good enough reason to bring Captain America: Super Soldier from the ranks of mediocrity.