Captain America may be dead (for now) but you can relive his adventures over and over again through that popular medium video games. Since 1987 Captain America has been duking it out with villians across the Marvel Universe. While some of the games may seem REALLY bad by today’s standards, I remember some of these when they first came out and “marvel”ed at how cool they were.
Marvel has created a retrospective of Captain America related games through the ages, and here are a peek at a few.
Memories…
Captain America Defies The Doom Tube
Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64
1987; U.S. GOLD
1987, a time when 64K of memory for a computer was considered bountiful and Nintendo was in the midst of transforming the video game market. ’87 also marks Captain America’s debut into the video game world, appearing on a handful of early home computers–ancient and powerless compared to today’s beasts. The game puts you in role of Captain America as you are given one hour to infiltrate Dr. Megalomann’s desert headquarters–the Doom Tube–survive his nefarious traps, break lots of stuff with your shield, deactivate a world-threatening missile and save the planet from destruction. On the Fourth of July. A seemingly impossible task for anyone else, but luckily, you’re Captain America.
Captain America and the Avengers
Arcade, Genesis, Game Gear, SNES, Game Boy 1991; Data East, Mindscape
“Avengers Assemble!” Were the first sense shattering sounds heard in this arcade classic, later ported to home consoles. A quarter-sucking, coin-op game of a time long forgotten in, where kids would line up at arcades everywhere to drop the entirety of their allowance for a measly hour of entertainment. And oh how fun it was! Very similar in style to the X-Men and TMNT arcade games, up to four people could play together in this brawl-for-all extravaganza, picking from the obligatory Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, and Hawkeye, as you battle through New York City, through the underwater realm of Atlantis, and eventually to the moon where you must thwart Red Skull in his nefarious plan to destroy the earth. Ok, so it’s a little cliché, but the game was just solid fun.
Marvel Super Heroes
Arcade, Sega Saturn and Playstation
1995; Capcom
And what could be better deserved than a starring role in Marvel Super Heroes. With their widely successful Street Fighter series tearing it up at arcades worldwide, Capcom took their winning formula to the Marvel Universe. Following up on the stellar X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes uses the same type of gameplay, but eschews an all-X lineup for the likes of Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man and, of course, Captain America. The story was loosely based around the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, where during the course of the game, the heroes and villains would slug it out over for control of the Infinity Gems, and eventually confront Thanos in a cataclysmic battle that would determine the fate of the universe. This one, whether you’re a Cap fan or not, is well worth the effort to track down.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
Arcade, Dreamcast, PS2 and Xbox
2000, Capcom
Captain America was just one of the over 50 playable characters in the massive 2-D fighter. MvC2 allowed players to man a team of three characters that you could switch between at any time, or summon for some quick aid, with three special move options each. The game play was streamlined to make it more accessible to a greater range of players, while it maintained its speed and aggressiveness. The end boss was Abyss, which turned out to be a mysterious metal sphere. Upon his defeat, unlike every other Capcom fighting game up to this point, and probably the only real downside to the game, there is no character-specific ending sequence. The console versions offered tons of replay value with the ability to unlock more characters, new stages, and multiple costumes for each character.
Fun times indeed! For the complete list of games, plus more screenshots for those of you pining for the days of your old consoles, head over to Marvel.com now.
2 Comments
Check it out! Stephen Colbert Suspected in Murder of Captain America!
http://flogger.looble.com/2007/03/colbert-suspected-in-murder-of-captain.html
It’s hard for me to beleive they would kill off such an iconic character like Captain America. Some serious symbolism there. It looks like the Punisher may take up the mantle though.
I recently did a story about Cap’s Death over at Highbrid Nation. I wanted to talk about it from the perpective of the Hip Hop community. Check it out if you get a chance.