Marvel Super Hero Squad

Review from Starks - Thursday, 03 December 2009 @ 10:56am

It's always good to see local Aussie developers given the chance to develop titles. Blue Tongue, responsible for producing the ingenious de Blob title, were given a crack at the production of this game. Sadly, it lacks the same punch as the aforementioned title.

Marvel Super Hero Squad, a toy line by Hasbro, and The Super Hero Squad Show are the basis for the game. Drawing on Marvels plethora of history and canon, the 'universe' takes on a more cartoon look and children's approach.

Iron Man takes offense that Wolverine stole his beer...

Keeping in theme, Blue Tongue have aimed the game at kids and have ended up popping out an occasionally humorous 3D platformer and 3D fighting game. Sounds good on the surface, but that's about as deep as the game gets.

The 3D platforming reminded me, funnily enough, of Double Dragon and Lego Star Wars thrown together, except with some pretty ordinary camera angles. Requiring you and a 'buddy' to run through a map and 'bash' everything in sight to accomplish your mission, you progressively work your way through the storyline. Focussing on the big bad Doctor Doom, who is looking to try and find the pieces of a fractal sword as is the case in the TV show, you work your way through each level.

The similarity to Double Dragon comes from the fact that the game has very little in the way of variety, but a lot of 'bash, bash, bash some more and OH HEY!! A BOX!! THROW THE BOX!! WOW!! WASN'T THAT AWESOME!! Right, now back to bash, bash, bash and for a brief change maybe a flying kick'.

Iron Man takes offense that Wolverine stole his beer...

Frankly, I got through to the second level before getting insanely bored and swapping over to the battle mode.

What is there to say about this? Well... not a lot. Have you played Super Smash Bros.? If you have, this will be a very familiar formula. Bash the opposition until you either knock them off the ledge or you reduce their health. The only major difference is MSHS has a 3D environment, allowing you to attack from different angles and spice things up a little more. Other than that, it's a tried and tested formula repackaged with Marvel super heroes.

There's not much more to say about this game. This review is short because, well... the game is short on delivering anything to the player. It's not very ground breaking, doesn't take advantage of the Wii-mote although it requires a nunchuk and you can't use the classic controller. Plus, the music is dead awful. Horrible, actually.

The only glimmer of enjoyment was in the little nuggets of humour they pack in every now and then. Still, it's little compensation for the rest of the title.

I tihnk the only fair and positive comment is the game is more of a childrens title than it is adult. From this point of view, it allows kids to have some fun with their favourite super hero and save the world all on the Wii.

Iron Man takes offense that Wolverine stole his beer...

Pros

It has Wolverine. And Spiderman. Also appropriate for kids.

Cons

Not really a very depth-based title. Graphics are ordinary. Loading times wierd and the game seemed to be a little rough from a loading point of view.