OMGJeremy

The Return Of Humpday Gaming: Captain America And The Avengers (SNES)

This game can go right to Hell. And I don’t mean the awesome kind of Hell you see depicted in gross middle-age paintings. No, I’m speaking of that special kind of Hell where truly awful video games have to go for all eternity. Where they will forever be torn apart by the tears and shrieks of the damned children that had their weekends ruined from their terribleness. Captain America and the Avengers will have a special place waiting for it in that Hell. Right next to my ten year-old self that thought this pile of dog ass would be even a fraction as good as its awesome coin-op counterpart. Looking back, even just a fraction would be a massive improvement over what I got.

Make no mistake about it, Captain America and the Avengers is a seminal arcade beat-em-up that had a home in every mall arcade right next to the best of the genre. Sure, it’s no X-Men arcade, nor does it have the personality of the Turtles arcade games, but ol’ Cap here had one Hell of a good game on his hands. The main reason being that the game actually saw fit to let you actually use the super hero’s individual superpowers as regular attacks, rather than making you lose health like the X-Men game. I always found it weird that games would punish you for wanting to use your superhero’s superpower. That’s kind of what they do, you know? Captain America and the Avengers let you do just that as much as you want. Cap had his shield, Iron Man had his lasers, and the Godly Nighthawk had arrows out the ass. Not literally, but you get the idea.

So how could all of this awesome go so wrong on the SNES? I mean, besides the awesome fully voiced intro, the game wasn’t anything TOO amazing. While the graphics made it over without much fuss, it was the gameplay that somehow saw fit to be flushed right down the shitter. The super smooth action of the arcade had been turned into a sluggish punishment. Just making it across the screen was such a slow process that any sort of progress felt so laborious that you simply felt completely fatigued after one level. Here, just check out the arcade version real quick:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPVXP2uNr9M

Smooth as butter, and completely awesome. And now the SNES version:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcXspB-vqlk

See? Not only does it look worse, the action is choppy, slower, and there are fewer enemies at any one time than the arcade. It all comes together to make a thoroughly depressing beat-em-up for any kid expecting the fun and excitement of the arcade game. Like I did.

So if you’ve never played Captain America and the Avengers, don’t hesitate to do so. Just avoid the home versions like some sort of flesh-eating disease. Only the saddest of the sad have played through those terrible things and come through to tell the tale. Now I just have to try and forget it all again.