Most of ''em are crap. Freedom Force was good, but the rest...well, unless you''re preteen or younger, they''re hardly enjoyable. Why are the heroes always watered down? Why are there fill-able meters that govern every special power? This crap hides annoying, repetative gameplay by professing to introduce some strategy into what would otherwise be a mindless, liscensed beat-em-up. One day, game designers, like the film makers of recent fame, will realize that there''s a market for superhero games that extends beyond the bed-wetters. Then we''ll see interesting games. Some of my ideas: A Batman game where detective work, and not combat, is the primary focus. You, as Batman, would patroll Gotham City''s skyline at night, scouting for signs of crime, tailing the low-level criminals, or beating info out of them. Then you''d compile the clues and prevent a crime that''s unfolding in real-time. Combat, at least against common thugs, is swift and easy, but gunshots are fatal, requiring the use of batarangs and stealth techniques. That''s the Batman of the comics in action. MGS-style, to an extent. A Spiderman game: Introduce Peter Parker''s career and home-life. Make him balance the weight of a secret identity, by allowing him to slip in and out of his costume at any time. What if one of the goals of the game was to maintain the secret identity? I think I''d be interesting to have Parker walking around in a city full of citizens, taking on assignments from the Bugle, interacting with people, etc. Then, when a crime happens to go down, the player has to duck away (which could be part of the challenge) and reappear as Spiderman, whereupon he''d perform the role he always plays in videogames. Maybe in some "missions" he wouldn''t have access to his costume, so he''d have to use his powers judiciously. Something to add the depth that we all crave. These ideas aren''t iron-clad, but they''re a start. I''m actually quite fond of the Batman idea. I''d like to see that one implemented some time.

There''s older adventure game called the super hero legue of hobokan that alot of fun. It focus more on comedic style of Superhero genre in fact your arch nemisis is a jack in the box.
but its a great game

There was a Batman game for the PC wayyyyy back in the early 90s. I believe it was "Batman Returns," based around the movie. I never played it, but read a review, and if I remember correctly it was heavily into the Batman-detective mode.

(found a link: http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/adventure/games_b/batman_returns.html
)

The reviews there don''t think as highly of it as the one I read, but I guess you could download it for yourself and see. The main problem with making any detective game is keeping it interesting after one play-through, since there are only a limited number of possibilities, after all.

But besides Batman, what superheroes really do go beyond the realm of power fantasy? I don''t think many really do. There is the element of "superhero psychology" that modern superhero comics started including, but how does one carry that over to a game? Sure, you could have the whole "secret identity" part, but in some ways that''s an annoyance - most games let you be a suspicious pest without penalty, talking to the same people over and over or standing somewhere for hours. Once you change that the game becomes far more complicated for the player and full of ways for them to slip up and have to reload their game.

I think the only way you could really top Freedom Force in a "general superhero game" sense is to expand the freedom of action allowed or the scales used - whether it''s to allow the player to turn evil and make the campaign more varied, or to start saving cities or the world from nuclear missiles or time-travel or going into space and other planets. But you can''t really make the characters themselves more complex. They''re just people with more powers than everyone else. They use them one way or another.

Try playing the greatest Super hero roleplaying game of all time (paper and pen sort)...Champions. It has hands down, the best rules system for creating powers anywhere. It should be, it''s been in continuous development for 20 years now.

I think super hero roleplaying doesn''t translate as well to computer gaming because it will ultimately degrade into a slugfest since that''s what even the movies essentially do. I for one would rather play Daredevil than Batman, but only if they do it like Frank Miller''s Daredevil (where he becomes a vigilante superhero not because his parents were killed by thugs, but because he accidentally killed a hooker while tracking down and killing his father''s murderers). Or how about playing Ozymandias from the Watchmen...who "saves" Earth by killing a couple million in order to make humanity band together under a common "threat"? I would even love to play a version of Smallville, where you can play out how Clark Kent was raised in order to have the moral values that he had (afterall, if you''re the most powerful being on Earth, wouldn''t you probably be tempted to use that power selfishly?).

The trouble is that Game developers are not the equivalents of Alan Moore''s, Neil Gaiman''s, Frank Miller''s, or John Byrne''s. Heck, they''re not even in Chris Claremont''s league. So what we see instead of story based roleplaying with superpowers (and the consequences that come with them) we''d see slugfests since that''s what the majority of publishers think the masses want. And if the publishers don''t pay, then the developers have no money to develop. The publishers are basically exactly like the "suits" that nearly ruined Marvel a few years ago. When Marvel went IPO, the suits in charge decided what was good for the comic readers rather than the writers and artists. Afterall, these genius suits had all that education from Marketing and Business Analysis to tell them what the masses wanted. Of course, the suits were wrong, and it made Marvel go into Bankruptcy. It wasn''t until Ari Arad took over and gave free reign back to Joe Quesada (who became the President of Marvel) that Marvel bounced back.

I really think the publishing houses should take a serious look at what happened to Marvel comics as it should be a lesson learned in how to let creative control rest in the hands of the developers instead of the bean counters.

I''m actuely thinking of working on a superhero RPG after I finish my current project. The idea is one I had a while back and even did a little planning on. Its a largley humoreous game but, that use a dynamc mission driven system to advance the story. It takes place in world where genetic engineering, cybernetic expermination and war have ravaged the planet. However one menace is more dangerous then all of these combined..... SuperHero''s. Like a plague across the earth they appear and now with the new relaxed admission laws at the Hero''s Central, the national census beareu has annonced that 1/20 people are registerted SuperHero''s.


In the game you start as lone hero on of list of bizzare powers working out your one room apartment. From there you try to work your way to the greatest hero on earth or greatest team of heros on earth. All the while foiling evil villians and competing against other hero''s.

Apparently, the new spiderman game has some of what you''re talking about. You can go around the city in an open-ended fashion and interact with citizens.

I would like to see a superhero game with a GTA style setup where morality actually matters. You''d have free reign to be a hero, anti-hero, villian, etc. and you''d have to deal with other heroes and villians throughout the city. Something along the lines of what TechnoGoth was talking about. Having to balance both personal and hero life at the same time would also be interesting. I think the key here is to have a both interesting missions\storylines and a very good combat system. This game would be best with a lone hero of low to medium power level (Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher) although it could also work with a Superman style hero.

Another interesting idea would be a game where you play a super powerful hero team (like JLA, The Authority, X-Men, etc) and slug it out in cities. I guess this would end up being like Freedom Force, but instead of a linear mission structure you would have more of an X-Com style Geoscape. I envision something like the Authority, where the heroes are powerful enough to be considered a military threat to any nation in the world and have heavy political influence. Politics is a common theme in mature hero titles, kind of an extension to the standard good and evil morality stuff but a lot more complex. Games tend to avoid politics completely, so it''d be interesting to see this.

Freedom Force, Superhero League of Hoboken, the Spiderman games,
the Genesis and SNES X-Men games, the Game Gear X-Men game, the
ARCADE X-Men game, Comix Zone, Captain America and the Avengers
arcade game, Superman arcade game, Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage
for SNES & Genesis...The Superhero mod for Quake II...

All fun and great superhero games(especially Superhero League of
Hoboken...fond memories with that one)...

Yes, we need more superhero games...

Guilty Pleasure: X-Men: Ravages of the Apocalypse mod for Quake.

-Hyatus
"da da da"

WORLDS WORST SUPERHERO GAME

The N64 Superman game. Great concept..very poor execution.
I''ve come to the conclusion that the game was put together by Marvel studios.

What''s wrong with a good mindless beat-em-up?

If executed correctly, with solid controls, fun gameplay, and attractive presentation (it doesn''t need to have billions of polygons and use pixel shaders: the graphics only need to add value to the slugfest, by means of good animations that provides interesting visual feedback), plus carefully done sound effects and musical score, a beat-em-up can be lotsa fun.

Too bad most licensed superhero beat-em-ups aren''t that well executed... they suffer from the repetitiveness that plagues most licensed games. All levels/sub-levels plays the same, feels the same, looks the same, and so does the enemies.

If you like that kind of game try the spiderman game made for the Playstation or the newer spider man the movie game there fun little games.