Marvel's Avengers: The Definitive Edition (PC)

Developer:

Crystal Dynamics

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Release Date:

2020

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Systems:

Win, XBOne, Series S/X, PS4, PS5, Stadia

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about Marvel's Avengers, because it's about to be delisted on Steam and is super cheap right now. Honestly, this fell off my radar the moment I learned they were going the games as a service route with it, so I was very surprised to find myself handing over actual money for it and now I own it I guess!

My curiosity got the better of me when I learned that they'd given players the entire shop's worth of content and freed it from its microtransactions. Plus I had to buy it now or I'd never get another chance, as they've gone and delisted it from online shops. I hate it when they do that.

I was only intending to put the game on for a few minutes and see how it plays, I wasn't expecting to use my screenshots/video to write about it for the internet. In fact, I wasn't even expecting it to run. So the graphics have been left at their absolute lowest to squeeze the maximum FPS out of it. This is as bad as the game can possibly look, at least without some extra effort messing with INI files or whatever. I know people work horrifying miracles sometimes.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to be playing the first few hours, so you may learn a lot of stuff here you might not want to know about the story.

The Rocketeer (SNES)

Developer:

NovaLogic

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Release Date:

1992

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Systems:

SNES, DOS

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This week on Super Adventures I'm playing a licensed tie-in SNES game! Because I've got more curiosity than sense.

The Rocketeer is based on the 1991 comic book action movie... probably. He has the same logo, the suit looks right and it's got 'Disney' written on it so I'm assuming there's a connection. But I haven't really seen the movie, so I don't know the characters and I've only got the vaguest idea about the plot. I'm coming into this with a good amount of ignorance.

Though one thing I do know is that the SNES version is actually a port of a DOS game and those are the only two systems this particular Rocketeer game came out for. Sega owners missed out this time, though I doubt they were missing much. But hey I'll give it a fair chance to win me over, it might surprise me.

Sam & Max: Hit the Road (MS-DOS)

Developer:

LucasArts

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Release Date:

1993

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Systems:

DOS, Mac

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm finally getting a Sam & Max game onto my website! Took me long enough, though to be fair for the first few years of my site I was making more of an effort to stay clear of games I'd played before, and this I have definitely played before. It's probably the first PC game I ever owned in fact.

Sam & Max: Hit the Road is actually a licensed game, as the duo belong to former LucasArts artist Steve Purcell (he did the amazing box art for Monkey Islands both 1 and 2) and they had their own comic long before this. But you'd be forgiven for thinking they were owned by LucasArts, with the amount of sneaky appearances they've made in their earlier games; later games too, they're all over the damn place. I even teamed up with Max for a level in Jedi Knight. But Hit the Road was their very first starring role in a video game, and for a long while it seemed like it was going to be their last.

I'm going to be playing the CD version through ScummVM, which should be pretty much identical to what you'd find on GOG.com these days. There actually was a floppy disk release too, which surprises me because I can't imagine the game without voices, and even more shockingly it only came on seven 3.5" disks! The PC version of Monkey Island 2 came on five and this has to have more than 3MB extra art and animation in it, surely.

Batman: Return of the Joker (NES)

Developer:

Sunsoft

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

NES, Genesis

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Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a look at Batman: Return of the Joker, the sort-of sequel to Sunsoft's Batman: The Video Game, which was released for the NES two years earlier.

Batman: The Video Game was a tie-in with Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman' movie (thoughtfully given a subtitle so that people wouldn't get them confused and end up shoving the cartridge into their VCR), and this also shares the movie's shiny golden 'BATMAN' text so I'm presuming they're part of the same continuity. But ~SPOILERS~ The Joker didn't just get locked away in Arkham or go into hiding at the end of the movie, he got dropped off a giant gothic church tower to his very definite pavement-assisted demise. In fact in the end of the NES game Batman punches him off the church roof, which is kind of hardcore for a man that never kills, but the end result is much the same. So if The Joker really has returned here, then he's come back from the dead.

Incidentally this has nothing to do with the 'Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker' animated movie, as that came out about a decade later and has its own set of games. Though it's still about The Joker coming back from the dead.

The guy is like... weeds or something.

Spider-Man (GBA)

At last, the game that no doubt everyone's been waiting for: the GBA version of Spider-Man (The Movie)! Though this title screen music definitely ain't the Spider-Man: The Movie theme. Sounds like it'd be more at home in Spider-Man: The Old Amiga Game.

This is another case of a handheld game released alongside a console game with the same title, same cover art, same everything... except for the actual game inside the box. I get why they do it, they want to sell two games with a single marketing campaign (plus in this case it's a movie tie-in as well), I just wish they'd give each version a subtitle or something so it's clear that they're different products.

Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six (GBC)

Well that just looks nasty. It's like they took the title screen from a PlayStation game and tried to shove it into the Game Boy Color. Can't complain about the music though.

In hindsight I probably should have played this for the site nearer to Christmas, when Amazing Spider-Man's 700th and final issue hit shops (and made a lot of people unhappy), but sadly extremely obvious ideas often take a fortnight to work their way into my brain.

Judge Dredd (PSX)

Adventures in Judge Dredd Games - Part 4

Whoa, I thought his pistol in the earlier Judge Dredd games looked a bit wimpy, but now they've gone full speed in the other direction. That thing really looks like it could fire half a dozen different kinds of bullets. At once.

By 1997 the Judge Dredd franchise had left the 16-bit era behind for a new start on the PlayStation. Of course they couldn't call this 'Judge Dredd 2', because that might make their new audience feel like they were missing out on a game. But they couldn't be bothered to come up with a subtitle either, so yeah this is the fifth game in the franchise with the same name. In a row.

Judge Dredd (SNES)

Adventures in Judge Dredd Games - Part 3

Today I'm playing... Judge Dredd, aka Judge Dredd - The Movie as it's allegedly based in some way on the 1995 Stallone film, and even has him on the cover.

By 1995 there had been already been two Judge Dredd games released, Judge Dredd and, uh, Judge Dredd, both of them only on computers and neither of them much fun. But now it's the consoles' turn to show off what they can do with the licence. This one came out on the Genesis/Mega Drive, Super Nintendo, and DOS, and I'm playing the SNES game. Will it succeed where the other games failed, or will it be as bad as the movie?

Well they've already tripped at the first hurdle by calling it Judge Dredd again.

Judge Dredd (Atari ST)

Adventures in Judge Dredd Games - Part 2

This is the second of the Judge Dredd games, released on computers like the Amiga, Atari ST and Commodore 64. They apparently couldn't be bothered coming up for a new name for it though, so they just called it Judge Dredd, like the first game. So to tell them apart, from now on the first game shall be referred to as Judge Dredd '87, and the second as Dredd's Big Day Out.

Oh right, I'm playing the Atari ST version by the way.

Judge Dredd (C64)

Adventures in Judge Dredd Games - Part 1

Yeah sorry I've gone crazy again and decided to waste the best part of a week on games no one cares about. No RPGs, no requested games, not even a Zelda game for the entire week. Just a guy with a big helmet and a metal bird on his shoulder shooting people.

There's been a few games made about 2000AD's Dirty Harry inspired fascist super-cop, but this is the very first of them, released on the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in the mid 80s.

I hear Dredd's comic book stories are actually pretty decent, but all I know about the character comes from vague recollections of the 1995 Stallone movie. So I'm pretty much expecting Dredd's going to take his helmet off about ten minutes in, then the rest of the game will be about his run from the law, punctuated by slurred one liners and a digital Rob Schneider giving his best imitation of comedy.

The Adventures of Batman & Robin (SNES)

Today I'm taking a look at the SNES version of The Adventures of Batman & Robin, because someone asked me nicely.

It's got the correct logo from the animated series, and it's playing the theme tune. So far so good. It's nice to see a password option too, though 'load game' would have been better.

Spider-Man (GBC)

Today I'm taking a look at Spider-Man on the Game Boy Colour, because if there's one thing this site needs it's more platformers based on comic books.

This may look like your average 'hero poses above the city on a rooftop' title screen, but it actually has a bit of story leading up to it.

Batman Begins (GBA)

That's kind of a bland title screen, but it does get the job done I suppose. It's got the correct logo and the title, plus some helpful copyright info. It doesn't need 'Press Start' because it goes straight to the game by itself.

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu (GBA)

As title screens go it's not bad and the music's alright. Though it sounds more like it was meant for a Batman Beyond game.

I just hope this turns out better than Batman: Vengeance, the last GBA Batman game I played.

Batman: Vengeance (GBA)

Nice shiny logo. Seems good so far.

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death (PC) - Guest Post

A stranger, in his dying moments, handed this game to me.

'kay.

Akira (Amiga CD32)

Damn, that title does not mess around.

Superman Returns: Fortress of Solitude (GBA)

I never liked the Superman Returns logo much. Sure the S shield looks nice with some depth to it, but I don't get how he can hide that under a shirt. It ruins my suspension of disbelief!

Superman: Countdown to Apokolips (GBA)

It's Sooperman versus the minions of Darkseid in Kowntdown tu Apokolips!

It's hard to take a villain seriously when he deliberately misspells names to sound cool. Maybe if he had an album out he could get away with it.

Wolverine: Adamantium Rage (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Wolverine's back, this time on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and he's still pissed off about adamantium. Not to be confused with the SNES game of the same name.

I hate it when companies develop different games for different systems but give them the same name, it's just confusing. It'd be forgiveable if they were based on a movie or whatever like the Batman 1989 games, but they're not, so I don't forgive them.