Highlights
- Comic book games have gone through highs and lows in popularity, with recent successes like Spider-Man on PS4.
- Underrated superhero games from the PS2 era include Ghost Rider and Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.
- Batman Begins served as a test run for the Arkham series, featuring mechanics that were later expanded upon.
Comic book games haven't been around quite as long as comic book movies, but they've been around for quite a while at this point and their quality and popularity have waned and waxed just as much as their movie counterparts, if not more so. More recently, they've seen a resurgence in attention thanks to games like Spider-Man on the PS4, but also the Batman Arkham series.
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Comic book games used to be far more numerous, however, as so many of the movies and sometimes TV shows had tie-in games that inflated their presence in the market. The PS2 era is a perfect example of this. While not all of these games can match the quality of the modern Spider-Man or Batman titles, many of them are fun games in their own right, especially for their time. Here are some underrated superhero games from the PS2 era.
1 Ghost Rider
Metacritic Rating: 54
Ghost Rider
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 2 , Android , PSP , Nintendo Game Boy , Xbox (Original)
- Released
- February 13, 2007
- Developer
- Climax Group, Climax Studios, Magic Pockets
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
As far as God of War clones go, Ghost Rider for the PS2 is a pretty good one. Released in 2007, the game is technically a tie-in to the movie starring Nicolas Cage, though the game barely references it at all, though that's for the better.
The game instead chooses to tell an entirely different story that's arguably more engaging than the movie, though it's not the reason to play this game. The reason to play this game is its surprisingly fun combat mechanics, a fairly robust leveling system for obtaining new abilities and combos, and the Hellcycle sections.
2 Marvel Nemesis: Rise Of The Imperfects
Metacritic Rating: 58
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects
- Platform(s)
- PSP , PlayStation 2 , GameCube , Xbox (Original) , Nintendo DS
- Released
- September 20, 2005
- Developer
- nStigate Games, Team Fusion, Sensory Sweep Studios, EA Vancouver
- Genre(s)
- Fighting , Beat 'Em Up
Marvel Nemesis is one of the weirdest one-off superhero games ever made. Not only is it much darker than many of its contemporaries, but it also features all-new EA-owned characters who square off with a host of well-known Marvel characters. It features relatively large arenas for characters to fight in, as well as longer levels that involve traversal and platforming.
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The story for the game is both fairly interesting and wholly original, though it unfortunately went nowhere. The game was intended to be the start of a series, but its poor performance led to the cancelation of these plans.
3 The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Metacritic Rating: 84
- Platforms: PS2, Xbox, GameCube
- Released: August 23, 2005
- Developer: Radical Entertainment
- Genre: Action-adventure
Much like with solo films starring the character, Incredible Hulk games have been few and far between over the years. It's a shame because Ultimate Destruction proved that an open-world game featuring the titular character can be loads of fun, especially if it were to make use of destructible environments.
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In truth, Ultimate Destruction received high praise critically but wasn't as much of a financial success, which was blamed on it not being a tie-in game. Strangely, the game shares a few similarities with the 2008 film, including the main villain and many of Hulk's moves.
4 Spider-Man (2002)
Metacritic Rating: 79
The movie tie-in game for the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man film is surprisingly content-rich and fun, even though, gameplay-wise, it's a retread of the older PS1 Spider-Man games. Graphically, it's far superior and adds new combos for Spidey to employ against enemies, as well as revamping midair combat entirely.
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The real reason this game is great, though, is that it's packed to the brim with extras, including alternate skins and a whole other story mode featuring Green Goblin as a playable character. The game doesn't totally stick to the movie's story, though this works for the game rather than against it.
5 Batman Begins
Metacritic Rating: 65
Batman Begins
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Game Boy Advance , Nintendo GameCube , PS2 , Xbox (Original)
- Released
- June 14, 2005
- Developer(s)
- Eurocom
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure , Stealth
What's funny about Batman Begins was that it seemed as though it was a test run for many ideas that would end up in the much superior Arkham game series. That's not to say that it's a bad game per se.
In fact, Batman Begins is a rather fun beat-em-up, stealth hybrid. The film's cast returns to do voice-over work for its characters (save for Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon), and rather accurately follows the story of the film with only slight embellishments and expansions for the sake of gameplay. While the game wasn't a big hit, many of its mechanics relating to stealth, enemy fear, gliding, and even the Batmobile were eventually taken and expanded on substantially in the Arkham series.
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