3RRSG Captain America

Many of you may remember my review for Dynamite Cop! on the
dreamcast. Some of you may have gotten the impression that I don't
like beat 'em games from the arcade but that's not true. I just don't
care for crappy ones. Here we have a 2d beat 'em up called Captain
America and the Avengers. Based on popular marvel characters, this
game is better in nearly every way compared to dynamite flop. A good
game for marvel fans and old school gamers alike, if you want some
good beat 'em up action, this is where it's at!

The story is just like one you would expect to appear in the Avengers
comic. The evil Red Skull is wreaking havoc again. This time he has a
laser on the moon set to destroy the world! Your journey will start in
some city, but will eventually lead you to space to stop the mad man!
And you get 4 Avengers to choose from to play as! The great Captain
America, the invincible Iron Man, the sleek Vision, and the styling
Hawk eye. I never even knew who Vision and Hawk eye were before
this, but they are ok. Vision looks a little "flamboyant" in this game by
the way he walks. Along the way you'll meet other marvel characters
like Submariner and Wonderman. They don't stay for too long though.
Overall I enjoyed the somewhat silly story, due to its old comic book
feel.

Ok this is a 2d beat 'em up. Just like Streets of Rage or Final fight,
you've probably played games like these before. Some are good, some
are bad, but this one falls in the good section. Fight your way through I
think 5 levels, along the way killing many enemies, and some bosses. A
button is jump, and b and c are attack. You can also hold down an
attack button to block. Or press jump and attack at the same time to
shoot a projectile. What's really cool is when you punch something,
classic comic book sound effects will be written on screen like smash,
pow and bash. A really cool touch that adds to the comic book theme.
You also have one other attack where you slide into people.

In some instances there are horizontal shooting sections. Here you
merely dodge enemy fire and shoot the bad guys. Very cool addition.
With the two player mode, these sections get very hectic with bullets
going everywhere! Bad guys are actually kinda tough to kill sometimes
when they gang up on you. And bosses can also become really hard as
well. (Just remember this was once an arcade game and they want you
to lose and put more tokens in to keep playing). There is also a training
mode. This is actually kinda of a 1 on 1 death match where you fight
the other human player. Go in options to adjust the difficulty, the lives,
and hear the music and sound effects. If you've got a buddy to play
with, I'm sure it will make the game more enjoyable.

No matter what, I'll always prefer simple 2d graphics to crappy 3d
ones. So this colorful game was appealing to me. Levels are varied
from towns, to under water and then to space. Along the way you'll find
items on the ground that you can pick up and throw at baddies. The
enemies are better than I hoped. While they appear to be robots, they
don't all come in boring shades of grey and brown. I saw some cool
green ones, blue ones and red ones. The bosses are larger than the
normal baddies and have some cool attacks to throw at you. As for
your character, it's good. They have classic poses although some look
better than other. Cap'n and Iron man look better than vision and
Hawk eye. Although when Vision is just standing still he kinda turns his
head around and looks everywhere. This looks incredibly silly, added
with his walk and appearance. Hawk eye, is just kinda of a boring
character who doesn't look bad, just not as cool as the Cap'n.

But there are also little touches to the graphics that makes things
shine. At the beginning of every level, there is a cool comic book
picture showing the events of that level. The levels all have semi corny
names to them, but it all fits. Your life bar (which starts at 100 but can
go up or down with power ups or baddies hurting you) has a picture of
your character next to it. The more you get hurt the sadder and more
beat up the picture looks. Just a little touch but very effective.

Probably the most memorable thing in this game is its sound. Or more
specifically the voices. All of them, yes ALL of them are hilarious. My
brother was playing the game with me and said it sounds like there is
just one voice actor and then they just changed the tone of his voice
for all the characters. I don't know if it's true but man are the voices
funny! And this goes with the horrible (but funny) dialogue they have to
shout! One of my favorite lines is "Where is the laser," to which the bad
guy replies, "Ask the police". What? That doesn't even make sense
why in the world would I ask the police where the laser is? Also when
you get a game over it sounds like the voice is saying "The Avengers
save America." Huh? Wait I thought I just died? Fans of terrible video
game voices and dialogue will love this game. Watch out for when the
first boss breaks through a wall, looks at you, laughs at you, and walks
away. Funny stuff.

The music is what you would expect. High octane tracks of power!
Nothing wrong here. Another nice touch is when you're fighting a boss
and when you have them almost killed, the music will change to a more
up beat tune and get you pumped to finish him off. This game just has a
lot of nice little things going for it that truly add up.

But then we get to replay. Nothing to unlock I think. The game is fairly
difficult, so it might take a few times to actually beat it. But as long as
you have a friend who wants to play this game it should be cool. You
can probably find this game very cheap these days, so although once
you beat it, you might not return to it for awhile, you'll get your
money's worth. And you will want to return just for the voices and
dialogue.

The beat 'em up genre, is in my opinion the best form of a 2 player
gaming experience. Even better than a fighting game. Working
together to put a stop to hordes of enemies is just fun plain and simple.
While this game may not have the flashiest graphics, or the deepest
gameplay, it's got charm to spare. So while fun for the solo player, it's
really so much better with a friend. So if you have at least one you
should be good to play this game. Have fun you crazy avengers.

Review by: Orochi Sonic