Recommended Marvel Comic Based Games

Many comic books are action packed, full of excitement and ridiculousness.  One would think they would make the perfect video games right?  Well, I can tell you one thing, there are many more bad comic based games than good ones.  This post is going to solely focus on games based on Marvel Comics properties.  This list certainly won't cover them all, just the ones I personally found to be a lot of fun.

Spider-man X-Men: Arcade's Revenge

While no where near the first, or the first good one even, this was the first Marvel game I played.  As the title suggests, the game features Spider-man and X-Men fighting against Arcade, among other famous villains.  The game is a side scrolling platformer.  Each character has their own level, starting with Spider-Man.  You go through the level collecting these little lights, but you have to get them in order.  It's not a perfect game, but for the time period, it was a lot of fun.  Plus, at the time at least, Gambit was my X-Men favorite character, and he is playable!

This game is going to be a little tough to find given its age, and I don't support piracy, but I think in this case an emulator would be okay to use.

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage

This game is a side-scroller beat 'em up, very similar to Streets of Rage, featuring Spider-Man and Venom as playable characters.  In the game, you could also call many Marvel characters to your aid that add to the game impressive roster of Marvel characters including: Captain America, Cloak and Dagger, Deathlok, Iron Fist, Black Cat, Firestar, and Morbius the living vampire.  Carnage had his own allies including Shriek, Demogoblin, and others.  The game is generic, but if you like side-scrollers and Spider-Man, this is perfect.  Deathlok is also probably my favorite Marvel character ever for some reason.

Again, being as old as it is, an emulator might be the way to go.

Marvel VS Capcom 2

This game is exactly what is sounds like!  It features numerous Marvel characters battling against numerous Catpcom characters, including Street Fighter characters.  The game has been released on the PS2 and Xbox, and more recently on the Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Store.  It plays just like any old fighting game, so they might stray people away, but it's really great.  "I'm gonna take you for a ride!"

The original discs are pricey, I actually recently sold mine, but it can be found on the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace and Playstation store for, I believe, $14.99.  Worth it if you are into fighting games!

X-Men Legends

This is probably my all-time favorite Marvel game.  The game follows the X-Men on various missions to fight Magneto, Sentinels, and even the Juggernaut!
 The game is a top-down perspective.  You choose a party of four X-Men, including but not limited to Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, and Xavier!  You can switch between these four X-Men at any time and switch members of your party out when you find save points.  This game covers so much X-Men lore, from Morlocks to Asteroid M.

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse

While I definitely recommend this game, it isn't near as good as the first one, but still good.  As the title suggests, this time around Apocalypse is on the rampage.  The X-Men must team up with the Brotherhood to stop a common threat.  Most of the characters from the first game return, although not all playable.  Instead, we get Magneto, Toad, Juggernaut, and a few others.  Playing as Magneto feels amazing, and I really think we need another Magneto game.  My only real complaint with this game is the number of characters from the beginning.  In the first game, you are given a decent amount of X-Men to choose from, then you find X-Men to join your party as the game progresses.  This game give you most of them from the beginning, and it feels a little overwhelming.

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

This game is considered by many to be one of the best comic based games.  It simply is tons of fun to play.  In the game, you play as Hulk in an open world environment.  When not in missions, you can simply run around and destroy everything!  This game features the Abomination as the main protagonist, among others.  It also has the original voice actor for Bruce Banner from the animated Incredible Hulk series from the 1990s.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

This game plays just like X-Men Legends, but open up to characters from all over the Marvel Universe!  It covers a fairly good size storyline that travels to the Helicarrier, Hell, Asgard, and some other strange places in the Marvel Universe.  The game features many well known characters, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, along with some lesser known or less popular characters such as Blade and Ghost Rider.  It's really neat to see who shows up!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

This game is a sequel to the previous game (duh), and honestly I don't think it improves on all front.  The game's storyline comes from the famous Marvel Civil War event.  This game forces you to pick a side, and the side you pick decides some of the characters you can play as.  This does add to replay-ability, but I think it kind of takes away from the game because I can't choose whatever combinations I want.  Other than that, the game improves on mechanics, graphics, powers, pretty much everything else.

Movie Based Games

After Marvel movies began being made left and right, there were tons of not so great movie based games being released constantly.  This really discourages decent comic based games, but there are a few decent movie based games available!

Spider-Man 2

This was the first game were I really felt like a super hero.  This game was released with the film of the same title, but it really is its own thing.  The game is a free-roaming, open world game.  You go where you please when you please, and you are Spider-Man so getting across town is easy!  This game has so many great features, including web that actually shoots onto building and the inclusion of random crimes and emergencies where Spider-Man is needed.  One might be on their way to battle Mysterio when a bank is being robbed nearby.  The game really felt like a living, breathing Manhattan.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

As everyone else in the world will tell you, this game is infinitely better than the movie.  First of all, it is an M rated game!  The game loosely covers the plot of the film mixed with original stories based on Marvel events.  It's very bloody and really in the first form of media other than comics that I feel actually portrays Wolverine's violent side.  It's definitely worth picking up.

Iron Man 2

I know I'm in the minority here, but I loved this game.  It's a mission based game where you can play as Iron Man or War Machine.  It takes place slightly after Iron Man 2, and features the Crimson Dynamo and other classic Iron Man villains.  As the game progresses, you upgrade your armor to do new attacks.  Some of the mechanics aren't great, but it is a vast improvement over the first Iron Man game, and I really did feel like I had the power of Iron Man.