I mean, the movie isn't really that level of biblically bad, but I have to hype it up a little bit, you know?
You know what they say about pop culture; it goes through cycles of revisionism, when things considered bad a while ago become in vogue later, like early 2000s jnco jeans now becoming designer fashion items. I've read an entertainingly strange amount of people now looking back at 2003’s Daredevil as being an unjustly clowned on movie, somehow deserving of more recognition than it gets. Randomly popping up into my YouTube’s recommended feed not that long ago was one of those 30 minute over-analyzing essays from some overly dramatic film channel that somehow has a million subscribers saying exactly that; “every frame is a painted canvas, and every character is a catalyst for the audience's odyssey of emotional discovery. This movie…broke me”; they didn't say that specifically about Daredevil, it's just one of those guys. I have the same response to that as I did for Avengers in Galactic Storm’s alleged cult fighter status: what?
Sure, the movie had some definite and specific style to it (Matt Murdock waking up in his weird water coffin then willingly putting on Seether will always be hilarious) and the scene with him ‘seeing’ Jennifer Garner Elektra’s face because it's raining was decently subtle, and Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin stole every scene he was in, but those things can't make up for such a terrible script. The movie completely misunderstands the character it adapted. A fundamental part of the character's pathos is his staunch refusal to kill, despite strong and constant temptation to do so, due to the nature of his Christian faith in the context of being a violent vigilante; the balancing act of the duality of the ‘devil’ in him with the temperance of mercy and forgiveness, and this self-imposed and selfish martyrdom creating compelling character drama out of the tired cliche of ‘super hero don’t kill bad guy because’. The movie also paints the the relationship with Matt Murdock and his boxer father weirdly, making it out that Jack Murdock’s death is some fundamental part of him becoming Daredevil like he's supposed to be Batman, and not just a-
Sorry, I got distracted. Where am I?
Right, the first game; Daredevil. ****.
Daredevil
Developer: Griptonite GamesPublisher: THQ
Year: 2003
Oh thank god; it’s just a very loose adaptation of the movie, as in it just doesn’t follow the plot of it at all. But what it does follow from the Ben Affleck movie it’s a tie-in for is the quality, because this game ****ing sucks.
Was this really the best image to put into the horribly digitized opening movie still montage?
The game cold opens to you hanging out with your best friend and mentor Stick, who just casually says that Kingpin has put a bounty on you and made you a target of every criminal, but has also put a target on himself by doing this as “crooks don’t like bounties on their heads”. This of course makes no sense, as the bounty is on Daredevil, not the crooks so why would they care and wish to seek retaliation against Fisk for putting a bounty on Daredevil? I have no ****ing idea what’s going on there and this was the first screen in. That’s when I knew I was in for some real nonsense in this game. He also says Elektra was seen leaving the front door of Kingpin’s penthouse, with Stick insinuating that they're up to some sideways handshakes, and so then off you go.
The story makes no goddamn sense. Kingpin frames you I guess after the first few levels by telling the news that he paid Daredevil for collecting bounties, despite the only mentioned bounty being on you, and I guess that makes people think Daredevil is a criminal despite collecting bounties on criminals in this clear Kingpin lie. The news also just buys this? Like, they call him ‘Kingpin’ in the cutscene implying they know he’s the kingpin of crime and they just take his statement at face value evidently. Normally I wouldn’t really harp on a game’s story like this, but it was just such concentrated nonsense right from the get go that I have to.
How would Daredevil collect a bounty that’s on him? Am I turning myself in? Am I losing my mind here? How is such a simple story fundamentally messed up from the first level?
The gameplay is as basic as you get. You jump, and you punch, and you have a dedicated billy club button and punch button for some reason despite them really doing the same thing if you think about it. You can throw your billy club, the classic Daredevil move, but for some reason it’s a limited use move tied to getting a power-up which just doesn’t really make any sense. Video game logic, I guess. One of the first things I noticed was Daredevil’s…interesting crouch crawl animation. I think the guy’s gotten hit on the head a few too many times and now apparently thinks he’s Black Cat?
Daredevil, the hero known for crawling around on floors all sultry-like.
The actual gameplay is so boilerplate that I have nothing much to say about it. Enemies are often very good at staying just outside of your attack range while of course having attacks that can hit you perfectly fine, and that's about all I got. Wait, I got one more thing; you can do a crisp corkscrew spin kick in a move that is sure to impress Cammy from Street Fighter.
Good form, honestly.
You also have your ‘radar vision’ which puts a filter on everything when you turn it on. Its only use that I ever discovered was finding hidden power-ups; when you get close to one, Daredevil will get that classic comic book head-circles effect thingy and that means you gotta turn on your radar to see it, I guess. It’s tied to a meter which drains when you use it, and I’m not really sure why? Why did they limit it like this if it doesn’t even really do anything in the first place?
Why?
Does that imply Daredevil can completely run out of the only way he can see and just be completely blind until his meter refills in this game's universe? Why can you only collect floating DD symbols when you turn your radar vision on? How does Daredevil turn it off? Why does the invincibility power-up turn you into a bluish-silver colour? I have many questions.
The boss fights were just nonsense button mashing affairs, and I beat the four I encountered just by standing still and spamming the punch button as hard as I could. Well, until Bullseye who just uses a gun in this game in a kind of anti climatic weapon choice. The guy can kill you by throwing one of his teeth, it's just kinda lame when he just pulls out a conventionally useful weapon, you know?
Why can’t Daredevil get a solo game, and one that’s good? It’s really strange how there’s only ever been two attempts; this bad one, and the cancelled (but still playable due to the power of the internet, albeit in a rough prototype state) PS2 one. It’s a shame as I think he could easily carry a digital superhero adventure, and the character would really suit an Arkham series style action-stealth-exploration hybrid just off the top of my head. And don’t even get me started on why Moon Knight doesn’t have his own game, my guy could really use one and-
Right, yeah don’t play Daredevil on the GBA if you haven’t gathered that.
Score
1 ½ Double D Logo’s out of 5.
The Incredible Hulk
Developer: Pocket StudiosPublisher: Universal Interactive
Year: 2003
Alright, I went into The Incredible Hulk with as close to absolute zero expectations as possible. The last few Hulk games were not the greatest to say it lightly, and all the five previous GBA games have also not been good per say. Why do I open with this, as if I’m building expectations and am clearly setting up for something? Because the game is actually not that bad, and I was setting up for that, yes.
You okay, Banner? You’re looking a little ghoulish.
Get this; you play as the Hulk. The game takes place directly after Banner gets hit by the ol’ gamma bomb and gets taken into a military base. He hulks out presumably for the first time, and off you go to break out. It’s not the usual 2D sidescroller and has in fact attempted something relatively unique in being an isometric action game.
You get to jump around all green giant like, and you have an attack button. You also have two other special attacks you can perform with the two shoulder buttons; a charging shoulder rush that can careen through numerous enemies, and the big Hulk classic sonic clap. It’s a simple control set-up, but it just works. Maybe it’s because it’s an isometric game that makes the simple attack options seem more acceptable somehow, I don’t know because I have definitely complained about games being too simple on the attack front before.
Hulk going to do it! Hulk going to clap!
Something I want to praise in the game is something else simple but that adds to the power fantasy of being the Hulk; your health and rage meter, and how they interact with the gameplay. You have a rage meter below your health that builds as you take out enemies and even destroy the environment around you as almost everything is breakable, other than office chairs for some reason. You use this rage meter to use your ‘special’ attacks of the charge and the clap, and when it gets full your clap turns into a giant ground smash that clears the whole screen. The game rewards you here for destroying things which is something that no other Hulk game besides this and the later Ultimate Destruction got right, and captures what the point of a Hulk video game should be. Just smash stuff. Your health regains slowly over time, which is something else that I liked; it’s an often overlooked aspect of the Hulk that he has a pretty decent healing factor in most iterations.
You can of course also find health pickups in the form of food, and- sorry, I mean Hulk like french fries! Favourite is Wendy’s, Hulk likes the stronger taste of fresh sea salt!
Combat is also equally as fun, even with the few attacks you have. This was the first game that, get this, has you defeat enemies in a single punch because you’re the ****ing Hulk. A whole bunch of enemy soldiers entrenched in a room firing at you? Just charge them with your shoulder rush, and watch their scaling sprites get thrown around the screen because, again, you’re an unstoppable rage monster. It gets why someone would want to play a Hulk game, really.
The levels are mazes and maybe just a little too long. I played this for about an hour and a half, and I felt like I made little progress since they were so long. I only just got out of the underground area into another military base on top of the underground one, apparently. I hadn’t even encountered a boss or anything yet, which was really surprising given the established video game formula of ‘3ish levels then boss’. I presume there will be some eventually, but I have enough Marvel games to get through that I decided to tap out there.
Graphically the game is fine, there’s nothing terrible or exceptional looking. It makes liberal use of scaling graphics and sprites, such as when you’re punching dudes out of rooms and up in the air, or when enemies throw grenades at you. Hulk looks satisfyingly beefy, but his little waddling walk animation kinda does make it look he's a small child who just soiled himself which isn't necessarily off-brand.
It wasn’t an amazingly impressive game or anything, but this is as good as the last article’s X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse and I think is a pretty good but simple time. And just like that X-Men, I may actually come back to this off the clock to play through some more. But you know what they say, "there's always more Marvel games, Octopus, better get grinding. Forever. We own you."
Score
3 Gamma Bombs out of 5.
X-Men 2: Wolverine’s Revenge
Developer: Vicarious VisionsPublisher: Activision
Year: 2003
Here we go, the handheld version of a console game. They’re always terrible, let’s just get this over wit- oh, it's actually another decent game. Who could have predicted that?
Wolverine’s Revenge is another simple 2D side-scrolling action platformer, but at least it's competent. It’s the handheld port of the console versions which we’ll get to relatively soon, and as is tradition the GBA version has almost nothing to do with the console versions storywise. Contrary to what you’d assume given the presence of Hugh Jackman on the cover the game is actually not at all a movie tie-in to the just released X2; the whole marketing history of this game is an interesting cluster****, and I’m sure I’ll go through the whole thing in the console version review.
Ah yes, Canada, my homeland; it’s entirely snow mountains and log cabins, of course.
You guide Wolverine through a series of levels to chase after the usual X-Men villains, and it’s nothing really new save for the whole hook being that Wolverine has been infected with a virus that’s shutting down his healing factor and will kill him soon. You fight Hellfire mercenaries, a lot of ninjas, some Shiva-class murder robots, and the usual Brotherhood mutants.
The bosses can be pretty hard until you learn one or two specific gimmicks to do against them, like spamming the wallclaw here against Pyro to avoid his sick fire pillars.
Control wise, the game is pretty great and everything feels crisp and responsive. You have your punch and jump button of course, and there’s a dedicated button to pop the claws which has some gameplay effects. The first is obviously that you do more damage with them out, but by hitting the attack button with them you build up rage, and when the meter is full you go into a berserker mode that turns the screen red and gives your claws some serious range and murder potential. You can’t sheathe the claws when you’re raging, or do any of your fancy exploration moves, and once it runs out you’re momentarily tuckered out and stunned for a few seconds or two. You may be asking “what’s the point of not using your claws?” and your question is entirely correct, but when you have your claws sheathed your healing factor kicks in and you pretty quickly recover health. I’m glad that there’s finally a Wolverine game to competently represent his healing factor and one that also doesn’t limit the claws by tying them to an energy meter or anything, but it’s kinda weird how you only heal with the claws in. The whole berserker rage thing is kinda cool, but it’s also pretty half-baked; it’s really not that hard to avoid triggering it even in the middle of a fight, and once it goes off you kill all the enemies anyway making the whole ‘can’t sheathe and you get stunned after’ thing mostly pointless. At least it’s something, I’ll give them that.
The rage! Thank god it’s not of the ‘Adamantium Rage’ variety.
There’s also new abilities you learn as you play the game that all become integral to the experience, such as Mega Man X style wall hanging and jumping, a slide move to get under things, and a double jump. It’s all again pretty decent once the game gets going. The game, like its home console brothers, attempts a terrible stealth system but at least in this GBA version it’s not immediate game over if you’re seen (spoilers). It’s terrible this time around because it’s next to impossible to sneak up on enemies like 90% of the time due to you not even being able to see that far in front of you because of the screen. So many times I’d try to inch forward in a section that I knew there could be enemies with their backs turned, only for the screen to move forward and reveal like four dudes just staring at me. It doesn’t even really give you much of a payoff as all you can really do is instantly kill them with a sneak attack, which you cannot do with your claws out for some arbitrary reason. It’s thankfully not mandatory like I said, and all that happens if you get spotted is some more enemies come at you for a few seconds.
I’m not sure why you can’t stealth attack with your claws out, bare hands only.
Graphically the game is pretty good, it has some good character sprites and animations. I particularly like Wolverine’s sprite when he’s sliding down walls with his claws, and the levels are decently varied looking enough that I was like “eh, that’s pretty good”.
Overall, it’s fine. It’s getting the same score as The Incredible Hulk as it’s competent and okay enough, but I don’t think I’m really going to play it again unlike that previous game and I think my time with it was enough for me. Still, it’s not Adamantium Rage; gotta give it some credit for that.
Score
3 Snikt’s out of 5.
Spider-Man 2
Developer: Digital EclipsePublisher: Activision
Year: 2004
One more handheld version of a console movie tie-in, this time being the absolute masterpiece that is Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. Fight me. It’s also of course the handheld version of another masterpiece being the console versions of the video game Spider-Man 2. Does it carry on the esteemed family name?
This is as close as I’ve ever come to actually giving up on the first level of a game, and I’m not exaggerating. The very first level sees you have to deliver some pizzas, which is on brand given the Spider-Man 2 association (pizza time!). In this GBA version though it’s just an absolute slog. The city level that you have to sidescroll around in is a maze, and you have to deliver 5 pizzas to people scattered around said maze of air vents and buildings in 7 and a half minutes, going back for more pizzas after each one, smashing through windows as you go just so people can get their goddamn pizzas, and I spent 25 minutes of growing frustration trying to do this. Only by the grace of Steve Ditko did I manage to finally accomplish this task by sheer repetition, being able to map the overly complicated series of vents and elevators and doors and windows and bouncy pads out of sheer refusal to be defeated by delivering pizzas. It’s such a godawful level to open up to. It worked in the console versions (spoilers) as it taught you the webswinging mechanics as you went, and there were actually indicators of where you’re supposed to go; this is not the case in the GBA version. **** that level. The music was driving me insane as I crawled around like a possessed hell spider demon just to deliver some goddamn cheap New York pizzas, that probably didn't even have pineapple on them.
I hope your pizza is terrible, random rooftop pizza lady. **** you. I'm really sorry, I'm just having a Spidey crash-out moment.
The second level is then you running away from a slow moving fire texture through Dr. Octavious lab, and it’s just strange how the first two levels are gimmick stages without any fighting. Why’s this the case? I don’t know. The third level is against some thugs in a building where you have to take them out, and this should have been the opening level then the atrocious pizza delivery and/or fire escape level. Or neither, preferably.
The game does look nice at least, as befitting Digital Eclipse, and the controls are more responsive than the first Spider-Man movie tie-in. That’s my praise for the game.
The gameplay is the exact same as the previous Digital Eclipse Spider-Man, save for you no longer finding different kinds of webs to use through pickups. There’s also a XP system where you spend it to learn new moves in-between stages, so they attempted to switch it up a little bit at least.
I encountered something I will give some ever so slight credit to, sorta; an attempt at a fake 3D level in-between the third and fourth. You get to run around some sprites obviously, but they’ve attempted to make it look convincing. It also gave me horrible motion sickness which is very rare for me, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea but it’s something. The first DE Spider-Man had something like this too, but in that you only webswung through the air while here you can run around on the not-3D ground and climb the sprite buildings.
I apologize to anyone susceptible to motion sickness, but I just need to share my pain.
Maybe I was greatly affected by my miserable time on that goddamn pizza level, but I just was not feeling this game in the slightest. It wasn’t really anything worse than the previous Spider-Man GBA games, but I just wanted it to ****ing end, man. I got to maybe the fourth level that sees you running and slowly vent crawling through a bank in the middle of a robbery, and then I died to a gauntlet of shotgun dudes. I continued of course, then it brought me back to that motion sickness miasma of a 3D city and I just turned the game off.
I don’t really want to talk anymore about Spider-Man 2 on the GBA. I didn’t even get to a presumed boss encounter, I don’t even care. I’m sorry for any fan of Spider-Man 2 on the GBA, as I’m sure there’s someone out there who somehow liked this game.
Score
2 Thwips out of 5.
There we have it, another four down. I don’t know why Spider-Man 2 rubbed me so bad, but I just don’t like it. I just don't like it's face, or it's atrocious pizza delivery crimes. And Daredevil was just as bland and half-assed as they come. Overall, the two lowest lows so far but also some more 3’s here with The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine’s Revenge. Like I said, I may actually go back to Hulk and play a little more and that’s pretty rare for any of the games we’ve covered in the retrospective so far, that aren’t Capcom games. The only other game I can recall that I took note of and played for later use at the time was the GBC Spider-Man, the handheld version of the PS1 game; it was pretty good by the way, I did spend a little more time with it.
What awaits us next time? Well more X-Men and Spider-Man, as every single article in this series is mandated by Marvel to have at least 4.6 games featuring one of those characters/group in it. There’s also two games that are entirely uncharted territory before those two however; the first two games focused on the eternally jerked around Fantastic 4. I’m excited, as I’ve been curious and meaning to try out one of them for a while now. The F4 are collectively some of my favourite Marvel characters, so let’s see how they fare in their first appearance in this nightmare retrospective series.
Until next time, when we flame on some more cape***** and I hopefully don't crash on another mediocre Spider-Man game.
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