Home Gaming There’s no new Avengers game – but you could play these old ones

There’s no new Avengers game – but you could play these old ones

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Avengers

Today, you’ll be able to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron in cinemas (It’s apparently quite good) – provided Eskom and its nefarious load shedding don’t get in your way. This film, like the last one, seem like they could be the perfect vehicles for a decent super-hero videogame. Barring standouts like the Arkham games, licenced super-hero games are almost inevitably bad – but given what developers have learned about how to do them, The Avengers seem like they’d be perfect. There are, for better or worse, no Avengers licenced film tie-in games – but they’re no strangers to digital entertainment. Here’s a list of some of the Avengers games you could play.

Admittedly, it’s a rather small list. There haven’t been very many Avengers games made at all – and that’s presumably down to licencing. Data East had the licence to make games based on the assembled heroes in the 90’s producing a trio of games that some still hold in high regard. For some reason.

Captain America and The Avengers arcade

The first of them was Captain America and the Avengers – an arcade game, a side-scrolling brawler that had up to four player choosing to play as either Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, or the Vision. Some levels had players doing side-scrolling shooting instead, with Captain America and Hawkeye in vehicles, but Vision and Iron Man flying on their own. And it was…kinda fun, and eventually ported to the home systems of the time.

Captain America and the Avengers NES

It also got a very different version released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Though bearing the same name, and made by the same studio, it was a vastly different game. It was more of a side-scrolling adventure game, that allowed you to play as both Hawk eye and the Captain; their mission is to save the Vision and Iron Man from Mandarin, then defeat the Red Skull. And it was hard. Harder for me than Battletoads, or Megaman.

Avengers in Galactic Storm

Data East’s third Avengers game was a little known Arcade 1v1 fighting game, the 1996 release Avengers in Galactic Storm. Using a faux 3D look, similar to Killer Instinct, it allowed players to battle the Kree in versus combat. It had a strange selection of characters, offering only Black Knight, Captain America, Crystal and Thunderstrike as playable avengers. It’s notable for being the first fighting game to include assist characters and desperation moves. But it wasn’t good.

And that was really it for a long time. You could argue of course, that Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance and its sequel featured the Avengers, but it was far broader than that – including other characters from Marvel’s expansive universes.

There have been a few mobile and Facebook Avengers games – but nothing that you’d really want to play. When the first Avengers film was released, you’d imagine that we’d get some sort of decent Avengers game, but you’d be wrong.

Marvel Avengers Battle for Earth

Instead, we got the Wii U and Xbox 360 Kinect game Avengers: Battle for Earth. Using Kinect, it had players punching and kicking mid-air as they pretended to be super heroes. On the Wii U, you simulated that sort of motion shenanigans using the Gamepad. It was terrible.

And that’s really about it. There is, however, an impending LEGO game set in the Marvel cinematic universe, which will have all of the charm of the other LEGO games, and very probably the exact same gameplay.

Last Updated: April 24, 2015

6 Comments

  1. Uberutang

    April 24, 2015 at 15:51

    Missed the really big one there mate: Marvel Heroes 2015 just got the AGE OF ULTRON update.
    You can play as any avenger, including Vision and you get to beat the snot out of Ultron.

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      April 24, 2015 at 16:22

      Thanks for this, I’ve never gotten round to check this out.

      Reply

    • Koko

      April 24, 2015 at 18:51

      Marvel Contest of Champions for mobile also updated with Age of Ultron content. Really enjoying that.

      Reply

  2. Hammersteyn

    April 24, 2015 at 16:21

    Loved the NES Avengers game. Hawkey is pretty useless till you upgraded his arrows and damn those danger areas between stage.

    Reply

  3. Blood Emperor Trevor

    April 24, 2015 at 20:39

    Look what I found…

    Reply

  4. Uncle Bug Music

    May 10, 2015 at 06:30

    What about Disney Infinity 2.0? The Avengers Playset Features: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Loki, Hawkeye & Falcon – and in the Toy Box you can add Spider-Man, Nova, Iron Fist, Green Goblin, Guardian’s of the Galaxy and more. Hulkbuster Iron Man and Ultron coming to Disney Infinity 3.0 (and Star Wars of course). It will cost you a pretty penny to get all of the figures….

    There’s also Lego Marvel Superheroes.

    Reply

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