Decades of resource material, thousands of characters to chose from, and yet it seems that every game involving superheroes... published superheroes from the likes of DC or Marvel... restrict themselves to the most base characters, those that are the most well known or are "current" due to television or movies.
On Facebook, I was playing Marvel: Avengers Alliance. It wasn't too bad; I enjoyed saving my points to acquire new characters, and I liked the visuals of both the characters and of the combat. It didn't so much stimulate my imagination, but... I don't know. I liked the idea behind the game more than anything. But, as with most games, this quickly devolved into a game where, if you wanted to advance any more, you had to either pay to gain points or to compete on equal ground against others, or you had to join one of those friend me sites. Plus, it got boring, so I quit.
Now, now I'm playing Marvel: Contest of Champions on the phone. It's a simple fighting game that isn't based on anything writing in the comics. The characters strengths and weaknesses are not based on what was written, is not based on that character's story. As an example: the Hulk is easily beaten by, say, Hawkeye. In this game, you can perform quick jabs, quick dash attacks, hard punches, back up or block. Get hit or connect with a hit enough times, and your power meter builds up, allowing you to perform a special attack that is based on your character. For instance, Spider Man will shoot some webbing.
That's it. The same attacks are given to each character... jab, dash, hit, block, backup. The special attacks are what the characters would be doing normally in any given situation. No consideration is given to the source material.
Now I know that this is just an app game, that if I really wanted something more along the lines of an accurate comic book combat game, I'd either have to buy a game based on that character, or try the likes of Ultimate Alliance or something. And even though it may sound as if I'm bashing the game's mechanics, I'm not. I've mentally filled in the gaps to match the game's story, in that the Collector has assembled a team (as has Kang and you) to compete in Battleworld; I'm assuming that at some point it'll be revealed that all the characters were placed on equal terms to give all participants a fair chance of winning The Prize. It should be noted that during story mode or versus mode you can level up your characters; the more boosts, the more they resemble their comic book model.
Anyway, what I am bashing here is the obvious lack of characters. As I mentioned earlier, they are using only the most popular or the well known characters. To restate my opening, with thousands of characters at their disposal, with decades upon decades of information, why limit yourself to but a handful of characters?
With regards to Contest of Champions, the Hulk and Rhino fight with the same mechanics and programming: head butt for level one attack, power clap with level two. Their victory cut scene is the same as well, just different skins. Black Panther, Daredevil, and Iron Fist fight almost in a similar fashion (just different skins), with Panther and Fist sharing the victory cut scene. Same with the Punisher and Winter Soldier. Yes, I know that those are all examples of similar characters, so of course they'd have the same combat visuals... and, as a mobile device game, they probably couldn't program individual move sets for the characters in an effort to conserve space. I understand that. It just gets old real fast, especially when you consider the fact that there aren't that many characters to chose from.
By chose, I mean by random lottery. Competing in versus mode will give you battle chips: depending on how many you cash in, you can either elect to have multiple low level crystals, or a singular high level crystal; opening a crystal will either yield a boost of sorts or a character. Competing a story mode chapter will also grant one of these crystals, as will the daily crystal. Characters are rated with stars, with one being the lowest and four or five the highest. Naturally, there are more level 1 than 2, more 2 than 3, and so on. The kicker is you can win the same character from different levels; I have a level 1 and 2 Spider Man, a level 1 and 2 Vision... in addition to a level 2 movie version of the Vision. Winning the same character at the same level gives him a different special attack and gives you some rare boosts.
...
Seems I've gotten side tracked a bit, that I'm reviewing the game more than complaining. Okay, let me try this approach.
If the Hulk, Juggernaut and Rhino play the same, why not make a skin for the Armadillo? If Punisher and Winter Soldier play the same, why not bring in Scourge? Lady Punisher? Outlaw or Payback? We have Captain America, so where's US Agent or Flag Smasher? And these characters aren't even scratching the surface of the vast stable of Marvel characters! Bring me Whirlwind, the Shocker, Mauler, Stingray, and yes, the Porcupine! Hundreds, if not thousands, of characters to chose!
And you know what? If they'd just make the skins of those characters and made the stats unique, I'd be happy with them just selling them! Surely, this isn't just limited to Marvel games.
*sigh*
I'm thinking, what I need is better found on a computer or console game. But even with that, even with my example of Ultimate Alliance, it doesn't include the B or C (or even Z) rated characters.
Oh well. Quite suddenly, my rant has escaped me, so I cannot really finish this post, not in the direction I was going at least. I will say that Contest of Champions isn't a bad game, it is fun in its own way... it's just limited.
