Gallery: Video Gallery: Superhero Games Sucker-Punch Consoles
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SAN FRANCISCO — A veritable Justice League of superheroes is coming to your game console this summer. But can any of them top Batman: Arkham Asylum? At WonderCon last weekend, publishers let gamers and the press get their hands on new games starring a cavalcade of Saturday-morning stars. At the annual San Francisco convention of comics, movies and general nerdery, Activision took the wraps off Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Sega showed games based on the Captain America and Thor movies and Warner Bros. showed Green Lantern games for consoles and Nintendo 3DS. The bar's been raised for games based on comics ever since [Arkham Asylum put us square in the Dark Knight's thigh-highs](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/batman-arkham-asylum-review/) for a riveting, dramatic adventure. Can any of these games come close, in a year that will also see the release of the anticipated follow-up [Arkham City](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2011/01/most-anticipated-games-2011/)? It's a tough bar to clear. For now, enjoy these WonderCon trailers and our first-hand impressions of each game. __Above:__ Spider-Man: Edge of Time ------------------------ As the title suggests, [Edge of Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Edge_of_Time) is the meeting of two generations of man-spiders. Through some sort of time hole or whatnot, Peter Parker ends up working alongside Miguel O'Hara, the hero of [lesser-known spin-off Spiderman 2099](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_2099). With New York in trouble (though I wouldn't exactly call the badass redesign of the Statue of Liberty shown in the trailer that big a deal), O'Hara communicates with the Spider-Man of the present day as they work together in two different time periods to save the city. You'll alternate between the two as the game goes on: At one point, O'Hara might be up against an unbeatable robot foe, so Parker goes and destroys the research facility, so the robot is never developed. That sort of thing. Activision developers who showed the game in a hotel near WonderCon were careful to caution that the time-travel element wouldn't be anything so complicated as, say, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Edge of Time isn't a nonlinear game where you have freedom to change back and forth between Parker and O'Hara, playing with different elements to see what results. It's a linear game in which you're automatically jumped from time period to time period. From what we saw, the time-shifting seems to be more of a gimmick than a real gameplay element. Then again, Activision was being pretty cagey about how the game will play out, so things may not be as rigid as they seemed in the brief demo. *Activision (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3), fall 2011.*
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Captain America: Super Soldier (360, PS3) ----------------------------------------- When Nazis in robot suits threaten freedom, who do you call? Well, I guess [William "B.J." Blazkowicz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D). But should he be unavailable, Captain America will do in a pinch. Although it's roughly based on the upcoming movie starring [Chris Evans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Evans_%28actor%29) (Fantastic Four), [Captain America: Super Soldier](http://www.sega.com/captainamerica/us/index.html) doesn't stick entirely to the film's plot. For the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, the whole thing takes place inside (and in the sewers underneath) the base of the sinister [Hydra organization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HYDRA). Cap can punch guys and throw his shield around. There's a timing-based minigame in which you can sense enemies' attacks coming from behind you, then tap a button at the right time to parry. In certain moments, you'll go into acrobatics mode, using proper button timing to leap from ledge to awning to flagpole, etc. Minigames force you to break electronics by shorting them out or to decipher enemy codes to unlock doors. From my hands-on experience, *Super Soldier* seems OK. The camera in the demo wasn't the best — enemies always seemed to end up out of my field of view, making me swivel around a lot to see all the different things to interact with. But there seems to be a lot of variation in the gameplay from moment to moment, which is promising enough. *Sega (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3), July 19.*
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Captain America: Super Soldier (Wii) ------------------------------------ Unlike the next-gen console versions of Captain America, the Wii game is more of a cartoon. Cap has exaggerated proportions (more so than normal, I mean), and the melee combat moves are more over-the-top WWE-type stuff. Also, since it uses the Wii's pointer controls, throwing your shield is of more paramount importance. By holding down a button and pointing the Wii remote at the TV, you select targets you'd like to slap with your mighty, red-white-and-blue circle of death, and you'll hit them all in a big boomerang-like arc when you release the button. This gives the Wii game a unique play mechanic that its big brother lacks. *Sega (Wii), July 15.*
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Thor: God of Thunder -------------------- Of all the games I saw at WonderCon, I'm least enthused about [Thor: God of Thunder](http://www.sega.com/thor/us/). This is for one basic reason: The control scheme for the Wii version was [apparently designed by a lunatic](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/gamelife/2011/04/thor_controls.jpg). (Sega did not show the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions that are also in the works.) The Wii remote and nunchuck have been loaded up with a ridiculous amount of moves, to the point where I couldn't remember during gameplay whether the Gust of Wind attack was executed by holding the C button and shaking the nunchuck or holding the B button and shaking the Wiimote. Mostly I just ended up holding my temples and shaking my head. I like hitting (virtual) people with hammers. The last time I played Firefight mode in [Halo: Reach](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/gamelife/2010/09/review-halo-reach/?pid=136), I turned every other weapon off and beat up Grunts with a hammer for 15 minutes. But the way the Thor game has been so ludicrously, outrageously overengineered doesn't reflect well on its potential quality. What would be so wrong with just hitting bad guys with a giant hammer? *Sega (Wii), May 3.*
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Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters ------------------------------------- Green Lantern has never starred in a videogame before, so no matter how this new title from WB Games turns out, [Rise of the Manhunters](http://www.facebook.com/GreenLanternVideogame) will be the best Green Lantern game ever. I didn't actually get to play the Xbox 360–PlayStation 3 version of the game on the WonderCon show floor, because I was standing behind a small child cosplaying as Joker while his very large father was dressed as Batman right behind me. I mean, not [Adam West Batman](http://www.google.com/search?q=Adam+West+Batman&hl=en&pwst=1&prmd=ivnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Gc6cTZm8HITEgQeK5tiMBw&ved=0CCkQsAQ&biw=1177&bih=728) but full-on [Michael Keaton](http://www.google.com/search?q=Michael+Keaton+batman&hl=en&prmd=ivnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QM6cTYHxL4qCgAe-_YWIBw&ved=0CCYQsAQ&biw=1177&bih=728), with nipples on the hard plastic Batsuit and everything. So I wasn't about to kick anybody off the machine. But what I saw over the tiny Joker's shoulder looked pretty cool — it's a two-player cooperative game (although it won't work online, just locally) in which Green Lantern and [Sinestro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinestro) team up to fight off an invading race of alien androids. I tried out the Nintendo 3DS version of the Green Lantern game, a side-scrolling, single-player brawler. Although we're all about to be desperate for new 3DS content, I wasn't exactly blown away by the demo — it seemed like a pretty straightforward brawler with graphics that were a bit too zoomed-out and tiny to really make the 3-D effects pop. *WB Games (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo 3DS), June 7.*
