Beating Hydra One Counter-Attack at a Time
Video games based on super heroes or movies are the most frustrating products for production teams. These teams are given a short amount of time and a small budget to put out a game that coincides with a release date. Most of these games have terrible quality, and they sell very poorly. However, Next Level Games breaks this cycle with Captain America: Super Soldier.
Cap’s new game avoids following the light action plot of the movie by centering on an expanded version of an action montage. This montage depicts Captain America and his team fighting through different parts of Europe to destroy Hydra bases and battle the Red Skull. Throughout these missions, Captain America is tasked with defeating Hydra soldiers, destroying turrets, and finding sensitive information, such as audio logs, from important characters.
The story of Super Soldier is light compared to other products, but the combat more than makes up for it. New Level Games borrowed the successful combat system from Batman: Arkham Asylum and added new moves for Cap’s shield. Cap can attack multiple enemies at once, but he can also counter attacks seamlessly to continue combos. One element that Batman didn’t have in Arkham Asylum was the ability to throw objects or deflect bullets. Cap can throw his shield and hit up to five enemies in a single toss, or he can bounce bullets back at the enemy snipers. This is a very effective way to dispose of enemies from great distances.
When Captain America is not battling the Hydra soldiers, he is exploring the different areas of the environment. The world is initially linear, but it quickly opens to be a hub world with certain linear areas. Cap can revisit almost every area of the game with the exception of the final level using an underground sewer system or standard paths. This is beneficial because there are hundreds of collectibles that are strewn across the hub world including religious statues and Faberge eggs. It would seem strange that there are so many priceless collectibles littered around, but the story actually has a legitimate explanation. Most of these collectibles can be found by viewing the world map, but a small few have to be found by traditional means.
The story is not effected much by finding the collectibles, but the upgrade system is. Every time that Captain America finds a collectible, destroys an anti-air turret, or knocks out an enemy, he earns points that can be spent on extra moves or classic uniforms. These upgrades make fighting the Hydra hordes much easier as the story progresses. The other two uniforms also have health and defensive boosts that the standard uniform lacks.
When Cap isn’t searching for collectibles or progressing along the story path, he can earn extra upgrade points by completing bonus levels. Most of the levels involve beating up hordes of Hydra soldiers within a certain time limit. However, other bonus levels involve finding priceless artifacts while avoiding the Hydra soldiers. One of the best bonus levels was a combination of deflecting bullets and jumping to and from handholds.
Hurting some Hydra soldiers
The environments are entertaining to travel through at first, but searching for collectibles can bring about some unfortunate results. After Cap travels through an environment the first time, he stops seeing many enemies. This can be frustrating if fighting extra enemies is Cap’s only goal. The lack of enemies in an area also brings to attention that the environments are fairly ugly. The surrounding textures in many of the levels are bland and muddy. After a while, the different laboratories and outdoor environments began to run together and look alike. This can make the latter portions of the game feel very repetitive.
Captain America: Super Soldier does not reinvent the superhero genre like Arkham Asylum did, but it does provide an enjoyable time for the player. The combat is varied and unique without being too difficult for less-skilled players. Super Soldier provides engaging gameplay without being too difficult or frustrating, which makes it worthy of being played.
