Title: Captain America: Super Soldier
Genre: Beat-’em-up
Platforms: Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 (Reviewed)
Developer Next Level Games
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: June 15th, 2011
As you know, newer games are all pozzed so I’ve been going through my back catalog to play some of the titles I missed from the yesteryears before Social Justice Warriors co-opted the entire media industry. One such game that caught my eye was Next Level Games’ tie-in to the live-action super hero flick, Captain America: First Avenger.
Chris Evans may have made it onto the Traitors of America list, but before he hung up the spandex and his vibranium shield in End Game, he was doing more than just playing a national hero on the silver screen; he was also voicing America’s first super soldier in the 2011 outing of Captain America: Super Soldier.
Funnily enough, despite Evans being a raging Liberal, the game itself is extremely Conservative. Steve Rogers is a straight, white, Christian male using his physical prowess to overcome evil. There are no NPCs that run up to you to tell you about transitioning; there are no female POCker commanders directing Hydra’s forces; there are no multi-racial German soldiers mucking about; no lispy couple complaining to the Captain about not being able to get married; nor any speeches about female empowerment.
Pozz-Free Gaming
Captain America: Super Soldier for all intents and purposes is completely pozz-free. Truly, a game of its time.
The 3D beat-’em-up follows a single campaign on the Eastern Front where Captain America attempts to infiltrate a Bavarian village occupied by Hydra forces and destroy their base of operations. I liked that the entire game was centered around a single mission instead of having the Captain globe-trot or have to stop some massive plot hatched by international powers. Instead the game is solely centered on Captain Steve Rogers’ encounter with various heads of Hydra while working with the Howling Commandos to rescue P.O.Ws from a single Hydra base.
Cap’s adventures starts in France where he fights through the trenches to help American soldiers against Hydra forces. Interestingly enough, you don’t actually fight Nazis, only Hydra forces. They make it clear throughout the game that Hydra doesn’t actually like the Nazis or the German soldiers, and they have completely separate intentions.
Combat Mechanics
Anyway, the French trenches work as a tutorial to acclimate you to the basic understanding of how to utilize the Captain’s abilities, which are pretty basic. He has a melee button, a grab button, a counter-attack button, and a dodge button.
The left and right triggers are for the shield and the left and right bumpers are for blocking and special attacks, the latter of which the Captain can unleash after building up a special meter.
The combat system is almost practically identical to Rocksteady Games’ Batman Arkham series, so if you’re in any way remotely familiar to the way that system works, you’ll have a basic understanding of how the combat plays out in Captain America: Super Soldier.
The counter-attacking in Captain America: Super Soldier is a lot more difficult to execute than in the Batman: Arkham games, though. The timing requires you to basically counter while a little yellow indicator flashes around an enemy, but you have basically a fraction of a second to react. It gets easier as you play through the game and understand how fast you have to input the button mechanics, but it can be frustrating when you see an enemy gearing up to attack but you’re in the middle of grabbing or countering another enemy.
Alternatively, you can instantly stop incoming attacks by sacrificing one bar from the special meter to instantly knockout/kill an enemy.
The speed of charging the bar is based on what you do during combat. Basic attacks, combo strings, and grab moves will inch the bar forward, but pulling off some cinematic-quality antics such reflecting bullets back at snipers, or back-flipping out of harm’s way at the last second during an explosion or devastating attack.
Hotties In Hydra
My biggest gripe with the combat is that you’re only really forced to combine your moves and special attacks with expert precision at the end of the game. Most of all the other encounters are fairly milquetoast save for enemies known as Screamers, who possess psyionic abilities that can block all shild attacks and prevent Captain America from getting close to them. You have to basically wear down their mental abilities by blocking or dodging their attacks and then getting in close to finish them off.
There are also a handful of boss fights sprinkled throughout the game, but they’re nowhere near as difficult as many other beat-’em-up or hack-and-slash titles out there.
Your first major enemy encounter is Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, who I thought would be a recurring enemy throughout the game, but unfortunately you only fight him once and then spend the rest of the game butting heads with Dr. Arnim Zola and Madam Hydra.
Speaking of Madam Hydra…
I was taken aback by how hot Next Level Games made the Madam. Despite her being a villain and completely covered up, they still made her super sexy.
Of course, this was the norm back then since just about every game made before 2012 featured hot chicks. They’re now a rarity in games, especially Western-made games.
It’s interesting because Strucker only appears in one segment but Madam Hydra taunts the Captain during the second half of the game .
Another thing I thought was cool – and something you won’t see in current-day games – is that gamers are actually allowed to beat the snot out of Madam Hydra using actual fisticuffs. Not only that but you could use special attacks to smack the Madam across the face.
Captain America exercises no discrimination against any of his enemies.
Everyone is an equal target for his super-powered pummeling.
To mix up the game’s combat repetition they have some short puzzle segments interspersed throughout where you have to unlock doors by combining letters or numbers to decrypt the password to the door. It’s pretty straightforward where all you have to do is use the analog sticks to align the numbers or letters on top of each other.
Basic Puzzles
There are a few other puzzle segments sprinkled throughout the game as well, including having to hot-wire some electronic devices to either short circuit a weapon, or disable a power generator, or override a command center.
The wire mini-game is pretty simple once you figure it out. If you hold the wires too close together it will blow up and take a lot of the Cap’s life. So you have to gently hold both analog sticks close together to short-circuit the board.
There are also some light platforming segments to break up the monotony, but it’s semi-automated.
In the Batman: Arkham and Assassin’s Creed games, there’s a lot of freedom with how you scale environments and move around certain levels, but in Captain America: Super Soldier you can only jump or climb designated areas, usually highlighted with bright yellow indicators.
Sometimes the platforming isn’t always clear as to where you’re supposed to go or how you’re supposed to get there.
Although, to their credit they do have an option for gamers to utilize Captain America’s super senses where you tap up on the digital pad and can readily see where you need to go next.
Semi-Automated Platforming
Most of the platforming relies on simply timing when to press the ‘X’ button to jump to the next object, or tapping Circle to drop down to a platform.
It’s far less intuitive than Uncharted, and the limited scope of the platforming mechanics makes it more annoying than fun.
But, it does give you a bit of an extra challenge to reach new areas in order to grab rare collectibles that can be used to unlock new concept art, film reels, or even alternate costumes for the Captain.
Unlockables
Sadly, if you were hoping for any outfits from any of the Avengers or sequel Captain America films, you’re fresh out of luck.
The main costumes include the Captain’s outfit from Captain America: First Avenger, as well as his alternate World War II Ultimate outfit, and his original Star Bangled Banner costume.
The unlockable outfits also come with special bonuses, too, so it’s not like they’re just there for cosmetic purposes.
You can also use the collectibles to unlock upgrades that allow you to perform new moves, stronger counters, or bounce the shield on additional enemies.
The way the game is setup, though, it’s structured like a Metroidvania title.
After you visit each location you can then return to those locations using a sewer system.
Yes, this is one of the rare times where the sewer isn’t an annoying stage where you’re trudging through sludge and fighting slime monsters. Instead, every time you unlock a new area you can use the sewers to go back to that area in case you missed a collectible, a schematic, or if you just wanted to explore areas you didn’t get to look through thoroughly enough.
Upgrades
Now some of the schematics are actually more than just XP trinkets, they also give the Captain insight into enemy weaknesses, and add passive buffs during combat to increase stun times, damage dealt, or defenses against certain enemies.
Exploration also gives you a chance to check out the very thoroughly detailed Bavarian environments.
These days there’s a push from developers to undermine and truly pervert classic European culture. Architecture, attire, and even the populace are oftentimes subverted to push the Liberal-Progressive agenda of “multiculturalism”, which is just code-word for anti-white.
Here, however, you can tell the artists took painstaking care in making sure the exterior and interiors for the villages were constructed with exquisite detail.
Respecting Bavarian Culture
It’s funny because European culture has been so subverted in recent years that it was a real joy to see how much the team respected the time period and the location in Captain America: Super Soldier.
Everything regarding the environments looked and felt endemic to the time period, without any of the anachronistic trappings that have been creeping into [current year] media.
I spent a little bit of time just examining some of the rooms and the details of the interior; the vaulted ceilings, and the way the fachwerkhäuse line the streets had such an authentic feel to the depiction. The medieval influences still being present during 1944 Bavaria with the timber beams, wooden furniture, and celebration of local royalty made it known that Next Level was serious about the craftsmanship when it came time to exploring an area of culture rarely explored. They also managed to make the occupied town feel both lived in and part of an ongoing war.
However, it’s a shame that the interactive elements were rather thin, with only collectibles being highlighted and some furniture capable of being knocked over or destroyed by the Captin’s shield.
But, again, it’s a game of its age and due to the limited horsepower of the PS3 and Xbox 360, it was pretty obvious that there were restrictions on how much damage the Captain could do to the environment or how enemies could be interacted with the environment.
In fact, there are no special environmental moves, unlike Sleeping Dogs, Assassin’s Creed or Marvel’s Spider-Man.
This makes a lot of the fights feel somewhat static, despite taking place in sometimes interesting looking locations. The only real measure of interactivity that you have is explosive computer terminals or the classic red barrels. There are also a few areas where you do gain access to turrets to take down large groups of enemies, or flying helos.
Mediocre Visuals
Graphically, outside of the architecture looking fantastic and the artists pouring their hearts out to bring the environments to life, I can’t say that the visuals are really all that standout in the game.
Unlike Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham series, which utilized a somewhat 3D plastic look so that everything looked like model figures brought to life, Captain America: Super Soldier settled for the faux-realistic look, using photogrammetry for the main characters such as Dr. Zola, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and Dum Dum Dugan.
Middling Graphics Stuck At 720p, 30fps
But due to the mediocre lighting, middling mesh-work, and unremarkable textures, you can see how the game has become rather dated.
It’s also not helped by the fact that the game runs at 720p, 30fps on the PS3 and Xbox 360, so the jaggies from the resolution are really highlighted here.
Couple that with the fact that the PS3 had notorious frame-rate drops, and you sometimes find yourself struggling with the game’s performance during high-traction areas where a lot of enemies are on the screen or a lot of explosions are going off. While the PS4 and Xbox One at least attempted to hard-lock performance at 30fps, the PS3 and Xbox 360 struggled to maintain even that.
However, the game is still playable, it’s just nowhere near as fluent as it could have been due to hardware restrictions.
Why this game wasn’t ported to PC is also a mystery well beyond me, but it certainly would have been the preferable platform for a game like this, as I could easily imagine this game shining with 4K support, or better anti-aliasing with 16x anisotropic filtering.
Chris Evans Didn’t Phone It In
When it comes to the audio, there’s a standard-fare orchestral track but no leitmotif worth remembering.
The shield sounds great whizzing and zipping across the screen, as well as when you perform a perfectly timed block or ricochet maneuver where you get a nice slow-motion effect and properly thunderous reverberation of the shield doing its job of either reflecting a bullet back at its shooter or knocking an enemy flat on their bum.
Chris Evans, despite being a Liberal, actually does a darn fine job here as Steve Rogers. You can tell he still takes the role seriously and evokes a proper amount of emotion for the character throughout the nine hour experience.
I would have expected him to sleepwalk through the game like Sebastian Stan did, but Evans and Neil McDonough actually took their roles fairly seriously. I was also surprised that Haley Atwell reprised her role as Agent Peggy Carter, but thankfully she was reserved to nothing more than a speaking role where the Captain would report in on his progress in dismantling Hydra. I’m sure if the game were made today they would have had Peggy rescuing Steve during his capture instead of allowing him to free himself.
In fact, the entire game is all about a handful of American (and one British) men fighting the good fight. They have to save themselves after getting captured, and they have to rely on their own wits and brawn to save the day.
I can’t remember the last game made post-2014 where men were simply allowed to be men.
But all of that said. Captain America: Super Soldier may not be a perfect game, but it at least offers additional unlockable challenge arenas, much like the Batman: Arkham game, and some unlockable content and upgrades for those who are perfectionist. I doubt I’ll be returning to this game at any point, but if you were looking for a decent, ten or so hour beat-’em-up style adventure game, the least I could do is suggest that you try it out if you still have a PS3 or Xbox 360 lying around.
Verdict:
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