Marvel Double Shot: Captain America vs Thor

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This entry will be a Marvel double shot of two video games based on Marvel films.

Now I can admit that a lot of movie based games have had a long history of being terrible.....couple that with the fact that SEGA haven't been at their best for a long time and there isn't much to get excited about!

I started playing Captain America first which I blasted through within a few sessions and then I moved onto Thor....for the life of me I wish I had done it the other way around.

In the case of Thor he is one of my favourite Marvel characters but this game was such a let down. The previous reviews I had read about the 'phoned in' voice acting were true. Both Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddlestone sound like they recorded their voice parts in a phone box with little to no effort gone into their performance. Not only do I now have a character who sounds bored and disinterested while being manipulated around Asgard and the surrounding worlds but the character model I'm manipulating looks like it was designed on the Wii/PS2 and just ported across to the XB360.

Regardless, I soldiered on hoping my wide-eyed enthusiasm for Thor would see me get through the game.

Within one level I found out that the combat was extremely repetitive and trying to pull off the combos I was being told I could do was a dead end task and it would just be quicker to mash buttons switching between light and heavy attacks. Not only this but based on previous movie/comic book games I was looking forward to gathering all the collectibles only to find out that some genius designer thought it would be a great idea to restrict certain ones to people playing through on hard mode. Not only were they restricted but they left in the silhouettes of these collectibles on the lower difficulties with a message that you couldn't collect them.....what a giant 'fuck you' that was!!

Now in a stark contrast, Captain America was actually very good!

Chris Evans had lent his voice to the game and his performance was believable, the combat was a lot more simplified than Thor's albeit still a little bit repetitive, and the story was actually very well played out. Now sure I mention the combat being a little repetitive but it was also a lot more hard hitting.....if you let yourself get immersed in the game then you genuinely looked forward to the scraps with multiple Nazis.....oops..........I mean 'Hydra' troops.

The graphics were smoother and more polished coupled with entertaining acrobatic sections and better level design, including and underground tunnels section so you could get back to certain level areas to finish off side missions or collectibles you may have missed. Speaking of the collectibles, some made sense whilst others did not. With the game being set in Baron Zemo's castle most of the collectibles were family relics and heirlooms scattered around different zones, which makes sense.....however, running around collecting ceramic eggs seemed a little out of place. It turned out the eggs were unlocking certain challenges and once you had reached a certain point you could go back to a previously locked door to collect a chicken (presumably also ceramic) to unlock the final challenge mode.

If you were going to ask me to give these games scores out of 10 then I would have to give Thor a 4 out of 10 at the very best, whereas Captain America surpassed my expectations and fully deserves a minimum of 7 out of 10. In summary I would recommend it anyone was going to play these games that you rent them. The price tag on Captain America was too high for me to finish a game within 48 hours but any price tag would be too high on Thor....*sigh*

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