Contemporary Alternatives: Comic Book Edition

Editor’s Note: Sorry again boys and girls for the late submission, work duties. I’d like to fall back on the excuse of ‘better late than never’, but that just doesn’t sit quite right with me. So, expect a regularly scheduled program of features on the days they’re supposed to be published. Also, forgive the length, but my computer decided to crash and eat the original. Enjoy!

Okay, so let’s sit back and talk comic books for a few minutes. You know what I mean, those inked graphic serialized books that have kick ass artwork, interesting stories and sometimes more rack than my closet as far as the female characters are concerned – depending on what comic you’re reading anyway. But all the same, comics are just one of those mediums that have always had the power to pull in geeks and non-geeks alike without all the hassle of kicking and screaming. So, it would seem only natural for them to be combined with video games to make something truly awesome, right?

Well, as I said in my Miscoded Confidence, or my MC as I just might start calling them now, I have a pretty deep-seated love of comic books. Not because of the potential of seeing enormous knockers or anything like that, but because the prospect of awesome narrative was usually more consistent than a majority of the television I was exposed to as a kid. After all, you can only watch so many episodes of Star Trek before you catch yourself yearning for something more.

Comic books easily filled the void.

But it was X-Men 2 Game Master’s Legacy that was one of the first comic book video games that I would have the chance to sit down and playthrough as a kid – but the problem is that I fell in love with a game that looking back on, probably wasn’t as good as I believed it to be at the time.

While this is only really an issue for me, since I realistically have no idea who the hell out there even remembers this game, it was exceedingly disheartening for me to play it again this past week to the point that I’ve summarily omitted it from the games I’ve been playing this week. Not because it’s a bad game, but because it is a game that is god-awfully terrible. Seriously, it should be carried off to Mount Doom by a fellowship of Hobbits into the deepest, darkest corner of Mordor.

I guess that is what bothers me the most, is that I let my nostalgic memories get the better of me before I decided what I would do for my double-feature of articles this past week. I honestly was excited putting the fresh batteries into my Game Gear and thought it would be an amazing article talking about how much fun I had, how challenging it was and how I couldn’t possibly recommend this game to the entire internet with the excitement of a 1940s radio reporter.

But looking at Game Master’s Legacy – the game is just shit. It’s a pitiful excuse for a Game Gear game, even when placed next to contemporary Genesis titles of the day like Comix Zone, which was a significantly better game.

The concept was cool enough, comic book artist gets pulled into a comic that he’s writing and must kick tons of ass to ultimately escape. How is that game not cool?! I know, there are cooler games today like Marvel Ultimate Alliance and it’s sequel, but back then, the idea of being thrust into impossible circumstances like being trapped in a comic book seemed pretty cool. And I guess what makes it so relatable is that the concept wasn’t only interesting, but the fact that I routinely play the game either from the cartridge or emulated solely because it was so much damn fun.

But, I suppose that might be a shred of my nostalgia speaking, which seems plausible given how well my memory initially painted X-Men 2 in my mind. Then my Game Gear totally proved me wrong. I guess hindsight is 20/20.

Readers Comments (2)

  1. I am still waiting for a good Spawn game to come out after the SNES game.

  2. Growing up, I never really cared too much about all the Marvel or comic games that came out. Too indistinguishable for me. Comix Zone was the exception, though. I never thought I’d play a metaphysical video game, especially in the 16-bit era of all things. The gameplay was inspired, the control was pretty spot on and the attention to detail was very high. Really, it’s one of the only good things to ever come out of Sega of America. Sonic 2, if you count that, I guess, and fine, the Bug! games, too.

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