By Nathan Grayson on July 17th, 2012 at 9:00 am.
Under normal circumstances, I would not be excited about a game called Marvel Heroes. I mean, I love Robert Downey Jr: A Movie About Robert Downey Jr Starring Robert Downey Jr (And The Avengers Sometimes) as much as anyone, but these licenses tend to be about as much fun as being bitten by a writhing mass of regular, non-radioactive spiders. Here, however, there is hope. Marvel Heroes is being headed up by former Diablo leads and, well, it’s basically Diablo – but massively multiplayer and with superpowers and the ability to switch between every hero imaginable instead of devil magic. The latest oh-so-brief trailer, unfortunately, doesn’t really delve into much beyond the POWS, THWACKS, and HULKBIFFS, but it all looks very nice. The break beckons. Heed its call.
Apparently, the plan is to draw from 8,000 or so Marvel crime-fighters/doers, including a bunch of obscure ones like Squirrel Girl. Meanwhile, each character will have their own voiced lines, so Deadpool will be snarky and referential, Wolverine will say “Bub” a bunch, and Hulk will give in-depth dissertations on the philosophical and mathematical natures of smashing.
So it all sounds impressively ambitious, and it looks like solid fun to boot. Plus, it’s a probably decent superhero game that doesn’t have the word “Batman” in the title. Well, unless the “Batman” is silent, stalking through the darkness, waiting until just the right moment to pounce on the other words and rain righteous, fist-shaped justice on their svelte arches and supple curves. That would be very unfortunate. Also, copyright infringement. At any rate, I am Excited About This Videogame. Are you?
17/07/2012 at 09:31 Llewyn says:
Massively multiplayer Diablo, eh? That’s bound to end well.
17/07/2012 at 09:34 Keymonk says:
I have a strange feeling of deja vu.
17/07/2012 at 15:21 Dances to Podcasts says:
I feel like I’ve been here before…
17/07/2012 at 17:27 Snargelfargen says:
You did read the part where they said it was an MMO, right?
Diablo 3′s drm {and always on drm in general) is stupid, but lets keep it in perspective here.
By all means continue to mock Diablo 3 though. I can’t even play it at the moment thanks to a flaky satellite connection.
17/07/2012 at 09:45 brulleks says:
Pff. It’s so clear that what the Marvel franchises are crying out for is a hidden object game tie-in.
What a wasted opportunity.
17/07/2012 at 09:48 HilariousCow says:
MMO cash in? Not even with your Dock Ock
17/07/2012 at 09:55 NightShift says:
This game won’t Iron-man its flaws. I can already tell with the amount of black in that trailer.
17/07/2012 at 10:56 The Infamous Woodchuck says:
yeah, but still. with the avangers released just months ago, this game still got a black widow of opportunity.
17/07/2012 at 14:13 Tom OBedlam says:
I’m excited, I’m going to like a Vulture on this one. Though I suppose the real Mysterio is whether this will work as an MMO? Perhaps if they could release they could release some more details, maybe as a Doc. Ock course, that might might still leave us unclear about their ideaSand Man-y of us could still confused.
I am intrigued by their having so many heroes and villains in that included, its always seemed a bit Kraven just having one or two. Hopefully this will be a good addition to my Electro-nic games collection.
I will be hugely disappointed if anything Sinister, Six months from now, causes this to be cancelled.
17/07/2012 at 09:57 Bobsy says:
Squirrel Girl? I’m in.
17/07/2012 at 10:14 MikoSquiz says:
You can’t have Squirrel Girl. I’m playing as Squirrel Girl.
17/07/2012 at 10:17 LionsPhil says:
The biggest super-biff in this game will be in the lobby chatroom over who gets Squirrel Girl.
17/07/2012 at 10:19 Choca says:
You can have multiple squirrel girls in your group.
17/07/2012 at 13:28 Pippy says:
Galactus must be cakkin hisself
17/07/2012 at 13:55 MikoSquiz says:
All-Squirrel-Girl Team Go!
SQG LFSQGG
17/07/2012 at 17:48 RandomGameR says:
You guys can have Squirrel Girl but I get to be Mister Immortal.
17/07/2012 at 10:36 Hidden_7 says:
There’s no way to effectively balance Squirrel Girl. They’re just asking for trouble by including her.
17/07/2012 at 10:10 Wintermood says:
Why is it that every time someone talks about “obscure characters” there is a mention of Squirrel Girl? I reckon, by now she has more media coverage then some of the well known heroes, just because she is mentioned everywhere. Thats not obscure anymore. :)
Try The Spot for a change. ^^
17/07/2012 at 11:22 Fuzzball says:
Hey, I remember the spot! I don’t even know where from, or how, but I do! He pulled black spots off his costume and teleported through them, right?
17/07/2012 at 17:30 Snargelfargen says:
I’m a big fan of Unus The Untouchable myself.
Poor guy just wants some cake: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rLV-ZuNPwJ4/SOzhP7lQ2SI/AAAAAAAACxE/BzuUOpixekk/s400/X-Men_008-30.jpg
17/07/2012 at 10:36 Anarki says:
I’m interested in how this turns out to be “like Diablo”, which is mainly about collecting and wearing different weapons and armor. You can’t have Spider Man holding an axe or something, super heroes all have to look the same all the time by definition.
17/07/2012 at 11:44 mondomau says:
“Rare Golden Webshooters of Dexterity
-5% Cooldown
+1 to ‘Snare’ skill
50% chance of witty remark on hit. “
17/07/2012 at 16:59 Urthman says:
Marvel Ultimate Alliance had all sorts of stat-boosting gear, it just didn’t show up on your character.
17/07/2012 at 11:06 kevmscotland says:
If marvel want my money, i have it sitting right here.
but not for this rubbish, I want the Avengers game they cancelled that looked amazing!!
17/07/2012 at 11:46 mondomau says:
I dunno, the diablo bit with marvel characters sounds great, but I can’t quite escape the suspicion that this will have micro-transactions falling out of it’s spandex.
17/07/2012 at 13:58 werix says:
If this game ends up being like the PS2 era X-men legends and Marvel:Ultimate Alliance games, then it’s gonna totally rock. To this day those are still some of the most fun co-op I’ve ever had. Hell, those are among the few games I was ever able to get my sister to play that didn’t have the word “Sims” in the title somewhere.
17/07/2012 at 14:09 Moraven says:
Ultimate Alliance 3?
Aww, PC only mmo. Sad face. More of a couch sitting co op game for me.
17/07/2012 at 14:21 Baines says:
Better graphics than X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but the environments are just as boring, and the action may even look worse.
Diablo-style combat probably means the loss of basic attack variety.
(I admit that I was never fond of mouse+keyboard for Diablo-style games. While the scheme allows for mouse aiming of ranged attacks, it loses so much in immediate action to a gamepad. I’ve said before that I think Diablo-style mouse+keyboard is actually holding back the genre.)
17/07/2012 at 17:40 Snargelfargen says:
Blizzard seem to really love their micro, it would be a very different game if it was balanced for using controllers.
That said, I hope Marvel Heroes is designed with gamepads in mind. I had a tremendous amount of fun playing the Ultimate Alliance games with my room-mates. Being able to relive that online now that we have scattered would be really nice. As for environments, the more interactive levels (the helicarrier, Asgard, running away from GALACTUS} were a lot of fun. There was definitely also some boring cut and paste levels, but the co-op made up for it.
17/07/2012 at 14:30 Hoaxfish says:
What colour is a panther normally?
17/07/2012 at 15:58 IAmUnaware says:
This?
17/07/2012 at 19:48 Andy_Panthro says:
or this: http://thundercats.wikia.com/wiki/Panthro
17/07/2012 at 19:47 Andy_Panthro says:
Surely some sort of “Streets of Rage” style beat-em-up would suit the franchise much better? (and be better for me because I want a single player game!).
Also, Co-op for multiplayer, so you can pair together your favourite Marvel superheroes!
Also, the Batman: Arkham etc. games had decent punchy bits, so use that engine/those developers.
Publishers: you can have that for free.