E3 2011 Hands-On: Captain America: Super Soldier (Wii) - Preview
by Alex St-Amour , posted on 12 June 2011 / 4,786 Views
Third party support for the Wii has almost disappeared. With a new console on the horizon developers have started shifting their resources away from making Wii games, so naturally third party Wii games were hard to come by this E3. I managed to track down one of these elusive creatures, hidden in a quiet corner of the SEGA booth, there it was, surrounded by Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 demo stations; the Wii version of Captain America: Super Soldier. So does this captain prove the Wii still has some fight left in it or is this one destined for the bargain bin?
On the surface, Captain America: Super Soldier is your basic, third person action game. You will jump, you will punch, and you will complete your objectives and move on. At first I was a bit sceptical that there would be much more to the game but then I discovered the thing that makes this game unique; the captain’s shield. Since Mr. America’s shield is his only defence/weapon the developers had to find creative ways to make a primarily defensive object into a mutli-tool. Oh sure, you will be throwing it a lot, but during the puzzle sections the game gets pretty creative on how to move on, like having to bounce enemy's attacks off switches to send them into other switches to move on.
Another nice touch is the lock-on platforming. Since platform jumping in similar games seems to always be an issue the developers have chosen to have Captain America do most of the jumping himself. Simply point him in the right direction, an arrow will appear and press jump. No guess work into ‘jump distance’ or momentum, just turn and jump. Now I know some people will dislike the idea of the game ‘doing it itself’ but I feel this was a conscious choice to help alleviate some possible frustrations.
Now it’s hard not to judge the game’s visuals on a biased, scale since the whole time I was playing I had a HD version playing out in the corner of my eye, but I will try. The game seems to capture the feel of the upcoming Captain America film well. Yes this does mean there isn’t much comic book influence but as a movie tie in game it's pretty well done. The environments are vibrant and colourful, and Captain America’s model is well done. Everything else, however, could clearly use some work (namely the texture and enemy models).
After I set the Wii Remote and Nunchuck down and started collecting my thoughts on what I had just played I admit I was a bit torn. On one hand the game doesn’t do anything great; it’s a movie tie in game, plain and simple, but on the other it doesn’t play badly at all. All in all I was satisfied with my time with Captain America: Super Soldier and it does look like at least a few developers are still making quality software for Nintendo’s Wii. The game launches on July 19th.
Stay tuned to gamrReview for all the latest hands-on previews from E3 2011.
