Mastering a Marvel-ous Game

I've always been a big fan of Marvel characters and remember watching Saturday morning cartoons with The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and others when I was a kid. If you're also a Marvel fan, I would highly recommend playing Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

With this creation by EA Games, you can experience what it feels like to be in the shoes of a super hero by playing a number of characters such as Spider-Man, Wolverine or Iron Man. The game is a fighter type, but unfortunately not the easiest to master. I picked up the controller and figured it out fairly quickly, but it took at least a good hour to fully learn the controls and acquire a good grasp of the game. You can play it single player mode on your own, or multiplayer on the Xbox (Xbox Live) and Playstation 2 (with a network adapter card). The single player mode pulls you into the storyline, and the multiplayer mode takes you into head-to-head battles with other opponents online.

As you're playing, the characters seem to move the same way they would in a comic book. The attacks, movements and powers have an authentic feel to them, which makes it really feel like you're wandering through a comic book. The characters fly all over your screen, swing on webs, throw cars and other large objects at each other, just as you would expect in a comic book. Every time you beat a level, you can choose up to four different characters’ paths, which gives you good variations. Once you’ve exhausted a story path, then you can switch characters. Each character has a good and an evil manifestation, depending on whether or not they were susceptible to an alien mind control technology.

A fun part of the game is the ability to unlock hundreds of fun collectible rewards. This includes playable characters, collectible cards, animated comic books and several short videos.

You know the graphics are top quality when the behind the scenes prestigious group that created Marvel Nemesis include Hollywood and comic book industry stars such as renowned illustrator Jae Lee (Spider-man, Uncanny X-men, Captain America) and movie character designer Paul Catling (Spider-Man, The Punisher, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects is rated T for Teen and is available for the Xbox, Playstation2, PSP, Nintendo GameCube or Nintendo DS for $49.99 each at CompUSA or GameStop.