The Best Superhero Video Games Ever Made

Image via Complex Original

Yeah, we almost forgot that Frank Castle had his own title back in 2005. While The Punisher received mostly mixed reviews (OK, mostly bad) from critics, the game was praised for it's strict adherence to the character.

Incredibly violent scenes of torture were common throughout the title. Wood chippers, table saws, and drill presses were all featured as 'enhanced interrogation' techniques. But if you've ever picked up a single issue of The Punisher, you know that's how Castle rolls. Number ten is a fitting place for one of the most violent and accurate portrayals of Marvel's vigilante.

One of the few MMORPGs we actually miss, City of Heroes offered players unmatched control over creating a hero completely from scratch.

The power set. The costume. The back-story. Everyhting. Players could select a different type of 'origin' power: natural, magic, science, mutation, or technology and then combine that decision with a character 'archetype'. 

The experience was incredibly detailed and the game developed a legion of fans that were eager to create a superhero that was completely their own.

Sadly, the servers for City of Heroes went down for good late last year after 8 years of supporting the title.

The quarters we spent pumping into Konami's four player cabinet could have easily paid for our college education. 

After Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time made the leap to home consoles in 1991 on the SNES we lost the ability to play with four people, but we managed all the same.

Keeping their period specific, cartoon aesthetic the Turtles were pretty much ruling the 90s superhero scene from a mountain of officially licensed merch. If anyone knows where to find a working cabinet, get at us.

Activision's X-men: Legends 2 was released within the same year as their slightly less enjoyable dungeon crawler, Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

What set the mutant only outing apart from Ultimate Alliance was a sense of focus and cohesion that got lost in the shuffle of trying to juggle such a massive roster of Marvel heroes in UA.

The focus on the rich mythology of the X-Men that spanned the last 40 years of cannon makes the second Legends title a wholly self-contained superhero experience that makes us really want to see another entry into the franchise. 

Sucker Punch games managed to create a phenomenal superhero title that's wasn't based on an already existing property.

Cole MacGrath was fleshed out enough that he could just have easily been snagged from an Image Comics title, but he made his debut in the first InFamous title. InFamous 2 took all of the superhero trappings: origin story, moral ambiguity, a classic power set, and managed to make them all seem completely their own.

InFamous 2 saw players add the ability to control fire and ice to MacGrath's already formidable electricity based arsenal. The addition of user-generated missions greatly extended the replay value of InFamous 2 and kept the title relevant long after the credits rolled.

Slash, slash, stab, SNIKT, bub.

Not that we are trying to reduce one of Marvel's most profitable properties to a one dimensional caricature, it's just that the movie this title was attached to was so bad we forget how good X-Men Origins: Wolverine the game turned out.

Seriously, a young Cyclops? GTFO

Anyway, this wasn't the first time we've seen Wolverine on his own, but it was one of the few times we got to experience the visceral up-close violence in such a satisfying and accurate way, we're almost tempted to overlook Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Just kidding, that was unforgiveable.

Before Ken Levine was blowing minds with the BioShock series he and the rest of the Irrational Games team dropped this homage to Jack Kirby and the silver age of comics.

Sure all of the heroes look vaguely Marvel or DC esque, but the game's characters were meant to be tropes of classic characters that have endured for the better part of a century. The real-time tactical strategy game may look a bit dated, but that doesn't make the impact of the title any less important in the genre.

We're going to use Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as an umbrella example for the entire franchise.

Starting with Capcom's arcade titles: X-Men vs Street Fighter, X-Men: Children of the Atom, and Marvel Super Heroes, the Marvel vs Capcom series was the natural evolution of the notion that all gamers wanted to see Cyclops and Ryu beat the shit out of each other. 

The francshise offers the ulitmate 'who would in a fight' fantasy to play out at our hands.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 gets special recognition in the series for introducing Thanos as a playable character, and being available on the Dreamcast. R.I.P.

While it could be argued that Spider-Man 2 was a better title for Spidey thanks to the web swinging physics, we don't want Tobey Maguire to live forever as Peter Parker.

Sorry.

That's why Ultimate Spider Man gets the win. The cell-shaded design and the improvement on some of the more redundant elements found in Spider-Man 2 made Ultimate the natural choice. Combine the fact that you get to play part of the game as Ultimate Venom and you've got a nearly flawless translation of comic to game.

Not much of a surprise that the Dark Knight ended up in the number one spot. After years and years of famously unplayable shovelware titles, Arkham City was the title that Batman, and the fanboys, finally deserved.

An open world title that improved immensely on all of the elements found in Arkham Asylum, a playable second narrative as Catwoman, the introduction of even more villains from the DC universe, and that grapnel/zipline mechanic all overshadowed the occasionally redundant thug battles.

The game was dope, you know it, I know it and the Batman: Arkham Origins title that's droppping this fall has nothing but potential written all over it.