Captain America and the Avengers

The Good
‘Captain America and the Avengers’ is a cool, if not terribly original, side-scrolling arcade game in the tradition of ‘Double Dragon’ or the original X-men coin-up game. While not a perfect adaption, the Sega Genesis has cool graphics, sound and was just plain fun to play, especially with a friend.

The Bad
One of the oddest things about the game is the control. While you have the option to change the control scheme, it always requires you to push two buttons at once in order to shoot a projectile or, in the case of Captain America, shield.

It is not horrible, once you get use to it, and one button is all that is required to shoot on certain levels, but it just seems odd and unnecessary.

Beyond the control, the intermission sequences and digital voices from the original arcade game have been cut out entirely or simplified.

While it is possible that some of the digital voice work had to go for memory reasons (although it does lend itself to some confusing statements) it is hard to believe that the intermission sequences needed to be reduced to text.

The Bottom Line
Captain America and the Avengers is not the most original game. The side-scrolling arcade action has been done before and the central storyline [featuring a giant laser cannon] sounds a bit too campy for a 1990’s game, even with the comic book connection.

Yet, the arcade game is fun to play and, frankly, so is the Genesis version.

The Sega Genesis version features some cool graphics and sound, the option to play with a friend and features some of the voice work from the coin-op machine. It remains one of the best super hero video games for the Sega Genesis .