No one can dispute the fact
that mainstream comics are no longer written for kids or even young
adults. They’re written for adults. Dark, soul churning, and
often morally muddled, the comics industry has often gone beyond its
ken – into movies, games, and TV shows – to
introduce a younger audience to heroes, villains, settings, and themes.
Still, with Batman and Spiderman on a box office sabbatical and
Smallville in danger of cancellation from season to season,
This growing rift
isn’t lost on the comic book kingpins. We recently spoke with
Ed Chang, Senior Brand Manager for Marvel, who noted this trend and
highlighted Marvel’s response. “Comics today are
darker than they were in the 70s and 80s. I think . That’s
why we think
style="font-style: italic;">Super Hero Squad
is the perfect way to introduce kids to Marvel. “
style="font-style: italic;">Super Hero Squad
– originally a cartoon showcasing band of mini-me versions of
established Marvel superheroes – has grown into a substantive
part of the comic book kingpin’s product offering, and the
craze has gone far beyond an after-school cartoon. A Hasbro toy line,
comic books, and console games developed by THQ, but batting cleanup is
Marvel
Super Hero Squad Online, an
“all-ages” free-to-play MMORPG developed by The
Amazing Society and published by Gazillion Entertainment.
With the projected release less
than six months away, Mr. Chang feels that the The Amazing Society has
nailed it. “They’ve got a great grasp on this
property. Imagine taking things you loved growing up and making them
for a slightly younger audience but still keeping some humor for adults
in there – kind of like Pixar does – they have that
right on. It’s just fun, it doesn’t take itself
seriously at all.”
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Thankfully,
Silver Surfer isn't anatomically correct.
Unfortunately, that’s
the sort of comment that draws criticism from longtime Marvel fans, who
feel that the
style="font-style: italic;">Super Hero Squad
series is a little too simplistic and whimsical in its treatment of
established Marvel characters. Anyone who’s engaged in a
half-hearted debate with a comic book devotee over who wins in a battle
between X and Y knows that to some, these characters are serious
business.
Out of Character
But overly simplistic or not,
Marvel’s sticking with its light-hearted approach. No where
was this more apparent than when The Amazing Society Creative Director
Jay Minn took us on a tour of the new characters added since E3 earlier
this year. We started with Thor. And even the pint sized God of Thunder
wasn’t spared.
Jay explained that while Thor
throws the hammer and flies as per Marvel canon, he also does a lot
more. “We want to stress the humor. Thor rocks out with
Mjollinor, his hammer turned guitar, and his special humorous move:
he’s looking at himself in the shine of Mjollinor and the
lightning shoots by mistake.” The humorous moves trigger from
time to time when the player is inactive.
Other characters got into the
act as well. Jay’s favorite was Wasp (Janet van Dyne), the
diminutive sweetness and light of the character mix, who left on her
own might offer you what Jay described as a “happy
heart” – sort of a summoned wispy pink heart
complete with a flourish from the woodwind section. More interestingly
was Wasp’s pigeon rodeo, whereby wasp summons a pigeon and,
you guessed it, rides it like a bronco. “We can safely say we
are the only MMO with a pigeon rodeo,” Jay laughed.
Or take Giant Man (Henry Pym).
“He gets so tall that a pigeon whacks him in the face. Or he
Godzillas out!” And nearly every object is interactive, and
some objects that have an effect on players aren’t objects at
all. “If you stand outside Aunt May’s house long
enough, there’s too much pollen and your hero starts to
sneeze.” Giant Man thunders off an ahchoo, and Jay smiles.
“We love this stuff.”
As of PAX Prime,
style="font-style: italic;">Super Hero Squad Online
had eighteen characters total, with more planned for launch. These
characters are hot-swappable outside of mission areas, so you might,
for example, use Hulk to über jump onto a roof, then swap in
Thor or Wasp to take advantage of the flight points that connect
rooftops around Superhero City. Players will get four characters for
free at launch. Premium and membership options for more characters
remain undisclosed at the time of this article's printing.
On A Mission
I mentioned missions, and
outside of exploring Superhero City and acquiring goodies for your
Helicarrier (more on that below), the core gameplay takes place in
instanced missions. So, we set our sights on the nefarious Ultron, a
robot that sounds a little like a dot matrix printer trying to dial out
on a 1200 baud modem. Ultron has taken over the sewers of the city. For
some undiscernable reason we wanted the sewers back, so Jay swapped in
the Human Torch with devastating fire attacks.
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Jean
Grey uses the power of pink bubbles to full effect.
Jay explained the mission
concept. “Right now we’re showing four complete
missions, but there will be dozens of missions when we launch. Each
mission is three stages long, and a stage is about 5-7 minutes. Every
mission can be played solo or be played by up to four players working
cooperatively. And because you have four players, maybe you can each
pull up a member of the Fantastic Four and there will be a little extra
bonus because of that.”
But when it comes to
groupmates, if you didn’t bring ‘em, you
can’t join ‘em - SHSO won’t support
drop-in play. “The missions are short enough for you to
finish and start another one. We like to think of it more as a roller
coaster ride: you wait, you get on, you do the ride, and you go again.
You’re not committed to a five-hour raid.”
In the mission, the
click-driven Diablo style gameplay comes to light. Jay explained that
left clicks build up energy, and right clicks spend power for special
attacks. In the case of the Human Torch, Jay equipped the dreaded
“flaming volleyball.” You’ll earn more
special attacks as you level. Each character has 6 special abilities
and one super ability. These devastating super abilities become
available when you defer right-clicking long enough for your power
meter to charge to full.
But conventional MMORPG powers
make an appearance too, just not in conventional ways. “There
are healing and buffing and all of those things, but we’re
really concerned with what defines the character according to Marvel
lore.” So, for example, Invisible Woman has a force field
that absorbs damage for everyone, while Cyclops has a leadership buff
that helps everyone do more damage. Support abilities won’t
take the forefront, however. “At heart, Cyclops is still a
ranged DPS character,” Jay adds.
Loot and Lodging
As players complete missions,
they’ll collect tickets (“exactly like the ones out
of the skee ball machine,” Jay noted) that players spend on
chances to spin the wheel of win in the central plaza.
They’ll also collect coins with which players can buy items
for their personal helicarrier.
The helicarrier functions as
player housing in
style="font-style: italic;">SHSO
and, from a lore standpoint, is where all your heroes live. In the
helicarrier, players start with the bridge and one dorm room, but as
players level up they’ll unlock and purchase additional
areas. Here’s where players can drop in their heroes, turn on
the simulation, and watch them interact with the environment.
“It’s like an aquarium…
They’ll turn on things, turn off things, throw things, eat
burgers, do all kinds of stuff… oops, Hulk got
mad.” As Jay calmed things down before Lou Ferrigno ended up
naked in a forest again, he noted that the game is fully PhysX enabled,
so players and heroes can toss stuff around at will.
In the helicarrier, players can
customize wall and environment colors. Drop a hero into an empty dorm
room and you can choose to have the room done up in that
hero’s custom look, right down to the wastecan. Thor, for
example, gets a very cool Viking longboat bed as a centerpiece. Should
you wish to show off your digs, you may invite other players into your
helicarrier. These invited players can’t change anything and
the place will return to its previous state after they leave.
Other special areas include a
gym and detention center, where Jay lured unsuspecting heroes into
cells with burgers then closed the cells. “After a while,
they’re just sad.” Should you tire of imprisoning
your characters, you can instantly seek out new action via the activity
wheel.
Card Carrying Members
One option on said activity
wheel is a fully fleshed out collectable card game available in or out
of game as a physical product. As part of the value proposition for
purchasable heroes, players get a deck of virtual cards in addition to
their hero character. Jay rattled off a long list of incomprehensible
rules that sounded like a cross between
style="font-style: italic;">Pokemon
and Magic:
The Gathering, but no doubt
make total sense to kids.
The
collectible cards emphasize SHSO's light-hearted nature.
We did catch that unlike most
card games, there is a small element of chance in damaging attacks,
giving beginners a little bit of a foothold. The card game was designed
with clueless adults like me in mind: “If you do nothing but
click on the highlighted cards, you’ll play fine.”
At launch, Jay noted that there will be a deck maker that will allow
players to, say, keep Spiderman and Wolverine but build a balanced deck
around these cards.
Hulk
and Wolverine engage in a little card combat.
Just the Beginning
Jay’s careful to note
that The Amazing Society and Gazillion have big plans for
style="font-style: italic;">Marvel Super Hero Squad
Online. “Release is
just the beginning. We see this as a superhero themepark, and
we’re going to be adding new characters, new
rides.” Beta for
style="font-style: italic;">Super Hero Squad Online
will begin in the next few months (watch for sign ups soon at
href="http://www.heroup.com">http://www.heroup.com
) with a targeted release in the first quarter of 2010.
Our take is that unlike many
kid-friendly MMOs that emphasize achievement,
style="font-style: italic;">Marvel Super Hero Squad
Online (along with
style="font-style: italic;">LEGO Universe)
offers many more pure play opportunities. The helicarrier is
reminiscent of the playsets we had in childhood, the Fisher Price zoo,
the Hot Wheels garage, the dollhouse – places that could
consume our imagination for hours of blissful escapism. The downside is
that, unlike the build areas in
style="font-style: italic;">LEGO Universe,
you can influence your creations but not directly control them.
The core gameplay is simple
enough and probably short enough to function as a speed bump to too
many items too soon. The card game is, well, we’ll let you
figure that one out if you’re interested. But all in all,
style="font-style: italic;">Marvel Super Hero Squad
Online is shaping up to be
the most impressive-looking adoption of the Unity engine
we’ve seen to-date. If you can get past your overly ripened
sensibilities about how superheroes should look and act, for the low,
low price of free,
style="font-style: italic;">Marvel Super Hero Squad
Online is definitely worth
checking out in early 2011.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Super Hero Squad Online Game Page.
