GENRE
	Action Adventure
	DEVELOPER
	Blue Tongue Entertainment
	PUBLISHER
	THQ
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard scoring criteria.

Marvel Comics has done a pretty good job over the years when it comes to co-op superhero titles. The best of the lot are probably the X-Men Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliances franchises, which pitted favorite Marvel characters against their mortal enemies in the context of a tried-and-true action RPG template. Marvel Super Hero Squad is not one of those games. On the contrary, Super Hero Squad takes the Marvel license a step backward, even by the lowly standards of children's games, stripping out the depth and fun that other Marvel games have long offered.

The game is, for the most part, a beat-em-up with drop-in co-op capabilities. The main campaign stretches across six chapters and involves six Marvel superheroes (plus a few others available in co-op mode) battling it out against Dr. Doom and a collection of other villains. Some of these chapters allow the players to choose their team, while others do not. Most of the gameplay consists of running around a level beating up hordes of largely identical baddies, while a few changeup levels implement motion-based action sequences or have players performing some other task. Still other levels use the game’s arena brawler mode to showcase larger boss battles.

The aforementioned arena mode pits up to four players in combat. Players can choose from among twenty heroes and villains and compete in even teams or in uneven teams; the game even allows for 3-on-1 handicap matches. Arena mode has a few rule variations, including an elimination mode and a timed battle mode. Kills in all modes come from depleting opponents’ health bars or knocking them off the platform. In the vein of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there are a couple of power-ups that can change the combat, but they come only in a couple of varieties. In truth, this mode is pretty shallow and pales in comparison to other fighting games already on Wii, including Brawl.

Controls are handled via Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Most attacks and moves are handled by buttons, while IR is used to line up ranged attacks, at least in theory. (More on this shortly.) Motion control is used sparingly, mostly in finishing combos or in a few isolated context-sensitive scenes that play out roughly like those in Resident Evil 4.

The problems with Super Hero Squad manifest themselves pretty quickly. The first bad omen is the framerate issues that come up on the game’s title screen -- that's right, the title screen. The framerate smooths out somewhat in the main game play, only to give way to a host of other annoyances and shortcomings. The most egregious is the complete absence of RPG elements in the game -- not even points redeemable for unlockable moves – meaning that the characters play the same at the end of the game as they did at the beginning. In fact, the game doesn’t really offer much in the way of power-ups at all, beyond a few “shards” that provide temporary ability increases. Some extras, like arena modes, are unlocked by beating stages, but there isn’t really an incentive to revisit conquered story mode levels.

The characters themselves are also a bit of a letdown. They are mildly interesting and have few distinctive and basic skills (i.e. Iron Man can fly, Hulk deals out a lot of damage) but the available roster isn’t that large and there isn’t much incentive to keep playing with a character once a gamer has fooled around with their powers. Moreover, the game doesn’t allow for character swapping in a given level unless the game forces it on you, and in those situations players don’t get a choice as to who they will play.

The game’s monotony is amplified by several other irritations. One, the six levels are between thirty and sixty minutes each, but there is no in-level saving, so gamers either have to finish the level or quit and start over from the beginning of the level. This makes the story mode essentially unplayable in sessions of less than a half an hour. Two, the game’s camera is annoying, as it tracks only one character (which player that is seems to depend on the situation), frequently creating problems when one of the players is getting pummeled off-screen. A related problem is the game’s IR reticule, which should be the aiming device for ranged attacks but is instead useless since weapons rarely fire the direction of the reticule.

The developer for Marvel Super Hero Squad is Blue Tongue Entertainment, who masterminded the superb Wii title de Blob. That pedigree makes the failure of Super Hero Squad all the more disappointing. The game has a decent amount of polish, both graphically and aurally (albeit in a campy sort of way), but that serves as little help for a game that is shallow and irritating. The absence of RPG-style character progression or purchasable extras is particularly missed, and it is not something one can chalk up to the game’s young audience; the vast majority of kid-themed action adventure games today use at least some form of character growth, or at least (as in the case of the LEGO games) a means to buy new characters and abilities. With none of that in the mix here, Marvel Super Hero Squad quickly degenerates into a forgettable shadow of other, better superhero games, further handcuffed by frustratingly long gaps between saves and camera aggravations. Those looking for a hero fix can find plenty of superior alternatives elsewhere.

4.0/10