Non-Batman DC Games

So, DC is going to make a new entry in their Cash-Cow Franchise:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/28/new-batman-arkham-game-may-be-revealed-soon

But instead of talking about a game nobody cares about, I was thinking how DC can ditch that stupid bat and bring their other properties to video games.

There have been talks of a Suicide Squad game for some time, especially the post-credits scene in Batman Arkham Origins. If that becomes a reality, I hope to see an action-adventure co-op game in the vein of X Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

But most people are asking for a solo adventure. The one I would like most would be a Superman game, where he flies around fighting alien monsters as well as his own rogues gallery. Another option people are asking for is a Green Arrow game thanks to the success of both Arrow and Jeff Lemire's run on the comics.

So, what non-Batman DC characters would you like to see get their own video game?

TheFlash really deserves a game.

edited 1st Mar '14 7:12:28 PM by Megashade15

Green Lantern, Justice League and or Society game.

Place your past in a book burn the pages let them cook.

With the Arrow series being fairly popular, I'd really like to see a Green Arrow game, making use of all the trick arrow stuff, but they'd really need to dig into the DCU as a whole, since his own Rogues Gallery is pretty limited.

For we shall slay evil with logic...

I want a Superman or Justice League game. Perhaps a trilogy. This is the very rough outline.

1) Justice League begins with their first major adventure. Superman, Batman, and the rest work out their personal issues and learn to work as a team.

2) Justice League becomes pretty powerful and has high prestige but then some unexpected stuff goes down, almost obliterating them.

3) Justice League becomes full on Heroes Unlimited like JLU and features dozens of other heroes as supporting characters and has their biggest battles yet with the likes of Darkseid.

Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together

I would like to see someone have a good go at making a Wonder Woman game.

I want a Superman game where there's no real goal- all you can do is fly through rings as they come up, and the entire ground is covered in weird fog.

We could call it "Super Ring Cloud"

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Superman has had since before the NES to be in a good game and has failed to deliver every time outside of crossover events. Even Silver Surfer is better remembered.

He does not really lend himself to a racing game unless you want another Mario Kart clone. There is already DCU Online if you want a Digital RPG mockup (Superman is not the kind of guy I could buy gaining levels or forging a steadily improving stream of equipment but maybe with enough convolution it could work). He wears red and blue tights so stealth is right out. Sandbox games have proved not to work but maybe if they went with something other than a city or larger than a city someone might finally get it right?

Basically, all I can see is a mostly puzzle solving adventure game like Ace Attorney (which could be pretty cool, if you are a fan of the Superman mythos) or glorified cut scene of a game we call Visual Novels (again, could be cool for fans) Fighting games he has show to be questionable in but I think the problem there is that they are putting him in grounded quarter circle crap instead of an Platform Fighter like Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. Dragon Ball Budokai/Super Sonic Warrior or Super Smash Bros, which are more about movement than button inputs. Give him a fighting game where he is expected to be flying, other characters have done it. Even the Kusoge (literally meaning Shit game) Cho Aniki managed to pull it off on the Super Famicom so in this age of U Wiis and One Box Xs it should be possible, in theory.

Or maybe don't go the fighting game route, but more of a flight based Beat 'em Up? X-men arcade or Alien Vs Predator on three axises? Avoid too many Resident evil esque Press X to Not Die sequences and it might succeed where every past attempt failed.

But I'd only really stretch my brain on it if it had to be Superman. Green Lanterns, even the Lensmen ripoff Green Lanterns, really lend themselves pretty well to a CRPG where you go around doing tasks and leveling up. Maybe especially the lensmen Green Lanterns since in spite of Pokemon, Mass Effect and similar efforts the genre still takes a heavily lean toward fantasy so the more science fiction based Lanterns might bring something new. (I realize the emotional spectrum has made them far less like Lensmen or anything resembling science fiction, just saying I am taking all versions I know into account)

Flash lends himself well to a racing game. You could have power ups on the courses for his various "speed skills" (steal speed, vibrate, infinite mass) and a bunch of other fast people with their own tricks out to dethrone his title of "fastest mane alive".

Of course I think the characters we all want to play with are the Endless. Even those of you who do not know you do.

edited 2nd Mar '14 1:15:50 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

That Superman Beat 'em Up for the SNES was close to decent, actually.

I think that there's no chance of them doing a puzzle, 2D side scroller, or racing game unless they're focusing on portable consoles. Any "serious" DC game is probably going to be third person action.

Flash doesn't have many speedster villains (and none that seem like they'd care about racing him), so a racing game wouldn't really work. More likely, it would be like that Saints Row game where you can use superpowers. The only question is how they'd handle not having him use his full array of talents from the outset.

Also, Pokemon is fantasy.

edited 2nd Mar '14 3:37:42 PM by supergod

For we shall slay evil with logic...

They don't really have to make it so that he doesn't have to use his full array of talents. They could just gradually make the game more challenging but have everything unlocked from the beginning.

Batman Ninja more like Batman's Bizarre Adventure

The problem with most DC heroes is that they're very powerful. It's very difficult to build a game around them that lets you explore their full range, but also provides a challenge.

Batman occupies a sweet spot where he has no actual superpowers, but is extremely technically skilled. He's only limited by what he can carry on him, which means you feel powerful by playing him, but enemies can still believably hurt you. He also gets bonus points for the single most recognizable rogues gallery in all of comics.

Superman would break any video game that lets you run free as Superman in half. Super speed doesn't lend itself well to video games, so the Flash is out. Green Lantern's ring literally lets him create whatever he can imagine, which translates extremely poorly. In a Justice League game, you could probably create levels around these guys, but they couldn't carry their own game.

Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Green Arrow are less broken, but present their own challenges. Namely, the poor treatment of female protagonists, the perceived unpopularity of Aquaman, and having to integrate shooting mechanics, respectively. Not to mention all of them are rather lacking in bankable villains. Arrow has to use a lot of Batman villains just to get from week to week.

A good compromise would be a Titans game. They don't have quite as many completely broken heroes as the Justice League, while still being able to draw on a range of villains, including Batman ones.

I guess they'd get super speed done by using bullet time.

For we shall slay evil with logic...

Yes, but Pokemon is an urban fantasy that is in the process of Doing In the Wizard. They have a while to go but seeing how they can store what were once their gods on a common PC, they are getting there. Compare this to Final Fantasy 13, which has functional killer robots and still takes magic at face value.

The lensman lanterns of the Silver Age and Post Crisis up to the Sinestro Corp development did not treat their rings as being anything but advanced energy projectors that required strong will power to use. That is ripe fodder for a science fiction CRPG that would stand out from the crowd a little.

As for Flash not having speedster villains interested in racing him, I do not see why he really needs more than one. Iron Fist did not need an existing set of established martial artists to pull of the immortal weapon tournament. Metroid did not need a laundry list of bounty hunters for Samus to encounter prior to Prime Hunters and Prime 3. I suppose you would want to use something already established in the comics (the immortal weapons included long time foe Steel Serpent, the Hunters included an established faction in Hunters and were fighting an established threat in 3) but otherwise why wouldn't Flash fans appreciate something new? Why not give him some new rival speedsters to race?

Also, the idea DC Characters are "too powerful" is a perplexing one. If you mean Phantom Stranger, Lucifer or the Spectre but there have been player characters more powerful than Superman before. At worst they caused Cutscene Power to the Max, 11th-Hour Superpower, No Endor Holocaust, Units Not to Scale or Power Creep, Power Seep yet some of the best games of their genres used those tropes. Darkstalkers generally only display the full extent of their abilities in endings or in the manual, Kirby only briefly wields the ability to beat Dark Matter or NOVA, some Star Ruler vessels should distort the galaxy just by existing and Kos-mos may move slower so Jill will not feel useless but I do not remember anyone arguing those games should not have been made because of that.

But even if action game play was too lowly for the mighty Superman what would be wrong with a Professor Layton/Ace Attorney adventure game or some puzzle thing anyway? Doesn't he spend more time rescuing cats and stopping trains than fighting people?

You want to save this cat? Solve my puzzle!

Also, some early game footage of a cancelled Flash game:

The developer is still around, answering questions and giving more details in the comments.

edited 3rd Mar '14 3:13:06 AM by GiantRobots

Because if you're not going to use things from a license, there's no reason to bother acquiring one, and you might as well just make your own speedster character. The Iron Fist and Metroid examples you gave are not really the same thing. That's just altering or adding new things to the official canon. Like no one cares if you introduce a new villain in the Batman comics, but people would be disappointed if there were no established villains in a video game adaptation. In an adaptation, especially one involving something with a large fairly history, you'd expect there to be at least some canonical characters used.

But the usage of established characters isn't the main reason I don't think a Flash game focused entirely on racing wouldn't work. You can have new characters in adaptations, and it's not impossible to make an entirely new cast work, but the game should still fit the theme of the source at least. In a hypothetical Iron Fist game, even if they didn't include any other characters from the Marvel Universe, they'd still focus it on martial arts. The Flash comics are not about races. You would have to come up with a really good excuse plot for there to be a race tournament, especially one that's going to last the entirety of a full length game. You could invent a villain who simply wants to race the Flash, but I don't think you could make an entire game out of it. Flash fans would want a game where you meet the Rogues, Grodd, and possibly have a final showdown with Zoom or Professor Zoom or something of the sort. There could be race segments, but they'd have to be for things like being on time to stop a bomb or an assassination or a chase sequence involving another speedster, not a Mario Kart sort of thing.

Looks like I wasn't that far off with my Saints Row comment. Though maybe Spider-Man 2 would have been more accurate.

edited 3rd Mar '14 1:35:36 PM by supergod

For we shall slay evil with logic...