Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat - Part 3/3 of a Pie Reviews Special

[Elliot]

THQ's uDraw Tablet was originally released on the Nintendo Wii back in November of 2010. It met with modest success for the publisher, and following this the decision was made to move the device over to the PS3 and Xbox 360. This version released a year after the original version in November of 2011 with a total of three compatible games, one of which was included with the tablet. After four months of production, the device was discontinued on all platforms in February of this year, leaving a grand total of 1.4 million unsold units and a sixty million dollar operating loss for the beginning of 2012, and is likely a large contributing factor to THQ's recent financial troubles and threats of NASDAQ delisting.

Today, in this week's special edition of Pie Reviews, I'm going to be looking at the device itself and the games released for it, namely uDraw Studio: Instant Artist, Pictionary: Ultimate Edition and Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat.

Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat

Marvel Super Hero Squad: Comic Combat, a game developed by Griptonite Games (who you'll doubtless have come across if you have a thing for bad ports and movie tie-ins) and, as with all uDraw games, published by THQ. This, for me, is the most disappointing of the uDraw games, because I can see potential - this truly could have been the uDraw's killer app if it were better designed.

The game is based on the Marvel Super Hero Squad kid's TV show, which I've had a quick glance at to research the review (though only at clips, whole episodes aren't available for me to view online, seemingly), and the game seems to keep the aesthetic, writing style and even voice actors from the show (though I will admit that being used to the voice actors from the more grown-up films for these characters, especially Robert Downey Jr. as one of my favourite comic book characters, I despise the voice acting in both the cartoon and the game). In fairness to the cartoon, aside from the voice cast, it actually seems like a competent and entertaining show for kids with a few jokes in there for parents watching with their children, and some of the animation was actually quite nice, so it's certainly not the worst material to base your game off, but it's not really going to be a strong draw for many people either.

The game is, on some level, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for kids – the controls are simplified drastically to fit the uDraw, with only about six moves available. It uses the D-pad to select which of your “squaddies” you have control over, but the face buttons are unused, and I can't help but think that was an unwise decision. Because of the very limited input, the game quickly gets repetitive, despite it being only about 2 hours long with the only replayability on offer being the meagre scattering of collectables throughout the game and the ability to play through the levels with different characters.

The game has some other pretty severe issues as well. There seems to have been no attempt to balance the squaddies at all – if you play with all three female characters you will be decimated absurdly easily, whereas Thor's attack where he throws his hammer is pretty much instant-kill and can be spammed repeatedly. The path-finding is some of the worst I've seen in recent memory, and those under your control will often flail about uselessly instead of walking to where you told them to do. Occasionally your inputs will just be completely misunderstood and the game will send you the opposite direction to where you actually pressed, and the game has trouble understanding what you draw (which could have been mapped instead to the face buttons followed by a tap).

I don't think the game could have been saved by more polish, or more content, though. When I say wasted potential what I mean is that this would have been a perfect opportunity to make an RTS that would work well on consoles, complete with lasso select, ordering units about the place, all thanks to the tablet. Even if it was extremely derivative of predecessors such as Age of Empires, as long as it were good fun, then it would have, I reckon, won itself a bigger audience simply by being one of the only games in its genre on PS3 (there being by my count 5 others, and that's being generous). The tablet should have been used for things that couldn't be done well with a standard controller, and the existence of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is proof that this style of game can be done well. I honestly think that with the time and budget they likely had to make this overly short, unpolished game, Griptonite could have made a decent crack at something better, something that would really have made the uDraw shine.

It's sad that the peripheral wasn't a little better designed, with better games to back it up. I'd like to see what could have become of such a thing, and how it could have impacted the gaming landscape. What a shame. As it stands, the uDraw is an insignificant blip in the PS3's radar, a curio to be largely ignored by the average gamer. I salute you, uDraw, for you tried valiantly at doing something different. May you rest in peace.

[PSXtreme_]

I just found a used uDraw today. Been looking for one now half-heartedly now for about 4 years. So far I think it's a rather cute peripheral. A tad bit clunky and it will take some time to get used to using with any competency, but so far it's a new, neat experience.

 

The Marvel game is rather kiddie...but hell, I'll play anything...anytime...anywhere...

 

SCREW the OPINIONS of OTHERS!!! I'm gonna enjoy this....