EA does something cool

Wednesday, October 5, 2005 » gaming

The concensus on EA's recent exercise in license-squandering, Marvel Nemesis, seems to be that it is not a good game, which was pretty much predicted all over the Internet. However, this Game Girl Advance article (in which the game is trashed by an EA designer) reveals an interesting twist near the end of the game:

Van Roekel is, of course, your typical final boss character. He's powerful, he's fast, etc. The first time you see Van Roekel in combat, the player controls him, and uses him to kill one of the heroes in the player's roster. So often in fighting games, the final boss is just some tough guy who is generically "evil," and gets his ass handed to him by the player. Marvel Nemesis lets the player enter into combat as the big bad guy, and basically turn one of the characters the player has been using into a pile of mush. This first of all acts as a demonstration of just how tough the final boss is, but it also shows the player that Van Roekel isn't "cheap," because the player is taking damage here and there, too.

What a completely clever thing to do. I'm not wowed as much by the "un-cheapness" demonstration as I am by the sudden perspective reversal. Plus you have to kill one of your dudes! What a great dramatic device. It'd be great if someone would write something like this into an RPG and have you play as an opposing force for a few hours, or maybe the entire second half of the game. It's too bad this is buried all the way at the end of a boring game.