To really understand the root of the problem, you have to consider what comic book games really are. They are, unfortunately for us all, usually movie licensed games. Superhero: The Movie (the Game) is a normal title to see as far as comic games go, which means a few things. Whatever company is putting out this particular comic book movie (Sony, Warner Brothers, etc), does not view this game as its own entity. This game is merely a secondary product to the movie counterpart. To the studio, it is the same as Spider-Man action figures, Hulk Hands, Batman child-sized utility belts, or Clark Kent disguise kits (complete with nerdy glasses and pomade to get that curl juuuust right). Whatever money is made off this game is simply icing on the delicious cake of conglomerate Hollywood. Due to this, these games are given shorter development periods, stricter deadlines and (often) smaller budgets than that of a game without a movie coming out next to it. Sure, they would love for the game to end up good, as to sell more copies and make more money, but if it still sucks when it's time for the movie to come out, they'd much more quickly put out a bad game than delay it and miss the movie release-time hubbub. This is why many comic book video games, especially ones that come out attached to movies, so often feel massively unpolished. Now this might change, if only the crappiness of the games were reflected in sales. But they're not. Because no matter what, parents are always going to buy their kids the game with their kid's favorite character in it, and the older comic book nerds are always going to get suckered in to trying out that new Justice League game because, hey, it is the Justice League. Maybe this one will be good?
We really don't need to talk about this.
Compounding this problem is that very rarely will a big-name (or big-talent) development studio attach themselves to a licensed game. They're either not interested, or more likely, slowly developing their next big budget killer app hopeful. This means that the secondary, less experienced development studious end up with the crap job of trying to make a good game with less money, less manpower and less time than the big, more experienced guys get. The problem here is obvious. If you give Frank Lloyd Wright tons of money and as long as he needs, he will design something magnificent to be sure. However, if you give a recent architecture grad substantially less funds and a time limit, you can't really expect what he does to come close to whatever the hell Mr. Wright is working on over there in unlimited resources land. This is, of course, an exaggeration, but you get my point.
Another big issue with comic games is what I call the cookie cutter dilemma. By this I mean that comic games are almost never really their own game. Instead of starting from the ground up with the game in question, publishers and developers take the easy way out (due, in part at least, to some of the problems previously discussed) and take an existing game, remove the characters of that game, and throw in whatever superhero is currently getting whored out. Gauntlet Legends becomes Marvel Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends, Splinter Cell becomes Batman Begins, Spider-Man becomes a watered down Grand Theft Auto... the list goes on and on. Even when its not an exact copy and paste (using the same engine and all), the fact that so many comic games get approached in this manner is disappointing, especially after you've spent so much time (the longer you've spent, the nerdier you are) fantasizing about how awesome it would be if a great Batman game FINALLY got made, only to experience the horrors that lay in front of you every time you give the new one a try.
Now all this isn't to say that there haven't been a few good comic book games to slip through the cracks over the years and come out, despite the industry's seemingly unrelenting efforts to keep that from happening. However these are few and far in between, and even the best ones are only the best only when compared to other comic games, even more rarely are they able to stand next to the best games currently on the market and compete. Comic book games exist on their own scale of quality, where the bad is abysmal, the good sucks, and the great is just alright. Take for example, the Spider-Man games. These games are average at best, but compared to the rest of the comic book games they're fantastic, and they end up being reviewed and purchased as if they were game-of-the-year titles.
So whatever is to be done to fix this horrible tragedy? Well first off, nothing is going to change so long as these games keep selling. And they most likely will, making the following paragraph virtually obsolete. In an insane world where things did change, however, and people did stop buying crappy comic book games, it would only take a few steps to make a not sucky one.
So here they are - the three steps to a good comic book game, addressed directly to the publishers and developers.
Step 1. Approach each game as its own creation. Don't take an existing game and plop a superhero in it, build that superhero's world around him or her. When playing the game, you should feel like you're playing as that character. You should NOT feel like you're playing a game you've already played with a costume on the main character.
Step 2. Publishers: give the developer more time. Whether that means starting development earlier (in the case of movie licensed games), or extending the deadlines, let the kinks get worked out, especially since these games are often dealing with fantastical things like flight - things that take longer to debug and need more tweaking to make feel good to control. No one likes playing a game that feels unfinished. Take for example Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. There's a licensed game that was given a longer development time and a larger budget than the average game of its type. Because of that it did end up coming out years after the movie did, but also ended up being one of the best selling games on the system, and was the first massively popular FPS on a console, only to be outdone later by the infamous Halo.
Step 3. Hire comic book writers to write the games, and get real comic book artists to do your character designs. Despite what you may think, these guys don't make much money, and I imagine many would be happy to lend their talents. This would keep things authentic and interesting, and make the games feel less "cheap." Also as an added bonus, you would attract more hardcore comic book nerds to the game with a name like Geoff Johns or Darwyn Cooke attached to it.
And that's that. The three easy steps to making a great comic book video game. This article can be filed right next to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Happy Meal Toy Designers.
