With Avengers: Infinity War toppling box office records worldwide and the edgy Deadpool 2 proving these movies aren’t exclusively for kids, superhero mania won’t be dying down anytime soon, and it isn’t just Hollywood the cape and spandex brigade has …
With Avengers: Infinity War toppling box office records worldwide and the edgy Deadpool 2 proving these movies aren’t exclusively for kids, superhero mania won’t be dying down anytime soon, and it isn’t just Hollywood the cape and spandex brigade has invaded.
Superheroes have always been hot stuff in gaming and the app stores are crammed with titles featuring Marvel and DC’s finest. Our top picks below will help you sort the Batman Forevers from the Dark Knights.
Publisher: Telltale Games
If you’ve played any of Telltale’s earlier adventures, you’ll know what to expect from their take on Batman, to an extent at least. Batman – The Telltale Series is a similarly narrative-driven experience to The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, except there’s a little less conversation, a little more action, and investigative puzzles to test your detective skills.
The first episode of Batman – The Telltale Series is free to download and sample, but be warned, once it’s got its hooks into you, there’s a real danger you’ll feel compelled to play right through to the second season, The Enemy Within, which concluded in March this year.
Publisher: Telltale Games
If you’re an adventure game enthusiast who prefers Marvel to DC, there’s a good chance you’ll get more out of Telltale’s adaptation of Guardians of the Galaxy than Batman. This is the same combo of humour, science fiction, adventure and jaunty musical numbers that made the original Guardians movie a surprise hit when it was released in cinemas in 2014.
In truth, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series isn’t quite on the same level as its DC-themed counterpart. The action sequences pack less of a punch and the investigative puzzles aren’t nearly as inventive, but Guardians has its moments throughout the season. The game is at its best when providing a purely narrative-based experience which emulates the two James Gunn movies down to a tee.
Publisher: FoxNext
MARVEL Strike Force is a squad-based RPG well balanced enough to earn a gauntleted thumbs up from Thanos himself. The game takes its cues from EA’s Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and is sure to snare fans instantly, thanks to its gentle learning curve and stacks of killer content.
You’ll build a squad comprised of Marvel legends – from villains like Loki and Bullseye, to the heroic Iron Man and Spider-Man – and take part in PVP battles, Alliance Raids and other challenges, all of which have been designed with mobile in mind. Marvellous indeed.
Publisher: Warner Bros
It’s a well-known fact that things become infinitely more fun when rendered in LEGO, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to Batman video games. Several entries in the popular LEGO Batman series have found their way to mobile, and DC Super Heroes is arguably the pick of them, since it comes with so many bonus characters.
Whether you’re reducing Darkseid’s minions to a pile of multi-coloured bricks with Superman, or toying around at top speed as the Flash, LEGO Batman: DC Super Heroes provides stacks of fun for all the family.
Publisher: Warner Bros
Successfully turning the Marvel Universe into a massive digital LEGO set and cramming it onto mobile devices is another impressive feat by developer Traveller’s Tales, and it’s only fair we flag that up, since there’s also a LEGO Batman instalment on this list for the DC diehards.
LEGO Marvel Superheroes is another fun-packed family-friendly affair from TT and Warner Bros and it lets players take the phrase ‘Hulk smash’ to cathartic new heights while immersing themselves in an Avengers-centric story with stacks of substance.
Publisher: Warner Bros
Injustice 2 achieved everything it set out to do when it arrived on iOS and Android devices, namely scale down a popular superhero brawler for home consoles into a polished, mobile-friendly package. The sophisticated combos which serve as its bigger sibling’s bread and butter make way for simple taps and screen swipes, though the depth isn’t sacrificed.
Warner Bros didn’t quite pull off a flawless victory here. While the graphics are impressive, combat is at times formulaic and the microtransactions will no doubt put some players off, but any game where you can clobber Harley Quinn with Wonder Woman and punch Green Lantern in the face as Batman is worth playing at least once.
Publisher: Gameloft
Not all superhero games need to take their cues from the Batman Arkham series or Marvel vs. Capcom to be a success. Here’s one you can play one-handed on your phone, whenever you have a few minutes to kill.
When Gameloft landed the rights to Spider-Man, the studio merged the property with Temple Run-style gameplay to create a story-driven auto-runner where you can do whatever a spider can via a series of screen swipes. If you’ve played Temple Run, you’ll know exactly what to expect, but this is a robust runner in its own right and the storyline will hit all of the right notes with the Marvel diehards.
Publisher: Rebellion
A third-person shooter where you act as judge, jury and executioner to hordes of reanimated corpses, Judge Dredd vs. Zombies is a drokking riot. This one arrived on the app stores back in 2011, but it hasn’t aged badly at all. Cleaning up the undead-infested Mega-City One is always a blast and Dredd’s one-liners are merely a bonus.
Judge Dredd vs. Zombies might have been a mobile classic if its in-app purchase system wasn’t so intrusive. It’s an incredibly tough game to beat unless you’re willing to part with real-world cash, though some players will no doubt welcome the challenge.
Publisher:Â Demiurge Studios
Superheroes are so versatile that their games span a wide range of genres, in this case, the match-three puzzler. Marvel Puzzle Quest is essentially Bejeweled with ramped-up RPG elements, Marvel Comics characters and a hokey storyline about a meteor strike introducing a darkly mysterious chemical substance to our planet.
Gameplay-wise, it rarely deviates from the Bejeweled template, but that’s okay since the Popcap classic is the benchmark for the genre. Meanwhile, the hand-drawn depictions of classic comic book characters are impressive enough to earn the game bonus points from the Marvelites.
Publisher: Kabam
Kabam’s Marvel Contest Of Champions is another superhero brawler that makes all of the right cutbacks to optimise it for mobile. It’s a more upbeat and faster-paced experience than Injustice 2, and the character roster reads like a who’s who of the Marvel Universe.
The game is instantly playable and boasts console-quality visuals, which isn’t to say it’s capable of competing with the high-end brawlers found on the PS4 and Xbox One. Nevertheless, you won’t find many better versus fighters on the app stores, especially if superheroes are your thing.
