The Forgotten Games of the Marvel Universe

Captain America in: The Doom Tube of Dr. Megalomann

The very first Captain America game is also a real mouthful, they definitely seemed to like long titles when it came to games featuring The Captain. It was released in 1987 by GO! for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Atari ST computers – the latter 16-bit version being by far the best.

Your mission is to infiltrate the Doom Tube, the secret lair of Dr. Megalomann, this is made up of three such tubes, one inside the other like a Russian doll. Each tube is split into several decks, which are then divided again into several rooms. They are all connected together by a lift called the Orbivator, the last room is the missile silo.

As well as defeating the bad guys you also have to solve several puzzles in order to progress in the game. These take up several forms such as finding a serum to cure a deadly virus that infects you and revealing security codes that you need to keep for later in the game. The whole game is played in real time with just one hour being allocated for you to stop Dr. Megalomann and save the world from impending doom.

Captain America in: The Doom Tube of Dr. Megalomann received quite mixed reviews from the press and it’s easy to see why. The game is pretty challenging and not particularly intuitive, meaning only the most ardent fans of The Captain will probably want to check it out.

X-Men: Madness in Murderworld

Easily one of the most obscure titles on this list, X-Men by Paragon Software was released exclusively in the United States for the Commodore 64 and PC in 1989, meaning it didn’t reach a very large audience.

This title was going for the comic book audience so heavily that it even included a special full-size comic instead of the standard instruction manual telling the story of the game. The story explains how Magneto and Arcade have captured Professor X and are holding him captive in the Murderworld amusement park. You must take control of the X-Men in order to rescue him.

The six controllable X-Men on offer are Wolverine, Dazzler, Colossus, Night Crawler, Storm and Cyclops. Each have their own unique abilities that influence the game in different ways, you need to switch between them constantly in order to complete your mission.

The awkward controls and sub-standard combat means that this isn’t a game you should be rushing to play. X-Men: Madness in Murderworld is a game that only the most hardcore Marvel fans and comic collectors will want to bother with.

Ironman X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal

This 1996 game by Acclaim Entertainment saw fan favourite Ironman team up with the lesser known X-O Manowar to stop a team of super villains reconstructing the Cosmic Cube. Released for the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation and PC, it tied in with a specially made Marvel comic book series.

You can play as either character, but it really makes no difference who, as they are pretty much exactly the same. They can both jump, punch and shoot their laser weapon and they can also fly, although this is strangely limited by how much fuel you have. Your laser weapon can be improved, among other things, by collecting power-ups dotted around the levels.

At the start of each level you are presented with a mission screen telling you about your objective. But they don’t vary that much and are all pretty generic in nature. Fight bad guys, find something and then defeat boss – very paint by numbers.

Although it looks really nice the game just feels like it wasn’t quite finished. Some levels are a bit empty, you sometimes get stuck for no apparent reason and the controls are not the best either. It’s a shame because this had the making of a really great game.

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