In honor of the Iron Man movie released this past weekend, I would like to dedicate this episode of Game On to the best comic book video games of all time.  Unfortunately, the new Iron Man game will not be on the list.  My quick review of the game is: they did a great job with the look and controls of Iron Man himself, but the game itself didn’t seem to be as well developed.  The environments and enemies were a bit of a let down and, after a few hours of playing, I really wish they had paid Robert Downey Jr to record a few more one-liners because the limited number they had in the game got old real fast. 

That being said, it might be worth a rental from Gamefly if you enjoyed the movie like I did (more on that tomorrow).

Here were go with the Nifty Nerd’s Top 10 Comic Book Video Games of All Time:

10.  Punisher - Capcom (1993):  Easily one of the coolest arcade side-scrollers produced by Capcom, the Punisher was built around game play similar to that of the Final Fight series and Capcom’s other comic book arcade release at the time, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs.  In this arcade gem, you were able to play either the Punisher or a cigar-smoking Nick Fury as you fought your way through six levels of mayhem and destruction.  Wielding guns, knives, swords, bats and grenades, you encountered faces familiar from the pages of Marvel Comics, including Bushwacker, Bone Breaker and the Kingpin…oh, and don’t forget a whole gaggle of canon-fodder goons, thugs and ninjas. 

The Punisher arcade game was great fun to play and was loaded with some truly spiffy comic book style cut scenes.  Now, there was a port of the game to Sega’s Genesis/MegaDrive console, but it really wasn’t the same due to some silly censorship.  If you can find one of the old arcade cabinets for sale online, or have an X-Arcade Mame Cabinet, Capcom’s Punisher game is a ton of fun. Read More »

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I am an absolute arcade game addict. To this day, I love going in to a good arcade and playing video games on an upright cabinet. There is just something ingrained about arcades in my DNA. Heck, standing next to my desk is a 4-player Konami X-Men arcade for 1992…I can literally spin my chair around right now and play me a game of X-men whenever I want to take a break.

Nothing is more satisfying than standing at an arcade cabinet and playing a video game. Unfortunately, while the old-school games are fairly cheap to get (anywhere from $100 up to $2500 or so, depending on the game), the full-sized cabinets take up a lot of space and, if you’re like me, most homes don’t have enough room for every game you want to get.

Lucky for all of us, the folks at X-Arcade have the answer to our prayers: the X-Arcade Machine Cabinet. And that, my friends, is what arrived fully assembled on my doorstep last week, a present from my wife. My wife is awesome! Read More »

When I first met and started dating my wife a few years ago, she and her friends introduced me to what would eventually become one of the banes of our relationship.  That trouble spot, one of the only we have, was a little game called “Scene It? The Movie Trivia Game.”  As a hybrid DVD-board game, my wife and her friends absolutely loved to play Scene It and would do so at all hours of the day or not, and a lot of times they were doing it while a bit drunk…I’d say “high” but I don’t want to rat anyone out just in case her parents are reading this.

What Scene It? revealed to me about my wife, her friends and her family, was how insanely competitive they all are.  I swear their games of Monopoly have broken down in to physical altercations on a number of occassions.  Since they loved Scene It? so much, and knowing that I had spent a lot of time working in film and television in a number of roles since the early 90s, they all wanted to play against me so they could show how badass they were at the game.

Unfortunately for them, I am a professional nerd and proceeded to obliterate them at every turn, no matter how many of them teamed up against me.  We played at holidays, family gatherings, whenever I came over to my wife’s place to hang out.  They brought in what they thought to be ringers (including a cousin who wanted to go to film school), but they couldn’t defeat me. Read More »

As a true Nerd, I have been a fan of the Star Wars franchise since the release of the original movie in 1977 - which I refuse to this day to call “A New Hope.” I was 4 when it came out and it is the second movie I remember ever going to see with my parents (the first was Earthquake with its “Sensurround” feature).

Since that fateful day in 1977, I have seen every single Star Wars film release on or before opening day…as any proper Nerd should. As is the typical story of my kind, I owned (and still own) every Star Wars toy through the end of Return of the Jedi. And, like a proper Nerd, I stopped collecting when the travesties of the Ewoks and Droids spin-offs were born.

In the period between Return of the Jedi and the release of the Phantom Menace (what we Star Wars junkies refer to as the “Time of Great Darkness”), I kept myself sustained through periodic injections of Star Wars novels, comic books and video games, continually prostrating myself towards Skywalker Ranch in prayer for an eventual return to that Galaxy Far, Far AWay.

With the release of the final installments of the Star Wars films in the form of “Revenge of the Sith,” I was faced with the realization that my next good Star Wars fix might never come. Fortunately for Nerds everywhere, Uncle Lucas and his team have come through just when our Star Wars jones was starting to hurt real bad. Read More »