The world was a vastly different place back in 2013 when I originally published this piece. We were still playing our Playstation 3s, Warner Bros was years away from destroying their Dark Knight good well, and the world was still watching a still fresh Entourage on HBO as they played with the concept of its star Vinnie Chase becoming a blockbuster superhero star as Aquaman.
I came up with what I felt was a cool concept for a game based on teh DC character, Aquaman, and figured it was a good time to share some of those ideas before starting on my Black Panther entry of "Games That Should Be Made" tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it.
It just swept over me like a wave... pun intended. I just thought about how the Aquaman concept would make a fantastic game. And I mean a real life, triple A game. I mean, I'd be MUCH happier with a big budget Aqualad (of Young Justice) game, but the universe hates me and everyone like me so that's not gonna happen.Truthfully, you could swap in any aquatic superhero like Namor, Namora, or even Stingray (snort!), but since Aquaman is the guy everybody seems to hate, expectations would be low and surprise would be epic. What would really be mad radical is if they made Aquaman look like Vinnie Chase. I know its a tough pill to swallow, but let me walk you through the reasons why this would be an amazing game.
There are so many gameplay elements that could be incorporated into this game. Since Aquaman's home is in the water, when controlling him, you'd be able to move at awesome speeds in all directions. Build up enough speed to punch through the hull of a ship and sink it. Leap on board vessels and wreck shop on the entire crew. Summon your aquatic monsters to leap from the ocean and swallow airships whole. There is a plethora of missions and story types that would keep the game fresh because the gameplay could change depending on the mission and situation.
One mission, you're serving pirates like a super powered Steve Zissou, the next you're trying to evacuate an island before a volcano erupts, killing everyone. After that, you explore ancient ruins of a forgotten trench, taking on challenging puzzles and warriors that move and fight as well as you do under the sea.
Then, there is the whole King aspect to consider. Imagine if you got to run your kingdom a la Xcom: Enemy Unknown. You could deploy Atlantean soldiers to deal with various conflicts You could research and discover new tech and artifacts that you could equip to deal with these threats or control new monsters that you locate. What if your sea monsters could follow simple commands you bellow through the kinect?
Controlling Aquaman would really shine in using him between the surface and the water. On land, he's all haymakers, sword swings, and super jumps. When water is added into that, his strength increases along with the ways he can use the water to attack and defend.
Anyway, I've already spent too much time on this, but call me crazy if I believe the future of superhero gaming is taking advantage of lower tier characters in an effort to bring them to relevance, rather than the other way around. Guys like Blue Beetle, Iron Fist, Misty Knight, and Electra could make some diverse, low budget games that could potentially sing in the indie market.
Can't be any worse than spending tons of moneym making terrible games based on superhero movies...