Captain America and the Avengers

Publisher: Data East
Developer: Data East
Size: 8 megs
No. of players: 2(simultaneously)
Official Ad: Yes

Resident zombie-head, Red Skull has put together a team of supervillians in his latest attempt to take over/destroy the world. Well, it just so happens that it's the Avengers' turn to take out whatever goofy-ass enemy has decided to misbehave this week. The Captain(America, not Crunch) gathers up the team and they head out to beat the piss out of Red Skull and his legion of jackasses...
	What's it all about? It's an arcade-like beat'em up. Using one of the four Avengers(Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Vision) you run around in Streets of Rage/Final Fight-style areas beating the fuck out the various enemies that get in your way. Each character has a set of attacks that include some sort of combo, a throw, jumping attacks, a dashing attack and a projectile...so you're more than equipped to whip some serious ass. On top of it, and in just a sheer stroke of amusing genius, you can also pick up just about anything that laying around and throw it at the enemy. Barrels, wrenches, rocks, fucking soda cans, anything.
To add a bit of variety, each level consists of two sections: The beat'em up section and the shooter section. The shooter scenes have your characters flying or swimming through the level in a 2D-style shooter environment, mowing down anything that happens to fly in your path. At the end of both sections you're treated to a hilarious set of "Engrish" quotes as your characters and the boss converse before you rip their ass to pieces.

Graphics - A bit on the tiny side, but not bad at all. The characters are all pretty small, but then again, they were in the arcade too...so maybe it's a worthless complaint. Past that, a lot of the character animations seem kinda stiff...but they still get the job done. The backgrounds all look pretty good, especially those that you get to see during the shooter scenes, with their smooth line scrolling and multiple parallax levels.

Sound - Fucking great. The in-game music is very good, and really adds a lot to the stages as you play through them. During the boss fights, once you get them down to about half power, the character you're playing will scream "Ok, GO!" as the music immediately turns into an empowering anthem while you finish them off. Past that, there's a ton of voice and it is an absolute riot. You thought the Zero Wing translation was fucked up? Wait until you hear some of the things they'll say in this one....cracks me up. Not only are the quotes goofy as fuck, they're all done by the same guy in a slightly different tone which just adds to it all...

Control - Super smooth. All of the characters move around the screen quickly, and you can perform pretty much any move with ease. To add to it, you can even move in the air during one of those super high, full screen leaps they can all do.

AI - It hovers somewhere between relatively fair and frustratingly cheap...sadly, it's usually the latter during the one player games. The enemies really enjoy teaming up on you, and they all have some sort of move that not only knocks you down, but shoots your ass back quite a bit. Luckily each of the characters all have some sort of projectile, throw and jumping attack that allows you to get out of those nasty situations at some point...

Replay value - High. Being a conversion of an arcade game, and a good one at that, it's very...well, arcade-like: The action comes at you fast, the gameplay is simple, the enemies die quickly and there's lots of them...you'll come back for more, trust me.

Tips for better gaming experiences:
Though all of the characters are pretty tough, Captain America is the absolute best...that guy just whips ass. Also, with all characters, don't forget about your quick jumping attack(performed by jumping then immediately hitting attack), it's an incredibly powerful and fast move that can be used to defeat *any* enemy in the game.

My rating: 85(out of 100) - A great, old school beat'em up. It's got loads of action, fun levels and the shooter sections really help the game from getting too repetitive. It looses points only due to how short it is, and the sometimes-frustrating AI....but even those two things shouldn't be able to drag you away from it...after all, what other game can you think of where you can actually defeat a boss enemy with a goddamn soda can!?

Game Informer gave it: 6.5(out of 10)
GamePro gave it: 4.5(graphics), 4.0(sound), 4.0(control), 4.0(funfactor)(out of 5)

Captain Kitty's thoughts: The hit detection leaves a lot to be desired, and the cheap enemies will get on your nerves, but all in all, it's not bad...and it's a hell of a lot better than that shitty SNES port.

Hawkeye taking out hundreds of robots high above the ocean.

Love the way Vision just grabs'em up with *one* arm...

Superior tech!

Ah, the Mechanical Taco...gotta love it.

Clean up the text, but fuck up the game:
Oddly enough, when Data East ported CA&tA to the SNES they decided to clean up some of the goofy text and add a pretty hip comic strip-like intro to every stage, as well as few other things(check out Jiggyman's FAQ for more info on that)...but man did they screw the conversion up. The gameplay is just beyond horrid...I don't know what happened, but damn is it bad.

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

The Avengers

Target Town

Challenge from the Bottom of the Sea

The Giant Laser Cannon

The End of Red Skull

Amusing Engrish Quotes

The Mini Bosses: Don't disturb us! Avengers: Why should it go well?	Grim Reaper: You came here to die!	Avengers: What an evil thing you've done! Mini Boss: Puny superheroes, I'll shut you up for good!	Avengers: Where's the laser? Mini Boss: Ask the police!	Avengers: What's this? Red Skull: It's another trap! You stupid men! Ha ha ha! Avengers: We'll teach you the meaning of "Justice"!
Avengers: You can't escape! Whirlwind: You will be the one escaping!	Sentinel: I'll kill you all!	Mandrin: See my power!	Avengers: Where's the laser? Mini Boss: Ask the police!