When it comes to discussing DC vs Marvel, here's how the conversation usually goes: Marvel for the movies, DC for the television, comics is really a personal preference (I'm a Marvel guy myself). But there's one topic that has yet to have a deciding victor, who makes the better videogames? DC or Marvel? Now for the sake of this topic i obviously can't look at every game by both companies, nor will I be looking at any tie-ins for the shows or movies, purely original adaptations (Ain't that an oxymoron for ya). So, let's start with the Marvel games.
Marvel
Marvel have had a shit ton of videogames based on their most popular characters, the most prominent ones being for Spider-Man. Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro released on the Playstation and N64 were some of the first videogames that I ever played and to this day remain nostalgic classics. But the best Spider-Man game in my opinion is Ultimate Spider-Man released for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube, this here is the definitive Spider-Man game, the writing and art style are ripped straight out of a comic, it's funny, it's action packed and not only do you feel like Spider-Man, but you also feel like Venom, that's right, you got to play as Venom in this game. But that's not the end of the Spider-Man games, there was also Friend or Foe, Web of Shadows, Shattered Dimensions, which were all...okay.
But we still have other games to look at apart from Spider-Man, in 2004 we received a game called X-Men Legends, an action RPG developed by Raven Software, it follows the basic X-Men story, Magneto wants to destroy humanity, X-Men stop him. While the game is certainly dated in a lot of aspects, i can't help but love this game. The character interactions, the voice acting, the amount of playable characters, the combat, the whole feel of the game just makes it so damn entertaining for me, and it's a personal favourite of mine. We also got a sequel Rise of Apocalypse which was okay, but we got a lot less character interactions and feels much more bare boned. Raven Software continued to make Marvel games with Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which was pretty much X-Men Legends except with every popular Marvel character, ranging from Spider-Man to Luke Cage. Still a lot of fun except because there are so many characters, it feels a lot more jumbled and less personal.
Then of course there were the movie tie-in games, which actually had a couple of good hits (Spider-Man 2 & X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and the arcade games, the Marvel Vs Capcom games, Disney infinity, there are a ton of them, some good, some bad, but not really anything worth giving full descriptions on.
DC
DC's library is considerably smaller seeing as most of their games are tie-ins to their show or movies, but it's still worth talking about what there is, but rather than do this in chronological order like Marvel, i'm just going to do this in the order I feel like, and the first one being Injustice: Gods Among Us.
After the DC vs Mortal Kombat game developed by NetherRealm Studios, they decided to make a full on fighting game based around the DC Universe, and it was actually kind of awesome. Not only were there a ton of playable characters but it actually had a very engaging story and plenty of variety in it's combat and game style options. But that's actually kind of it for the mid-level DC videogames, there are only two more that I want to talk about and they both hold their own level of recognition in the gaming world but for two completely different reasons, the first one of course being Superman 64.
Superman 64 is often considered to be one of the worst videogames of all time, and it is completely understandable why, everything about this game is wrong. The gameplay is wrong, the level design is wrong, the animations are wrong, the controls are wrong, who in their right mind looked at this and thought it could possibly be a success? If you have no idea what Superman 64 is, just YouTube it, because it is something that has to be seen to be believed in how bad it is. But on the other end of the scale...
While DC may have the honour of one of the worst videogames of all time, they also have the honour of having one of the best videogames of all time, in fact, they actually have two. Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are straight up masterpieces in my opinion, the depiction and analytical worth depth the characters have, the inventive and insanely fun gameplay, the gripping stories, the beautiful art design and music, great stories, amazing bosses. Yeah Arkham Origins wasn't so hot, but these two games are some of the best I have ever played.
Conclusion
So really, it's hard to tell which one is actually the superior company for videogames, Marvel are more consistent with their releases, but technically speaking haven't done anything amazing. While DC hold the title for having one of the worst games ever made and one of the best, but with less variety. So do you go for the consistently good or the fluctuation between awful and amazing? Again, this feels like a very debatable pick, but I have to go with DC for this one, because while Marvel have made more good games, all of their great stuff is from over a decade ago and haven't done much since; DC's worst game was nearly 2 decades ago and have more than made up for it in recent years, so in my opinion i have to go for DC for the superior games.
-Danny
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