The Best Marvel Video Games

By: Noah Friscopp

Marvel Comics has been a staple of pop culture for decades, but only recently have we seen the comics giant apply their timeless lineup of amazing heroes in the world of video games. Whether you love massive team-ups, intense action or doing whatever a spider can, these are the Marvel games you should check out.

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

No game comes this close to letting you feel the anger and strength of the Incredible Hulk as Ultimate Destruction. You play as Bruce Banner in a big open-world city. The game allows you to leap, climb, and smash to your heart's content as well as play through story missions in various locations. Jumping over skyscrapers, running along buildings and tearing apart a car to use as metal boxing gloves against enemies is incredibly fun, and captures the unstoppable spirit of the Hulk perfectly. Whenever you get a chance to play as the Hulk in a game, you can usually be sure you'll be in for a good time. He has appeared in a few other games like Ultimate Alliance and LEGO Marvel Superheroes over the years, but this solo adventure is by far his height. Hopefully, Marvel's The Avengers can finally improve on Bruce Banner's green behemoth because so far this PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube classic has yet to be beaten.

Marvel vs. Capcom Series

No matter which game is your favorite, the Marvel vs Capcom series has always been one of the best places to see your favorite Marvel Heroes and Villains face off against each other. Throw Capcom's gaming legends like Mega Man and Ryu into the mix, and you have the recipe for a legendary fighting game series. The sheer amount of depth in these games makes picking them up easy. If you just want to have fun pitting characters against each other, you can, while also giving the people that want it a satisfying challenge to master. While the newest entry, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite was a bit underwhelming with the removal of many fan-favorite characters, I have no doubt that eventually we will see another game worthy of this fighting series' legacy. 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

While this one might veer into the darker side, it is impossible to make a list of the best Marvel games without including it. While it might appear to follow the movie of the same name at first, it quickly establishes itself as it's own thing. You start as Hugh Jackman's version of the character but can eventually unlock several of Logan's iconic costumes like the classic yellow and blue suit. The action is intense, and even though it is far from a perfect game,  it puts you in the shoes of the character nearly flawlessly.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

After several LEGO games, the chance to take control of the vast cast of Marvel heroes finally landed in 2013 with LEGO Marvel: Super Heroes. This game lets you explore an expansive New York City, and play through several story missions as over 155 playable heroes and villains. There were two sequels, LEGO Marvel Avengers and Super Heroes 2 which lets you control the MCU versions and lesser known heroes of the universe like Kamala Khan's Ms. Marvel and Spider-Gwen. 

Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends

While it might be cheating to put two sets of games in the same ranking, Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Legends are very similar. They are Action-RPGs similar to Diablo in which you control a team of characters in a top-down view and harness each character's abilities to come out on top against a horde of enemies. Both of the X-Men Legends games and the first two Ultimate Alliance titles were developed by Raven Software (who also made X-Men Origins:  Wolverine) and featured the biggest rosters of characters seen on screen to date. These games came out before the colossal MCU, so seeing these many heroes interact on screen was a marvelous sight at the time. X-Men Legends focused on the mutant side of the Marvel Universe, but Ultimate Alliance brought together characters from every end. 

Marvel's Spider-Man

Many great games have mentioned here, but only one stands on top. Marvel's Spider-Man is not only the best Spider-Man games in a long list of them but one of the most unique and interesting versions of the character to hit the screen. Out of the long list of Spider-Man cartoons and movies, this game rebuilds Peter Parker's world in such a way that has never been seen before. As a game, the feeling of swinging through New York City at breakneck speed has never felt better, and taking down bad guys remains just as fun the entire campaign. Time will tell how Insomniac Games plans to follow up the now best-selling superhero title ever, but with new suits recently being added and comics based off this version of Spidey, this friendly neighborhood hero is here to stay. 

Share Your Thoughts

What do you think? What are your favorite Marvel video games? Which hero or villain should get their own game? Let us know below!