E3 2011: Captain America: Super Soldier hands-on preview – Steve Rogers borrows Batman’s moves

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Take the fight to the Kaiser as America's first avenger

With another summer comes another heaping pile of super-hero flicks, poised to drain our wallets in both regular and wacky 3D flavors. And what are super-hero movies without licensed videogames? Now that Thor's slowing down – our condolences to those who played it – we have that other Avengers prequel to worry about. Hold on, though: that statement might be a bit too harsh, because Captain America: Super Soldier actually might be awesome.

Set to be released days before the film, Captain America: Super Soldier is an entirely different story from the movie. From what we've seen and played, the plot has something to do with beating the crap out of Nazis. We were dropped roughly halfway through the game – level 5 to be exact – and were tasked with destroying a satellite dish before it blew up a buddy's plane. Because nothing screams “AMERICA” like small-scale terrorism. Seriously,we mean it!

Combat is instantly familiar to anyone who's played Batman: Arkham Asylum. A evades, B counters, Y throws and X attacks. After dispatching the initial Third Reich rejects, we ran up the tower towards the dish and encountered another group. This time we wanted to try something different. Holding Left Trigger enables you to target enemies and tapping Right Trigger, we launched our shield at their domes.

Next we were interrupted to take on Baron von Strucker, a Nazi with a temperate disposition and a cybernetic right arm. Had America had that technology in the 1940s, we're sure the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan wouldn't have been so bloody. But we digress. The Baron was proving to be a nuisance as we were trying to figure out the correct/best way to beat him. We vaulted over him and delivered punches to his spine. More often than not, he'd grab us by the neck if we didn't counter or evade in time. He'd then send out a nasty electric shock and dump us to the ground.

Then something interesting happened. Sometimes he'd grab us, triggering a cutscene and if we didn't tap whatever button prompt appeared for a millisecond, we'd be caught in another shocking/dumping. The interesting part is that there was no “tell” or way for us to discern when we'd be grabbed the normal way or grabbed for the cutscene/button prompt combo. As we kept getting hammered this way, the demoer reassured that since this was halfway through the game, we just weren't as skilled a fighter yet. We think it's more because there's no discernible way to tell when we're about to walk right into a cheap shot by the Boss. Hopefully this is addressed in the next six weeks.

After making our way through the battle, we had five minutes to set charges and fight von Strucker again. The battle was slightly different, because now there were guards who fired at us from a distance. Taking him out began a quicktime event, where we jammed on whatever button showed up to slam von Strucker's own electro-charged limb into his own Hitler-loving face. “This is for Pearl Harbor!” we screamed to no one in particular, which was both embarrassing and factually incorrect. Still … it felt right.

Jun 15, 2011

After making our way through the battle, we had five minutes to set charges and fight von Strucker again. The battle was slightly different, because now there were guards who fired at us from a distance. Taking him out began a quicktime event, where we jammed on whatever button showed up to slam von Strucker's own electro-charged limb into his own Hitler-loving face. “This is for Pearl Harbor!” we screamed to no one in particular, which was both embarrassing and factually incorrect. Still … it felt right.

Jun 15, 2011