Captain America: Super Soldier is a case of me picking out a licensed game to fill the time, as well as have more opportunities to ponder on what exactly could be done to improve upon it if given more time and/or budget. Catching my eye due to being developed by Next Level Games, a company I'm familiar with due to their connection with Nintendo for the Mario Striker series, as well as Wii Punch-Out, I decided to see if it was available to play on RPCS3, and sure enough it was, and I even looked up that it can also be played on Xenia, the 360 emulator. Though the score is rather middling, I do want to say that I had a pretty comfortable time overall, and it was even a bit of fun on occasion, so nice to see the studio's knack of entertainment can still shine through.

While tied to the MCU film and using some of the actors that appear from it, it's one of those licensed games that does its own thing, being an interlude of sorts within that movie's plot. It also means that, even if you haven't seen the film (somewhat of a case for me, I've seen it but it's been years), you're not entirely lost due to the separation of it. Hell, this also means that it's fair game to use other villains from the comic book and not settle on only Red Skull, since Armin Zola (though he spends almost all his time in human form), Iron Cross, Viper under her Madame Hydra moniker, and even Baron Strucker - well before his inclusion to the movieverse - are here and accounted for. The actual storytelling is pretty barebones, utilizing elements of the Master Man project, as well as incorporating the Invaders team into the mix, but it's fine. I'd rather this than try to adhere to the movie's plot, which if I recall doesn't really lend itself well to adapting into a full-on game.

Regarding the presentation overall, it's passable. There's some nice lighting and the art decor and color tone can be pretty damn good, but the actual texture work is pretty muddled, but this could just be the PS3 version since the 360 looks a little better in that regard. Since I'm using RPCS3, I should mention that there's some weird block artifacting on some of the models, which isn't the case on real hardware and am actually unsure if this also occurs on Xenia, same with how shadows are rendered for some objects. Something I know is on real hardware though, is how the framerate operates. See, this can hit and keep a steady 60fps, but it's only in certain areas, since most of the time it's gonna dip and keep at a steady 40 or so. The reason I know this is hardware related, is cause not only can my PC run other games at 60, be it natively or configured to do so like with Drakengard 3 or SOTC, but checking out longplays of both this version, as well as the Xbox 360 counterpart has shown me the same decline and increase in the same areas I analyzed it on. Now, this isn't jarring or hurtful enough to mess with my gamesense, but it is something to mention regardless.

With gameplay, I'm gonna start with the combat. Even if you didn't know about it, you can definitely feel like someone on the team was doing some type of work from before, since each stealth kill in this game is framed as if it's a TKO for Wii Punch-Out. Stealth isn't at all a factor, but when you are able to activate this, it's pretty fun to see. The actual meat is... well it's just the Batman Arkham structure, even right down to having a Detective Mode a la "Tactical Sense". I'll be upfront and say I'm gonna be making comparisons between it and Asylum - not City though, this came out a bit before that - to emphasize what it does to try and stand out, and what it fumbles over. Continuing on with the combat, moving Steve Rogers around is a bit stiff. He's not as freeforming and mobile as Bruce Wayne could be, meaning you're actually gonna have to move to enemies with dodges or quick runs instead of pressing the attack button to quickly launch him over to the other side. Comparatively, his toolset is also quite small, bombs being contextual based as well as the shield being used either as a deflection/blocking or throwing tool, or via the game's upgrade system used as a power move... which I never used since not only do they need time to charge up which you will uncommonly have the time to fill, but also cause they're not that practical to begin with outside of maybe the one that lets you bash the ground to create a shockwave. Don't misunderstand me though, the combat loop does work, and quite well at that after going through the whole game on Hard. Punches and dodges activate when they feel like they should, while I feel it could've been better the sound design as-is works nicely and delivers some nice oomph, and the challenge factor is pretty OK thanks to enemy encounters usually containing one to two different types to deal with. The other upgrade you can get is a counter move, which is something that probably should've been available by default, but whatever, it works and can be upgraded to be even more viable. There's a meter at the bottom right that increases from perfect timing gymnastics (more on this in a bit), and this allows you to individually target mooks with the shield to knock em down flat, and much like Asylum, allow you to use takedowns that also have the benefit of healing you, these three being:

- Crippling Strike, which deals an insta-kill upon any targeted enemy
- Weaponize, where you use an enemy's weapon either against themself or their comrades - and also being the only one I got satisfying footage for
- and finally Super Soldier, which is basically a glorified Berserk powerup where any and all enemy can be taken down with just a single blow

If there's any qualms I have, it's from how the sense of challenge never really increases. Like, I died sure, and there can be some amount of it as mentioned before, but even then most of the time it was cause I was making a stupid mistake rather than the game having the upper hand. Asylum had this too, but in that game enemies go down with ease, here they tend to stick up a little longer unless you make sure to knock them down when needed. Feel like the way these encounters are played out could've been given more leeway and capability of being in trouble, as well as doing quick thinking, to have the repetition not set in so often. A flaw this and Asylum share wholeheartedly, funnily enough, are crappy boss fights, though this time isn't cause it uses the same idea every time, and more that the actual fights don't feel climactic enough to begin with. It really does cross the threshold into playing out like a Rock Em Sock Em Robot session, having to get hits in, bob out, rinse and repeat until the fight's won. Wack all around, unfortunately.

Outside of combat, you have the whole Bavarian castle grounds, as well as some areas outside of it, to go through. It attempts what Asylum does and be a linear-focused adventure, while obtaining some amount of freedom and openness to do side stuff. However, unlike Asylum where it eerily feels like a Metroidvania title, this one's very much focused on that linear experience. It works, but considering how the plot functions, there could've been some opportunity to do branching pathways, instead of just alluding to the idea yet never committing to it. In fact, some of my favorite moments were going off the beaten path and instead do some exploring, usually finding some nice collectibles as a result. There's a number of those, but I'm gonna mention three important ones - film reels that highlight the different people and technologies within the faction, items that fill out Zemo's Diary entries, and enemy schematics that give you a slight edge when fighting them - since questionably enough, they're marked at all times, no Hydra map needed, which really just heightens the feeling that they're just a checklist item and nothing else. Something that keeps it entertaining though, is the gymnastics you can do in order to reach places. While it's a bummer to see it obviously contextualized via "press the button at the right time!", I gotta admit seeing Cap do all this flippy shit and keeping that flow up is pretty sick. I would definitely welcome more opportunities to do this more freely, but the ones that are available are at least pleasing enough to do (forgive me for dumb mistakes on this clip, it's not this rigid). Again, could've used more of this in order to help ease out the combat like how the stealth elements in Asylum were used to pace out that game's brawls, but what's here is well and adequate.

That's the biggest summation of CASS: well and adequate. I really can't shake the feeling this could've been decent, maybe even good, if Next Level were able to build upon all these cool ideas instead of having the execution be lukewarm. It would've been one of very few superhero games that isn't a Batman or Spider-Man IP to be good, but alas that just wasn't meant to be. It only takes about 5 or so hours to complete, which is fine enough, and like I said way earlier this could serve as an OK way to pass the time. I dunno how much it costed back in the day, but spending the time to set up RPCS3 or Xenia to spend an afternoon or so away, maybe even more if I want to bother with those extra challenges the game has in the main menu? Sure, why not!

As a sidenote, I'd like to mention that I cross-referenced this, Mario Strikers Charged's, and Wii Punch-Out's credit pages thanks to MobyGames to see if there were any shared connection, and as it turns out there were a couple of people shared between one or both games onto this one, so that's cool to see.

Wow, this was way more fun than I expected. Captain America doesn't really lend himself to video games considering that he doesn't typically use any guns. So the combat had to be focused almost entirely around punches, kicks and shield bashes/throws. Somehow the developers made it feel natural and extremely cinematic, and when you took on 10 Hydra agents at once you definitely feel like a bad-ass when they were all knocked out and none of them even laid a hand on you. I also really liked the Weird War II setting, and the Chris Evans voice acting was top notch throughout. Highly recommended for Marvel fans or if you just want to beat down some bad guys for a few hours.