Captain America's combat system manages to outweigh it's other issues to provide a fairly fun experience.
The storyline to Cap's interactive adventure is dull at worst and throw away at best. Despite having only completed it a few days ago I could barely tell you much about it. While the main plot isn't all that great (Cap invades Hydra base, blows stuff up, the end) There are quite a lot of background journals and film reels to find which were far more interesting explaining Dr. Zola's research or the history of the castle and it's former owner.
Where plot devices fail, the gameplay is otherwise excellent for the most part. Combat against Hydra is where Batman's biggest influence comes in. Captain America can build up some fantastic combos delivering punches, kicks and shield bashes thrown in with dodges and counters. Each move flows brilliantly into the next creating amazingly smooth and satisfying looking combat. There are many moves available for normal strikes which will vary depending on enemy and your position regarding them. Most of them look fantastically brutal with arm holds, leg breaks and metal into teeth. Many of the moves look so good they could have come straight from Arkham Asylum, because in many cases they are exact carbon copies.
Though lacking Batman's gadgets Cap's shield can obviously be thrown, there are two different ways to do that. First is the quick tap of R2 where Steve Rogers will just throw it out quickly in whatever direction he is facing. Second you can manually aim with the camera coming in close behind his shoulder which is more useful for long range hits on explosive barrels than actual combat.
Captain America has several abilities that can be learned and upgraded through the collection of intel. Problem is most of them aren't that interesting and are pretty redundant due to the effectiveness of the base combat system. There are some abilities though related to four bars at the bottom of the screen that fill when enemies die or hits are dodged that can activate some really cinematic one punch kills that look outstanding as well as a few other high powered attacks.
Platforming and exploration fill up the rest of the play time both quite lacking sadly. Platforming is almost fully automated into some minor quick time events of pressing x when you land to automatically jump to the next beam upon landing rather than wait a second and then do it (pointless much?). Exploration is a little better. Although the game is quite linear there are a couple of paths here and there off the beaten track to look around in and a ton of collectables to track down with Batman's vision, I mean Caps super soldier vision which makes them slightly more obvious.
Visuals are pretty run of the mill. Certain things like one hit critical strikes and some close up views look really marvelous but at other times the textures seem blurry and a lot of the art and enemies are fairly uninspiring overall.
To sum up if you are a huge Marvel fan like myself you will certainly enjoy Captain America: Super Soldier. Brutal combat and silly events will make you feel just like a super hero, it's just a shame Next Level Games didn't take a few more risks here and there to make an ok game super.
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+ Excellent and brutal combat system.
+ Tons of collectables.
+ Uses a lot of ideas from Batman Arkham Asylum.
- Uses a lot of ideas from Batman Arkham Asylum.
- Storyline leaves a lot to be desired.
- Platforming is uninspiring.