Game Reviews

Super Action Hero

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| Super Action Hero
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Super Action Hero
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| Super Action Hero

Action films are great. Who doesn't enjoy a slice of over-the-top carnage on a Friday night? Similarly enjoyable are superhero films, which take your archetypal action hero and amplifies their ass-whupping potential to all new levels.

But what we have here, dear Pocket Gamer reader, is a Super Action Hero. This one resembles the sort of BIFF-BANG-POW super-powered stick man you would have found yourself doodling as a ten-year-old. While not quite at Superman levels of potency, our hero is able to leap tall people in a double jump, and can move faster than a quite-fast thing. Using this modest skill set, along with a barrage of nifty combo attacks and limited flight, you're tasked with scrapping your way through ten heroic endeavours.

These range from completing a 100-yard sprint – incorporating a number of death defying leaps and requiring the disposal of several hostile goons along the way – to the collection of ten stars positioned around the level (so that a kitten can explore time, of course). Korean mobile gaming giant Com2us has injected a healthy degree of eastern zaniness into proceedings, which really adds to the game's character and appeal.

The title screen sets the tone for the whole game, encouraging you to "Insert Coin" – a playful nod to the sort of intuitive, addictive arcade games of yesteryear that Super Action Hero aspires to. It sets its stall out accordingly. Big bold graphics? Check. Simple controls? Check. Fast-paced gameplay? Check. All that's missing from the classic arcade experience is the fag-burned cabinets and the group of kids pouring bags of 2ps into the penny falls.

Play is controlled predominantly through the thumbstick, with 'left' and 'right' sending the protagonist in the appropriate direction, and a nudge of 'up' propelling you skywards. A further tap of any direction whilst airborne will see you jetting off in that direction, whilst pressing the thumbstick in initiates an attack. A tap of '*' kicks off a temporary Hero Mode, which briefly adds power and zip to your blows. By following an attack immediately with further directional pushes you can instigate a number of combos – a string of unblockable hits – which are key to beating the surprisingly tough thugs on each level.

Indeed, the demanding combat contributes to a relatively high difficulty level, and means that we would hesitate to recommend Super Action Hero unreservedly to casual players. Continuing its evident homage to arcade games of the past, you will find that repeated retries of certain tasks are necessary in order to progress.

Unfortunately, part of this trickiness is also due to the occasionally clunky mechanics and controls that tend to break down when things get frenetic. While for the most part smooth and responsive, we did find that often our hero would fail to respond to our commands in the lightening quick manner that the game demands. This led to a fair amount of frustration and the urge to launch our N73 through the nearest window.

But tellingly, we always went back for another go. The beautiful hand-drawn artistic style coupled with a flexible, satisfying combat system kept us interested in spite of such niggles.

Further motivation comes from the potential unlocking of 32 masks which imbue our hero with special attributes, as well as the potential to compare your best scores with other players via the game's network options. Beating your own high-score will take up plenty of your time, however, as you try to eke out another yard of progress or formulate a more effective fighting strategy.

With a strong visual style and a mostly polished, flowing combat system, Super Action Hero comes highly recommended. Occasional breakdowns in control response and a relatively steep difficulty curve mean that it's not for everyone, but anyone with sufficient patience and nimbleness of thumb owes it to themselves to give this great experience a try.

Super Action Hero

Slick, stylish and challenging – a truly heroic effort
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.