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They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but in this case, it’s paved with quick‑time events and awkward platforming. Step back into 2010, when grim determination, button mashing, and a suspicious amount of artistic license gave us Dante’s Inferno on the PS3 and Xbox 360, the game adaptation no one asked for but we secretly loved anyway.

Joining Chris this time is Adam Williamson. You know, that guy who’s somehow managed to pop up in both past and future episodes of Play Comics. It’s like he’s got his own metaphysical time loop going, except with fewer torturous souls and more witty banter.

So grab your favorite medieval poetry anthology (or just pretend you’ve read it. No judgment), crank up the over‑the‑top orchestral soundtrack, and prepare to descend through nine circles of beautifully rendered weirdness. Let’s find out how a centuries‑old Italian masterpiece got a glow‑up full of demons, guilt, and surprisingly good level design.Continue Reading

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Look,  We’ve seen a lot of comic-based video games in my time, but when a mafia hitman gets murder powers from an eldritch shadow monster so he can take vengeance on, well, everybody, you know we’ve entered elite storytelling territory. The Darkness isn’t here to make you feel good about humanity. It’s here to make you ask if you’d trade your soul for a pair of talking demon heads who love street lamps way too much.

This week, we’re diving into The Darkness on PS3 and Xbox 360, that moody, gritty, and surprisingly heartfelt adaptation of the classic Top Cow comic series. And joining us for the chaos? None other than Sarah of Mars. Yes, that Mars. Because let’s be real: if you’re dealing with an ancient, malevolent cosmic force, you might as well bring in someone from a planet that already knows about hostile takeovers of a planetary variety.

So get comfy (preferably not in the subway tunnels of New York with a swarm of writhing demons), because we’re unpacking love, loss, corruption, and whatever dark surprises the game decided to throw at us just for kicks. Oh, and if your shadow starts talking back… maybe turn off the console.Continue Reading

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This week on play comics we ask ourselves what happens if you you can’t decide what you want to make a game about. Should you just give up? Should you really dig into your soul and decide what you’re super passionate about? Should you look and see if there’s any other related media coming out that you can tie this game into? Or should you act like you’re at the end of five different boxes of sugary cereal and justice dump the mall into a single bowl and see what happens?

There’s certainly one thing that I made my mind up about this one, and that’s how Perry Constantine from Superhero Cinephiles and Japan on Film needed to come by and help me make sure that I kept everything straight here. And it’s a good thing too because with more playable character than I want to count spread out across 7 consoles upon release and a few more as back catalogs were taken advantage of it would have been really easy to miss something here.

So was there an actual story for this game? Or was it just a giant excuse to squeeze in as many tidbits as they could so the other kids would think they’re cool? You’ll have to listen to find out!Continue Reading

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Listen up, mutation enthusiasts and multi-platform adventurers, because this week on Play Comics we’re strapping on our Kevlar suits and diving straight into the bewildering, beast-infested, cross-console chaos of X-Men: The Official Game! We’re talking about the 2006 game that launched on practically every system known to mankind (GBA, GameCube, Nintendo DS, PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360. Seriously, did they forget a platform?), which based the story nominally on the third X-Men film from Fox. You know, the one that showed us what happens when Professor Xavier and Magneto finally decided to outsource their beef settlement to a video game developer.

This particular romp through Marvel’s merry mutant universe was brought to you by the folks who looked at a film featuring Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman and thought, “What if we made this game SLIGHTLY different on each platform?” It’s like they were challenged to see just how elastic the definition of ‘the same game’ could be, and frankly, the results are beautifully inconsistent. The story was co-written by Chris Claremont (yes, THAT Chris Claremont) and Zak Penn, and it featured voice acting from the actual film cast, which means you got Hugh Jackman’s growl in your living room, your handheld, and probably also your neighbors’ living rooms at 2 AM.

Joining us to make sense of this portable and stationary pandemonium is none other than Alex Zalben from Comic Book Club, a weekly live talk show about comics that’s been running since 2006, performed at every major comic convention you can think of, written up in the New York Times more than once, and hosted literally hundreds of guests with more swagger than most podcasts muster in a lifetime. Alex is a writer, editor, and podcaster who knows his way around both four-color storytelling and video game adaptations, making him the perfect guide to help us determine whether this cross-generational, cross-console adventure managed to capture what makes the X-Men actually work, or if it just made us wish we could teleport away from our screens.

So sync up your Danger Room protocols, pick your favorite handheld or home console, and get ready for an episode that’s guaranteed to be more chaotic than a Sentinel factory explosion and infinitely more confusing than trying to figure out why THIS game exists on THAT console!Continue Reading

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It’s not often that I’ve seen a comic really follow along an entire family tree. Maybe a bit down the line but generation after generation after generation after….. well, you get the idea. Too bad I’m not a expert on the Jostar family legacy.

Good thing David Weinburger from Shonen Flop who thankfully is all over this one. Things will probably get a bit bizarre.Continue Reading

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This is what the rest of the Capcom fighters focusing on Marvel characters was all leading to. One of the greatest fighting games ever made. The reason to own a Dreamcast. The epic mashup of two legendary companies that has no reason to exist in this world but does anyway.

Listen in as Trent Seely from Continuity Nod comes to talk about what is possibly one of the best games every made. Period. End of discussion.Continue Reading

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Marvel vs Capcom. You knew this day was comping. An epic showdown between some of your favorite comic characters against some of your favorite video game characters. No reasons besides it’s cool. Do you really need one?

Listen in as John Horsley from Spoiler Country joins the show to talk about this wonderful gem of a game that we all owe so much to. And the PlayStation version that isn’t quite as good.Continue Reading