Hi guys... been forever ... Archer/HARD Corps Query

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Oxmyx
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Hi guys... been forever ... Archer/HARD Corps Query

Post by Oxmyx »

Playing a lot of Valiant catchup today on this board, because I've pretty much forgotten that comics even existed for the last 6 months, and forgotten about Valiant for a little longer

But I was talking to a coworker/friend about old classic Nintendo games from when we were kids...and I mentioned how much I loved the old Nintendo GI Joe game...and how I still think it was an absolutely awesome they had the game mechanic where the player could "toggle" between their 3 characters at any given time. Although the game characters certainly didn't have different skills per se, they certainly had different power levels. For instance, Character A has a cool weapon but a crappy punch, Character B has the opposite.

(Anybody else remember that game?)

I was ruminating how that's something I don't really see in superhero media, toggling entirely seperate characters with one point in time and space. Sure, I've seen characters "steal" powers or "absorb" powers from other characters, but basically never "become" a new hero with a new skill set.

Then it occurred to me. That isn't EXACTLY what Archer and the HARD Corps did, but it was pretty damn close. And in the VEI comics the Green Lamas I think achieved about the same ability to "download" skills.

Comments?
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grendeljd
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Re: Hi guys... been forever ... Archer/HARD Corps Query

Post by grendeljd »

I never played that GI Joe game back in the day… sounds like it would be a fun one to track down and mess with though!

Grand Theft Auto V comes to mind as a modern game that did an incredibly good job of having three inter-swappable characters with unique abilities to play throughout the story campaign. And they were very well integrated, especially when you needed to swap mid-story missions to use a particular skill set to get through the missions.

Something like that would be quite a great game mechanic for a good superhero game too. The closest thing that comes to mind is the PS2 era Xmen Legends games from about 15-20 years ago or so.
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Ryan
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Re: Hi guys... been forever ... Archer/HARD Corps Query

Post by Ryan »

I think HARD Corps style downloading different powers is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but is hard to actually pull off. The best team superhero books I've read are with heroes that have distinctive powers and they use them to complement each other. Also their power is usually an integral part of their character/personality (like the X-Men).

The swappable powers and matching jumpsuits made them seem bland. Definitely works in video games though.

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Ryan
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Re: Hi guys... been forever ... Archer/HARD Corps Query

Post by Ryan »

Just brainstorming here, what if they could only load out one power at the base before a mission? So they'd be stuck with that one power for the entire mission, it would require more planning and strategizing.

I appreciate that HARD Corps was trying a novel approach to a superhero team, I just think it suffers from too much cartoon thinking. One of the great things about pre-Unity was that everything felt very well thought out and logic was applied in a more rigorous way. Post-Unity gets more and more cartoon logic and it gets to where you can only enjoy it if you don't apply adult logic to it, like an episode of GI Joe.


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