The canceled Midway superhero game that could have been
Posted: 2011-01-18 11:11am
The tl;dr version, before Midway got shitcanned thanks to incredible malmanagement, Midway had an open-world superhero game in the works that featured loads of customization and powers that grew as you use them, with a wide variety of methods for tackling a scenario depending on your playstyle preferences. Needless to say when Midway went under so did the game. The link below has a more actiony trailer if you don't want the lengthier walkthrough (which is much more interesting despite the quality of the video). Bungled company mismanagement is why we can't have nice things.
http://kotaku.com/5734122/see-midways-d ... it-spawned
http://kotaku.com/5734122/see-midways-d ... it-spawned
Before the collapse of video game publisher Midway, the company's Chicago studio was working on a game known simply as Hero, an ambitious open-world superhuman project that was ultimately killed. But like most superheroes, Hero may cheat death. [Updated!]
Based on newly released videos of the game, Midway's Hero looked similar in style to another super-powered game from the publisher, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. But the 15 minute walk-through of Hero's key features shows that this project was much more ambitious, letting players customize their superheroes with powers like super strength, invisibility, searing vision, electric shock attacks, super speed and the ability to summon a screen-clearing tornado.
Hero was essentially a third-person shooter with some cool mutant powers attached, gunplay mixed with mechanics we've seen in games like Sucker Punch's inFamous and Radical's Prototype.
The storyline for the game, according to the walk-through, involves a natural disaster that leaves thousands dead and a city in chaos. A private military group is installed to deal with the situation, which gets worse when the dead begin rising with special powers.
While it appears that Hero, as a Midway game, is dead—like similarly ambitious open world action games This Is Vegas and Necessary Force—the team behind it wants to resurrect that project in another form.
Phosphor Games, which is comprised of many former Midway staffers and aided in development of Kinect Adventures, appears to have two Hero-like concepts in the works.