Game:

Captain America and The Avengers (1991)

Duration: 5:32

114 views

2

Please pick the 720p60 or 1080p60 resolutions to play back in 60 frames per second. (Internet Explorer, surprisingly, appears to be the best browser for playback.)

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IEN-HGlR4423OakXOU0p81aF2gzB9Kb

Did we have enough shoot-em-up yet? No? Good! 'cause here's some more under the water! (Don't worry, the bulk of this level is beat-em-uppy!)

Y'know, I don't think I explained any controls or anything yet, so here goes. You can punch! And you can jump! If you punch while standing on an enemy you might pick them up and throw them which is a ohko! You can also do a short hop and attack which is a jump kick! This is your go-to attack for EVERYTHING. If you jump higher and attack you'll shoot a laser beam downwards if Vision or Iron Man, or.... do another type of jump kick as Cap or Hawkeye. You can also shoot your weapon of choice if you press both buttons at once, or shield if you hold attack for far too long so it is worthless. Also dashing by tapping twice does a slide attack. There you go! Jump kicks defeat all!

We fight Mandarin at the end here, and he's special in that his moment of invincibility after being hit is so short that you can perpetually lock him in jump kickery!
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Hey, there! This is a series that'll be featuring the Sega Genesis at 60 frames per second! Why? Well... have you ever watched an older game on YouTube and noticed the main character turn invisible when hit, or some other such nonsense? That's because some older games use some ridiculously high speed flicker effects to achieve those crazy hitflashes on bosses or that "ouch I'm hurt!" flicker! These are not displayed properly at 30 fps, but now that we're able to upload at 60 fps we can see all the special effects that older games would use! (They'll be smoother, too!)
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What happens when you take an Arcade Beat-em-up and pare it down by exactly 50% in quality to port it to the Sega Genesis? Captain America and The Avengers, is what! The animations are so very basic, the framerate HALVED, and the voice clips sound like somebody talking through a wartime radio! But, therein lies its charm! You'll remember how doofy Ultron's exchange is, you'll remember the way you can defeat any enemy with a jump kick, you'll remember how totally wonktastic this thing is! ...or maybe not~ It's a pretty basic game, really. They did do their best to make it as close to the arcade in gameplay as possible, though, so I applaud them that!

Yes, this game appears to run at 30 fps. Since it's difficult to determine if any sections are in 60 fps or not, I still uploaded it in 60 fps and will title it as such.

And yeah, you can beat any boss by dropkicking them, pausing a moment to wait for the invincibility to pass, then doing so again. We beat many a boss this way. I think some never managed to get their attacks off!

In the end, this is a fairly OK beat-em-up to play in on a rainy day when you are in a "blahrgy" mood. That's how I peg it! ...It's also a shoot-em-up at times, too. For some reason.
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Some additional notes for those technically inclined:

This was captured from an original Sega Genesis system via composite output along with stereo sound to get as authentic a recording as possible. The Genesis used is one of the "good" models with proper sound and video output. Genesis can also output an RGB signal which is clearer, but I vetoed the idea because it breaks the dithering effect (color blending and transparencies) as seen here:
http://retro-sanctuary.com/comparisons%20-%20differing.html
Also, the vast majority of people could not use the RGB signal even if they wanted to, so the experience they remember would be the composite signal as shown in this video.

There are a couple things to note about the quality of the video, however. Sega Genesis has a very dirty video signal that often "breaks" attempts to capture it with a capture device. The capture device I use is considered one of the most capable when it comes to older systems, but the Genesis' video signal still introduces some inconsistencies. These usually manifest where there are extremely thin lines in game, mostly the text, and in some other places as well. As a whole, it is more than manageable, but it is worth noting.

Also, the original sega genesis resolution is, in essence, 240p at 60 frames per second. To take advantage of YouTube's higher bitrate offerings and to enable 60 fps I need to upscale that resolution to 1080p. There is also a step of video deinterlacing before that to create crisp video. That is a significant amount of video processing to the image, so I want to note that here as well.