Green Lantern (PS3/X360, 2011)

When a superhero movie get's adapted to being a video game, it is very rarely anything but a train wreck. There have been exceptions, like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which surpassed the movie (very easily) and ended up being a chaotic action fest. Green Lantern walks a thin line between good adaptation and bad adaptation.

First off, it's a knock off of God of War. If you're gonna steal, why not steal from the best right? However on the other hand, it's more of a shitty God of War game than it is a Green Lantern game. You'll notice early on that Hal Jordan is unable to fly in this game, unless it is to quickly get to the next part of the level when you stand on a specific symbol and press a button. In the place of flight, however he is able to fight with green swords and hammers. As with most God of War knockoffs, there are quick time events, where you are supposed to quickly press a specific button in order to advance a predetermined event. This isn't so bad, however, it tends to be used only for generic battles with enemies you could really beat without the event. Never do you really do anything exciting in these events.

Best looking screen shot I could find in the Green Lantern game.

Unfortunately, when you copy a game, you get compared to the copied game. God of War is one of my all time favorites, so this isn't really a fair fight. Going forward I'll stop the comparisons. Green Lantern is undeniably fun, though perhaps way too easy. My friend and I played through the hardest difficulty in approximately 7 hours, at max, with no struggle. Still I must give credit to a legitimate beat 'em up game having couch coop built in. I honestly wonder where they got the idea to put it in, as the coop partner is Sinestro, who keeps radioing you and telling you what to do. Meanwhile he's beside me firing a gatling gun at the enemies around me. This brings me to the best part of the game.

While I can't give this game many points for originality, I have to commend it for it's 'constructs'. Constructs are essentially special Green Lantern created devices that you build to help with combat. You can launch a jet at your enemies, you can build a giant mech around you and stomp on everything in site, or you can have a rocket firing, auto targeting, destruction raining backpack. These tend to break up the tedium. 

The graphics are pretty lackluster in this one. No one should be surprised by this though. It's a cheap movie tie in and that usually coincides with terrible graphics. Still, that's not a good excuse.

Overall, this game is functional, occasionally fun and offers a decent and short couch coop experience. However, in this day and age, with all of the great games floating around, it's hard to recommend this game. I leave you with this sentiment. Do not play this game, unless you love Green Lantern, and really know for sure that beating up a bunch of crappy robots in an unimportant story will bring you joy.