I’ve spent a lot of this week looking at nearly all the games with the words “Captain America” in the title, so now that I’ve looked at each game individually, let’s rank the games starring the Star Spangled Avenger from worst to best.

8) CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE AVENGERS (GAME BOY)

The first handheld outing for Captain America ends up being the worst game featuring the hero. Mindscape tried to emulate the beat-em-up style action from the arcade game, but the product ended up being even more difficult than the game they also produced…

7) CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE AVENGERS (SNES)

…on the SNES. While both looking and sounding better than its cousin on the Sega Genesis, Captain America and The Avengers on the SNES proves that looks aren’t everything. Loose control and an insurmountable difficulty make this port of a really fun arcade game best forgotten.

6) CAPTAIN AMERICA: SUPER SOLDIER (NINTENDO 3DS)

Super Soldier on the Wii is an okay game with a really fun shield mechanic built specially around the Wii-Remote controller. Though this game shares the same DNA as the Wii game, the lack of the remote controller forced High Voltage software to allocate the best thing about that game awkwardly to the touch screen. This not only makes the game less fun, but unneccessarily challenging in other sections. For some Captain America action on the 3DS, you should look to…

5) CAPTAIN AMERICA: SUPER SOLDIER (NINTENDO DS)

Though not an outstanding game that will change your world, Captain America: Super Soldier on the DS is a solid 2.5-D action game starring the character. Fans of the character will also be able to play with a far greater choice of costumes than any other Captain America game to date, including the fan favorite Bucky cap suit.

4) CAPTAIN AMERICA: SUPER SOLDIER (Wii)

If you can get past the horendous art style and the bland combat, you’ll find that the Wii version of Super Soldier has the most fun shield mechanics in Captain America game history. Pointing to where you want the shield to go and loosening it, or reflecting back bullets at an unsuspecting goose-stepper is what playing a Captain America game is all about. If ever there was a game that truly earned the “wield the shield” tagline, it’s this one. Had the combat been and art direction been rethought out, this game may have ranked higher, or perhaps even made it to number one.

3) CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE AVENGERS (NES)

Proving that Data East should have handled every single Captain America game when they had the license in their grasp, the NES conversion of Captain America and The Avengers is a pretty interesting side-scrolling action game that cleverly borrows its structure from another arcade port, Bionic Commando. If not for the two track music score and the repetitive level design, this game probably would’ve been considered a minor classic, but nonetheless is a fun NES game that is worth checking out if you can get your hands on it.

2) CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE AVENGERS (SEGA GENESIS)

As a kid, I always wanted a Sega Genesis, in part due to Sega’s slick “blast processing” marketing campaign and the Sonic the Hedgehog character. As an adult of age 30, I’m glad that I grew up with a Super Nintendo, as I find it hard to stomach the bland colors and majority of music tracks in games on the system. There do exist the rare exceptions, however, and Captain America and the Avengers on the Sega Genesis is one of them. This game is leaps and bounds above the SNES game quality wise, and is a exceptionally fun beat-em-up featuring Captain America, that gets only better when you ASSEMBLE (see what I did there?) a friend. If you only grew up with the SNES game, don’t let that prevent you from giving this game a shot.

1) CAPTAIN AMERICA: SUPER SOLDIER (PS3/XBOX 360)

If ever a design document was drawn up about how to make a Captain America game, this game would be a part of the package. Next Level Games created the best Captain America game to date, emulating perfectly the feel of Captain America’s fighting style and how he incorporates his own physical prowess with his trademark shield. This game lacks in other areas, namely platforming and exploration, but the excellent combat design overshadows many of the titles weak spots. I really wish this company would get another chance to make a Captain America game, with this as a spring board, it could be the next “Arkham.”