Ray Palmer’s one of those comic book heroes that sadly gets forgotten from time to time. After DC Comic’s Infinite Crisis and tie-ins he really hasn’t been too prominent in the DC Universe. Thankfully, Arrow‘s giving him his just desserts and with his new-found popularity, there’s no reason why he couldn’t helm his own comic book and video game.
As a comic book enthusiast and a video gamer, I feel that we need more comic book game tie ins, so why not chose some characters with popularity on the rise? Look at 2013’s Deadpool. In spite of everything about it, I had a blast playing it and I’m pretty sure I’d have a blast playing an Atom game.
Rocksteady would probably be my developer of choice since they have amazed the gaming community with their near perfect representation of Batman. They could place the game at the school where Ray Palmer currently holds tenure, Pace University in Ivy Town. He would’ve just used the dwarf star to create the suit that allows him the ability to shrink when the school is attacked. He hears the commotion and hits his belt to shrink down, and save the school of course. People most likely laugh at the idea of being a miniature human fighting back to save the school, but I think it could work quite well. The Atom keeps his original density when he shrinks down in size which makes him extremely formidable in his diminished state. A part of a wall that a cockroach cannot break down would be swiftly bested by one swing from Palmer’s mighty hand. Cue Zelda secret found music.
Palmer would of course have absolutely no abilities to start out with, just because that is video game law. That doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to grow as a hero or grow his skills though. Through defeating insects, finding power ups, and doing research in the lab, Palmer would be able to upgrade his suit for more attacks making his life gauge longer. The power-ups could be extremely fun and useful; I’d love to be able to push the right bumper and grow really fast to punch a villain in the face and knock them out. That’d be amazing to animate and even more amazing to do.
I’d also like to see the miniaturized worlds that Palmer would navigate to save the school, who knows what type of microscopic entities he would encounter and have to defeat. I’m sure the artists at Rocksteady would love to play in that micro-universe for awhile. Redesigning The Atom’s rogue’s gallery and giving them that special twist they did in the Batman universe would be amazing as well. I wouldn’t mind putting the hurt on Chronos, Dwarfstar and the Bug-Eyed Bandit, for justice! It would also be nice to see these villains turned into badasses since they’re pretty much D-list villains.
The college would also have be epic in scope like how they made Arkham Asylum so massive, yet feel confined at the same time. They would have to make the game confined to that area, and allow the different schools on campus to be different levels with different enemies and power up perks. The physics department could give Palmer a hover perk should he find it in the school, and so on. This would add the perfect RPG elements that made the Arkham games fun to tinker around in. Another selling point in this for me would be use Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer’s voice, he plays the character on Arrow, and has had some experience doing video game voice overs from Ghosts and Superman Returns.
I think that this game could potentially be the shot in the arm for the lesser known heroes that would translate over to video games, especially since a bored Rocksteady staff could be working on it once Arkham Knight goes gold. I’m obviously not as creative as the developers at that studio, so sound off in the comments what villains or powers would want Ray Palmer to face or have, there’s no wrong answer here.