Spank The Monkey

High Moon Studios' upcoming Marvel game was revealed today. Surprisingly, this wasn't a proposed Avengers game, that was rumored to be. Instead, the studio has chosen a rather unfamiliar Marvel character to make a game on: Hit-Monkey.

A new game was teased by Marvel and High Moon Studios when they announced a partnership with Activision last week. With the earth-shattering success of the Avengers movie, many perceived this to be it's movie tie-in. How wrong they were....

As it turns out, the game called Hit-Monkey, was revealed in hush-hush manner but it got our attention. If your a Marvel Comic reader, you will remember this character from it's Deadpool series. This character was created barely two years ago and has already found it self in a game of its own. That's promotion for you, with a pinch of luck.

More about the macaque himself, he was created by Daniel Way in 2010 and first appeared in Marvel's uber-popular,  Deadpool series.  It might share it's name with another assassin - Hitman - but make no mistake, they are poles apart. While the latter is a skilled-stealthy-lone-quiet killer, the former is a loud mouthed-guns blazing maniac. So much for playing hitman attired as a monkey!

Hit-Monkey has an interesting history. A human assassin was on the run from others of his kind. Then, he found shelter with a 'polite' group of macaques. Knowing he would be found sooner or later, he decided to stay with them and train for the inevitable encounter. As so happens, while he spent days,months in training, a lone macaque watched him everyday, learning and honing the skills that he would later use to avenge the deaths of his fellow macaques and his unknown master, himself. Quite a tragic story for the character but what a fantastic story for a game!

Hit-Monkey, not being a famous character or a house-hold name was the prime reason for High Moon Studios to choose this specific character instead of the world renowned characters of the Avengers. Allowing them more creative control and freedom, this interesting game could very well turn out to be a surprise hit on the lines of the movie - The Avengers.

While GD was caught off guard by this announcement, we are now looking forward to San Diego's Comic-Con, where more news (and hopefully a teaser trailer) is promised by Marvel. It's genre, game-play mechanics, platform etc will also be interesting to look at. Be sure to tune in when we get more solid news on this.

With the creators of Transformers: War for Cybertron at its helm, will Hit-Monkey garner your attention? What direction would you like the developers to take with this game? Or are you already sold with the fact that it shares its name with the more popular assasisn - sort of? Shoot your comments below.