Man MarvelMarvel LegoMarvel SuperheroesAvengers LegosSuperhero LegoLego Batman 3Lego Marvel Super HeroesMan IronmanIronman LegoForwardLego Iron Man...I think I want this...for the kids. I may even let them play with it.It opens in iconic fashion, with a beginning stripped right out of “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Except for that part where LEGO Thor picks up a ... pig. All at once, it’s a boatload of Avengers familiarity blended with a dollop of video game humor. And that’s the beauty of LEGO’s latest — and largest — title, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. Humor and hijinx reign in a vast and enjoyable retelling of everything you know about Marvel, playing out in a balanced game that adult superhero fans and children alike can enjoy. It’s a decidedly old-school experience, as children’s games go. In an era when kids games increasingly rely on real-life props (see: the toys of Skylanders and Disney’s Infinity and LEGO’s own Dimensions line), this game is played purely like a video game, driven by its onscreen combat and puzzles.
It relies on its narrative threads and cutscenes to hold children’s attention, to lead them to ignore the fact that, on some levels, the gameplay is starting to show its age. But oh, the narrative is fantastic. The game attempts to collect much of the Phase 2 Marvel films, starting with that “Age of Ultron” opening and including plenty of pieces of “Captain America: Winter Soldier” and “Iron Man 3.” It’s heavily Avengers-centric, as you’d expect given the title, although that leaves out “Guardians of the Galaxy” and provides “Ant-Man” only in PlayStation-specific DLC. But the recreated scenes are well-done, oozing a mix of LEGO charm and Marvel magic. There’s nothing quite like that early Ultron moment where all the Avengers come into one frame, leaping forward to take on Hydra. Smaller scenes, such as Hawkeye’s inability to spot the super-speedy Quicksilver in a forest, are perfectly recreated with these blocky LEGO characters, audio stripped right from the films leading you to reminisce and laugh all at once.
LEGO tells its narrative out-of-order. Marvel’s films have long lined up nicely, but that doesn’t stop things from getting mixed around here, with Ultron leading things, even if it does feel like the latest marquee film. The jumpiness permits the insertion of other areas right out of the minds of developer TT Games, opens for reasons to insert other random characters. Iron Man likes what he sees in LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. There are a slew of Marvel stars to be unlocked past the avenging crew, and several open-world areas to explore. These areas, which include a fabulously recreated LEGO New York City, aren’t quite as captivating as the movie areas, but they do help beef up gameplay, and it’s solid fun to traverse New York. Still, it’s the cutscenes that truly hold your attention, even when the gameplay does not. You know the LEGO gameplay template by now, and it doesn’t change here: You go from light combat to simple puzzle. The heroes operate in pairs, and developer TT Games does make light attempts to spice things up, with several hero-specific area-effect battling combos, including that classic move where Thor slams Mjolnir into Captain America’s shield.
These are fun to see, and, as you unlock more heroes, it becomes a nice little experiment for parents and kids alike to see which pairings can yield interesting blends of moves. The puzzles stay simplistic, and, generally, you can solve them by trying to hit enough stuff. That’s as it should be, too: This is a children’s game first and foremost, and the ease of the puzzles lets adults back off on these sections, leaving it to children to solve them first. If your child can’t solve the area or grows frustrated, you can easily step in and figure things out. It’s a tried-and-true formula that’s showing its age overall and will soon be in need of an overhaul, especially in this era. LEGO itself seems to realize that, too, and it’s laid a new template down for all its titles with last year’s Dimensions title. But for at least one more game, old-school is OK. Yes, the Avengers always find a way to save the day.LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Mighty Micros: Wolverine vs. Available for Click & Collect
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Civil War II Is Finally Over, and We All Lost12/29/16 11:03amMere days before 2016 comes to a close, Marvel’s “summer” event series Civil War II has released its last issue. But Civil War II wasn’t going to go down without at least adding a few more twists to the future of the Marvel Universe... and oh boy, did it add some.Skip That Trip to Hong Kong and Watch This POV Video of Disney's Iron Man Experience Ride12/27/16 10:00amDisney’s first Iron Man ride won’t officially open until early in the new year, but a few lucky riders have already been on it, and they brought back some a truly fun video of it in action. It’s the next best thing to flying to Hong Kong, getting a hotel, going to the park, and waiting in line for several hours.There Are 46 Motors Powering 567 Parts in This Amazing Life-size Iron Man Armor12/20/16 11:20am Companies like Hot Toys are known for their incredibly realistic action figures, but you can only pack so much detail into a toy that’s 12-inches tall.
So a Chinese company called The Toys Asia has taken the concept of an action figure to a whole new level with a life-size, fully-animated version of Iron Man’s armor.Watch Iron Man and the Hulk Beat the Crap Out of Each Other In This Brutal Fan Film12/05/16 3:45pm Age of Ultron’s heavily touted Hulk vs. Hulkbuster fight was rather spectacular—and while this fan film might not have been made with the splashy budget of a Hollywood action movie, it certainly matches AoU in the beatdown department.Jeff Bridges Explains How He Helped Rework the First Iron Man12/01/16 7:45pmIf you think about it, we owe Jeff Bridges a lot. Without him we wouldn’t have the Dude, Kevin Flynn, Starman, or dozens of other pop culture icons. What you didn’t know, though, is that in a roundabout way, we may also have him to thank for a small piece of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Iron Man's Latest Suit of Armor Makes for an Amazing Action Figure11/24/16 5:00pmTony Stark got an angular, updated look when Invincible Iron Man kicked off the “All-New, All-Different” Marvel universe last year—and while it looks pretty neat in the pages of the comics
, it looks even better as an action figure.Civil War II's Biggest Brawl Might Be Over Before It Even Started11/24/16 2:00pmThere might be Team Tony and Team Carol, and there might even have been distractions like Hawkeye vs. Bruce Banner, but we’ve known from the get go that Civil War II would all boil down to one almighty clash: Iron Man vs. Captain Marvel. That major scrap might already be over though, if the latest issue is anything to…Artist Draws New Variant Invincible Iron Man Art to Replace Controversial Pulled Cover11/09/16 11:30amLast month, Marvel Comics came under fire for a variant cover for the debut issue of Riri Williams in Invicible Iron Man by J. Scott Campbell, one decried for heavily sexualizing the 15-year-old hero. The company rapidly pulled the cover from solicits with no replacement—but Campbell drew a new cover that will now…Iron Man Will Battle Giant Hydra Robots In Marvel's First Disneyland Attraction11/08/16 1:15pm He’ll be doing so in Hong Kong, of course, because that’s where Marvel’s first ride for a Disney park is being built.
After hearing about it for ages, we finally have a good look at the Iron Man Experience—and it’s basically Star Tours but... well, Stark Tours.This Marching Band's Elaborate Halftime Show Will Make You a Comic Book Fan11/07/16 2:00pm Do the students at Ohio State University who play in the marching band actually go to class? Or do any studying? Because watching this amazing college football halftime show tribute to comic book heroes makes you assume the band must have to practice 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to achieve this kind of insane…We've Got the Biggest Clue Yet About What Happens to Tony Stark After Civil War II10/19/16 10:00amTony Stark’s future in the Marvel Universe has been thrown into doubt ever since the start of Civil War II—and made even more doubtful when we learned that he would be replaced as Iron Man by not one, but two different characters. One of those Iron Men debuted today in Infamous Iron Man, giving us a major hint about…Gaze Into the Eyes of Manga Iron Man10/13/16 3:00pmOh my, Mr. Downey Jr.
What big eyes you have.Samurai Iron Man Is Ridiculously Cool9/23/16 1:30pmRemember those Samurai-style Star Wars toys? Well, Bandai has also kicked off a Marvel-themed version, and the results are just as awesome.Nerdy Porch Light Covers Let Everyone Know Your Home Is a Safe Place For Geeks9/15/16 2:20pmThey’re supposed to be an alternative to pumpkins and skeletons for decorating your home come Halloween, but these porch light covers, featuring Iron Man, Darth Vader, and Stormtrooper masks, can just be left up all year round as a way to let the neighborhood know your house is a safe place for nerdy types.Even Captain America and Iron Man Would Agree the Civil War Blu-Ray Is a Must-Own9/13/16 11:25amHere’s the weird thing about an already great movie like Captain America: Civil War. It’s such a big hit that it doesn’t have to be a good Blu-ray. It could be the movie on a disc in a paper slipcover and it would sell like crazy. But thankfully, Marvel decided to pack the release with lots of solid, additional…
Why Iron Man Wasn't at War Machine's Funeral9/08/16 2:30pmMarvel’s latest hero-vs.-hero event began with the death of James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine during a battle against Thanos. But Tony Stark’s life has been falling apart for a while, even before Civil War II started. This week, the genius inventor grapples with the loss of his comrade-in-armor.Lego Iron Man and Captain America Have an Action-Packed Civil War Showdown 9/07/16 6:30pmThe live-action battle between Iron Man and Captain America was pretty damn good. That might lead you to believe its Lego counterpart couldn’t quite live up to it, but as this shockingly good video shows, you’d be wrong.The Man Behind CW's DC TV Universe Once Pitched Marvel a Much Darker Iron Man Movie9/07/16 5:00pmEight years after its release, Iron Man is still very much the defining movie of Marvel’s cinematic universe, representing everything Marvel stands for with its approach to superhero movies. But if Greg Berlanti, the man behind the Arrow, Flash, Supergirl TV series and more had had his way, it would’ve been quite…