Tom Stone explains why Lego Marvel’s Avengers is worth buyingThe second Lego Marvel game is based on the movies more than the comics, but does that make for a better game? There has, as you may have noticed, been a lot of Lego games in the last few years. And although some have barely scraped along we can honestly say that we’ve enjoyed them all. Usually it’s the licence that’s made the most difference to their quality, with movies such as Pirates Of The Caribbean and Jurassic World barely fitting the template started by the Star Wars games. Superheroes should, and have in the past, worked perfectly, but not this time… Lego Marvel Super Heroes was released in 2013, and it remains probably our favourite of the Lego games. Last year’s Lego Dimensions was another good one, but as a toys-to-life game it only had three playable characters by default, whereas Marvel’s Avengers has over 200. But Dimensions compensated for this with more involved puzzles, the franchises’ best boss battles, and the developer’s obvious thrill at being able to play with so many iconic franchises at once.
Given the many obscure references we’re sure the team behind this new game are just as passionate about Marvel, but that only goes so far when working under weighty new restrictions. Unlike the first game, Marvel’s Avengers is based primarily on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not the comics in general. And that means no X-Men, no Fantastic Four, and – despite the recent deal with Sony Pictures – no Spider-Man. Weirdly there’s not even any Guardians of the Galaxy, with a post credits sequence instead implying that might be the basis for the next Marvel game after this. So what you get instead is lengthy recreations of the two Avengers movies and much shorter vignettes based on the two Captain America films, Iron Man 3, and Thor: The Dark World. An Ant-Man level is day one free DLC for the PlayStation 3 and 4, and there’s a character pack due for Captain America: Civil War later in the spring, but that’s it. Why some of the earlier films were missed out we don’t know, especially given the haphazard way the game goes about threading its narrative.
The game starts with the opening to Age of Ultron, then skips back to telling the entirety of Avengers Assemble, before going back to the second film and unlocking the other levels. Voice clips from the movies are used for most of the story elements, but, much like Lego Jurassic World, they sound like they’ve been recorded straight off the TV. So not only do you have to listen to the same muffled snippets again and again but developer TT Games has far less scope to record its own jokes and dialogue. We’re not sure if being based on the movies is something that was imposed by Marvel or if Warner Bros. just thought that was the best way to distinguish this from the last game, but it comes across as unnecessarily restrictive; especially given the lack of innovation in the gameplay. The simple puzzles and fixed camera level design are the same as any other Lego title, and the last game already featured most variations of superpowers. The only thing that’s really changed here is the combat system, and it’s done so for the worse.
With anyone but a super-strength character (Thor and above) it takes a tediously long time to beat up even the lowliest grunt. These atypically effective opponents often attack in swarms and yet many heroes don’t have a proper area attack to deal with crowds. Instead, what the game wants you to do is to initiate a single button QTE, whereupon you have to wait a couple of seconds while your hero goes through a canned animation routine to defeat the enemy. You get tired of this on the second or third go and quickly begin to wish you could just turn off the enemies – since you can’t die anyway – or just be the Hulk all the time. What saves the game from disaster is what has for a long time been the best bit of most of these Lego games: the open world environments. Although even here Marvel’s Avengers comes up short as its biggest one is just a slightly rejigged version of Manhattan from the last game. The flying controls when in the city have been greatly improved though, so that zooming about as Iron Man and the rest is now more of a pleasure than a pain.
There are a number of other smaller hubs based on things such as Hawkeye’s homestead and Asgard, and in all these you can pursue a wide range of simple fetch quests, races, and mini-games – as you try to unlock extra vehicles and characters. There are 100 heroes and villains that have never been in a Lego game before, and we confess we didn’t recognise half of them. However, we were cheered to see personal favourite Squirrel Girl given a surprising amount of exposure, as well as other fan favourites such as Ms. Marvel, Devil Dinosaur, and Fin Fang Foom. These non-movie characters are all good fun but they’re little more than icing on a disappointingly stale cake. The truth is this is not only a worse game than Marvel Super Heroes but it’s also not as worthy a tribute to the comics or the films. In Short: Focusing on the movies rather than the comics has seen Marvel go from inspiring the best Lego game to one of the worst. Pros: Lots of content and the open world Manhattan is a lot of fun to explore, especially with flying characters.
Some amusingly obscure cameos. Cons: Far too similar to Marvel Super Heroes, especially as almost all the differences are negative – especially the tedious new combat and limited pool of characters. Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox One, PC, 3DS, and PS Vita Release Date: 29th January 2016 Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on TwitterLEGO Marvel's Avengers / With the recent release of LEGO Dimensions, I wondered if we still need standalone LEGO games. After years of tie-ins for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and many more, Dimensions seemed like such a smart solution -- tiny, satisfying hub worlds for each franchise that deliver plenty of fan service without overstaying their welcome. Why return to the old format? After seeing LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, I understand why standalone games can coexist. In a demo at New York Comic-Con, we saw two sections of LEGO Marvel’s Avengers from two key Avengers: Age of Ultron scenes.
The first was in Korea shortly after Captain America and the Maximoff twins have stopped a runaway train. A cutscene setting up the scenario featured actual lines from Age of Ultron and added a goofy LEGO twist (notably including a pig) to provide context. Mechanically, the characters were smart. Quicksilver can enter slow-mo mode to avoid obstacles, Cap can set ricochet targets before throwing his shield, and Scarlet Witch can pick up any obstacle, be it a car or a group of enemies. More importantly, though, the scene felt like part of a bigger world. Dimensions does a great job of satisfying fans, but, as we mentioned in our review, your enjoyment of each area depends on how familiar you are with each franchise. Here, thanks to following an established plotline, everything just felt much more cohesive. The Marvel universe is so big, and in a game that spans six films (both Avengers movies plus both Captain America films, Thor 2, and Iron Man 3), there’s plenty of material to work with, and it all feels like part of a larger whole.