Avengers assemble: A review of

Marvel’s Avengers offers players the chance to see their favourite superheroes in action through two different game modes, various playstyle options, and opportunities for more customization in future releases

ALLAN SLOAN

Ever since Insomniac Games teased The Avengers’ existence in a video game format, many have waited with baited breath for Marvel’s Avengers by Square-Enix and Crystal Dynamics. After several delays and a buggy but playable beta, Marvel’s Avengers is here for the world to play. While it may not be the greatest Marvel video game ever created, there is a sincere love and passion for the source material that True Believers will respect, despite the lackluster “game as a service” model and the grind-style post-game that players may be familiar with from the likes of Destiny and The Division.

ANOTHER SOLID AVENGERS STORY

Marvel’s Avengers has two modes to play. First up is the campaign mode. With an all new Avengers story set in it’s own universe — separate from both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Insomniac’s Spider-Man — Marvel’s Avengers puts you in the shoes of Kamala Kahn a.k.a Ms. Marvel.

Kamala is an Avengers Superfan. Star-struck by the likes of Captain America, Thor, and Black Widow, Kamala brings a consistently refreshing view to the world of Superheroes with her childlike wonder and constant excitement of being able to work alongside her lifelong heroes.

The true charm of this roughly 14-hour-long story is Kamala’s tense-at-first relationship with Dr. Bruce Banner a.k.a The Hulk. Their back and forth mentor/mentee interactions only seem to encourage Kamala to be a better member of the team.

Slowly but surely, the campaign mode adds more and more Avengers to your roster of playable characters, usually with an introductory mission on how to play that particular character.

The story features massive set-piece scenarios with the high octane action that fans have come to expect from Marvel stories. The care and respect that Crystal Dynamics puts into the little details really shows with the likes of collectible comic books featuring cover art spanning the 80+ year history of Marvel Comics. There are also audio files and documents to collect and read which further expand this iteration of the Marvel Universe. FIGHT LIKE A SUPERHERO

Marvel’s Avengers is a combat-heavy game. With wave after wave of baddies to fight, there is no shortage of enemies to punch, kick, shoot, or throw your Star-Spangled shield at in an effort to win the day.

Every hero plays differently, despite the basic controls being the same. Hulk plays like an unstoppable force, with every punch and slam feeling like they have the weight of a Mack Truck behind them. Black Widow is your hit-and-run support damage character, serving to build on the damage done by your teammates, while looking for the best opening to unleash her own heavy critical attacks. Iron Man serves as your run and gun character, flying through the skies only to land in the center of the fray and unleash devastation with his famous Hulkbuster Armour.

The importance of skills also comes into play as each character has three skill trees: Basic, Specialty, and Mastery. Basic holds everything that the character can do in a fight like extended combos, additional abilities, and ways to maneuver those abilities together. The Specialty and Mastery skill trees are where you finetune your character to your play style. These trees serve to alter the abilities learned in the Basic tree, such as: increasing stun damage, increasing the frequency of being able to pull off devastating Takedowns, increasing how fast your ultimate and heroic abilities charge up, and increasing you or your parties’ melee or ranged combat damage.

For example, I fine-tuned my Black Widow to focus heavily on massive Area of Effect damage at close range. When all of her abilities are spent, my strategy with her is to run away and take out the outliers, until my abilities recharge to do it again. Earlier on in the game I focused primarily on her gunplay, staying at a distance in order to best keep her

alive and to support the rest of the team from the sidelines.

This flexibility is core to Marvel’s Avengers as it ensures no two Ironmen or Hulks will play exactly the same way and encourages you to mix things up.

MR. STARK SHOULD FOCUS ON MARK II

Despite its strengths, Marvel’s Avengers is far from a perfect game. Several times throughout my playthrough of the campaign, I suffered from massive framerate loss during cutscenes, which led me to have to restart the game. This annoyance was made easier to swallow due to the fact that the game has a very forgiving auto-save feature which allows you to continue from your last checkpoint. These checkpoints are generously given out after every combat encounter and cutscene.

There are also issues with unlocked costumes, emotes, and other cosmetic costumes disappearing from your inventory. Due to the random nature of the unlocks in the game, it can be frustrating to lose something that you can only acquire every once in a while, forcing you to have to wait and see if you’re fortunate enough to obtain it again.

There have also been times where my character would fall through the floor, only to be consumed by an endless void, causing another restart and reload from a previous checkpoint.

On Sept. 17 Crystal Dynamics announced on the Square Enix website that they had released a patch addressing over 1000 issues players were experiencing.

ENDGAME (NOT ‘THAT’ ENDGAME)

To anyone familiar with the likes of Destiny and The Division, the live-service type of gameplay offered in Marvel's Avengers should be familiar to you. For those who aren’t, after completing the campaign mode you are sent to the multiplayer-focused — but not required, due to the option to use A.I. companions — Avengers Initiative mode.

The purpose of this mode is to play with friends while you play less story-focused missions of baddie-smashing and objective completing in order to make your character as strong as possible. The current level cap is 50, with a power cap of 150. Your characters will be anywhere from 10 to 15 upon completion of the Campaign, giving you a decent amount of information to decide which characters you prefer to play as.

Missions typically have the same basic cycles: enter the level, fight bad guys, complete an objective, explore the map to find chests containing better gear to complete missions on a higher difficulty level, and so on, and so forth.

This gameplay loop is inconsistent with Marvel’s Avengers Campaign mode which offered a cinematic story told with care, depth, and excitement. At times it can feel hollow when the campaign is over, however, this hollowness feels much less obvious when playing with a friend or three.

The endgame does a good job of capturing the spirit of the Avengers, but only when there are other humans playing with you online. The coordination and team synergy does wonders for a game that can, at times, feel like nothing more than a Marvel flavoured beat’em up.

VERDICT

Marvel’s Avengers isn’t a perfect game — by a long shot. The stellar and beautiful single-player campaign is subverted by a mostly hollow endgame experience which feels like Crystal Dynamics couldn’t put everything into the game that they wanted.

Crystal Dynamics and Square-Enix have said that new heroes and missions will be coming at a regular basis after launch for free. However, holding interest in the game long enough may prove to be an issue outside of the story mode.

Overall, Marvel’s Avengers is a fun game for what it set out to be, but with the game feeling like it currently lacks direction beyond the power grind, Marvel’s Avengers may be fighting an uphill battle to reach the greatness of the heroes it so lovingly portrays.