LEGO Marvel’s Avengers Review
LEGO Marvel’s Avengers takes a different approach from previous Lego installments. It has the same fun gameplay as the previous games but delivers new features such as the impressive cinematic team combos and an expansive Character selection across the entire Marvel universe.
The game boasts more than 200 characters to collect. They are unlocked in various different ways including finding them throughout the main story mode, fulfilling certain tasks (like helping Luke Cage locate shield agents) or they are hidden around the different side quests.
However due to a licensing issue some of the major Marvel characters are missing. As it uses source materials from the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters from the Fantastic Four and X-Men movies do not appear in the game.
Some of the characters that did make it into the game have different variants included, for example you can select different armors for Iron Man. Hulk also has two shades of green available should you prefer the darker Age of Ultron version over the brighter green from the original Avengers movie.
My favorite innovation is the “cinematic team combos” which first appears in the opening missions. Enemies will have a button icon above their heads and pressing this will execute a nicely animated combo move.
If you are with a partner this can turn into a devastating team combo attack such as Hulk grabbing Iron Man and shaking him like a tin can so lasers spray everywhere. Or if you are on your own it will still execute an impressive attack (it is just not quite as cool).
The game recreates scenarios from a number of the Marvel movies, it opens with the beginning of Age of Ultron, then goes through the entirety of Avengers Assemble, before going back to Age of Ultron and includes elements from Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 3, Thor : The Dark World and Captain America : The Winter Soldier.
Voice clips are lifted directly from the movies for most of the story elements, and while they sound authentic it didn’t feel natural in this Lego setting. Especially during combat situations when it was hard to hear the voice over work with all the other bangs and explosions drowning it out. This also seems to have limited the amount of jokes and banter we have come to expect from a Lego title.
As with most Lego games, Marvel Avengers can be played with a friend in split screen mode (which is always the best way to play any Lego title). However some of the level design is not particularly Co-Op friendly and often you might find that one player is forced into a mindless task while the other gets to have all the fun.
Free Roam mode allows you to explore many other locations like Manhattan, The S.H.I.E.L.D Base, South Africa, Bartons Farm and more. All these locations have more missions and characters to unlock by taking part in races and solving more puzzles. With online Co-Op play allowing you and a friend to be in different locations you can unlock characters and gold blocks twice as fast.
Overall: As with all Lego games they are fun, however this is perhaps one of the less polished titles. I encountered issues with sound being out of sync or not audible in certain sections and had some issues with weird camera angles during some combat situations.
Even with these small negatives in mind there is still a lot of fun content here, and it is overall a solid enjoyable game.
Reviewed by Cian Crowdy
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