Marvel’s Avengers – Game Review

From the very first seconds, the game immerses you in the atmosphere of a classic comic book – this is a real treat for all fans of Marvel heroes. However, very quickly, everything that happens turns into a roller coaster, when each rapid and insanely emotional descent is followed by another painful ascent … But first, let’s talk about something more or less good, or rather about the plot, characters, and storyline campaign as a whole.

The plot of the Game

The events of the game kick off in San Francisco during the “Day of the Avengers” – a grand celebration in honor of the legendary heroes. In the course of this large-scale event, the Taskmaster blows up the Golden Gate Bridge. Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Black Widow travel to the scene to stop the terrorists. In parallel with this, an attack on the SHIELD Helicarrier takes place, as a result of which Captain America is killed and the reactor explodes, covering the city with an energy wave.

The release of energy affects a part of the population of San Francisco – various uncontrollable superpowers begin to appear in people. Naturally, society blames the Avengers for everything, who could not cope with the threat and stop the villains. The team of heroes, torn apart by internal contradictions, falls apart. However, a new threat is on the horizon. And now the young girl Kamala Khan has to unite the heroes to resist the sinister organization of the AIM.

The game’s opening is extremely exciting, dynamic, and eventful. Here we play as Kamala, a big fan of the Avengers who meets her idols at the festival. We happened to be in the epicenter of the whole Golden Gate Bridge event. There we are alternately introduced to each hero. Here are some spectacular cutscenes in which the creators set a slightly dark tone for the story: people, including Kamala, gain superpowers and do not know what to do with them, the Avengers are falling apart, the world is under threat, and we go in search of superheroes who can save it…

Main Characters

Then the game slows down slightly to pay more attention to the characters. And it is at this moment that you realize that Marvel’s Avengers is not so much a game about the Avengers as about Kamala. She is the main character of the story. It is through her feelings and perception of the world we get to know the characters of Marvel. The Avengers here is just a background, a kind of setting for the story of Kamala’s becoming Ms. Marvel. And, to be honest, this is not so bad, because Kamala Khan manages to bring a little bit of life to the local comic script. Her adolescent naturalness and determination perfectly compensate for the heroes who are bogged down in their complexes and extremely grotesque villains.

However, what about the rest of the characters? With this, everything is a little more complicated. If we talk about the Avengers, then most of the time, in addition to Kamala, the game is devoted to the Hulk and Iron Man. Black Widow and Thor are in the background. There are also not so many villains and, as a result, more or less interesting bosses in the game: Taskmaster, Abomination, and MODOK. So, it turns out that even taking into account the mediocre story campaign (about 15 hours), there is not enough interesting content in it. It’s much more interesting to play online slots than cope with the storyline (and yeah, check this top slots list if you are interested in variable entertainment). No, don’t think that the story in Marvel’s Avengers is boring. We have a cool, expensive blockbuster about superheroes, which is interesting to watch, but, unfortunately, not to play.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Gameplay problems for the Avengers begin just a couple of hours after the start of the game. And the first problem you face is the combat system. Marvel’s Avengers is a standard three-dimensional beat ’em up in the manner of the same Batman: Arkham series or the recent Spider-Man PS4 exclusive. Nothing fundamentally new. We still have the same set of buttons that are responsible for attacks, counterattacks, dodging, and using the ultimate ability. But if in Batman and Spider-Man it worked thanks to the open world, the presence of stealth, and puzzles that brought variety to the gameplay, then in The Avengers this trick not working at all. The player is simply locked in a corridor connecting the arenas with the most similar enemies, mostly humanoid robots. It is according to this template that most of the missions in the game are built: to get from point A to point B, clearing several arenas with waves of opponents along the way. And these monotonous battles with no less monotonous enemies begin to tire after just a couple of hours of play – there is nothing else to do here.

So, the second problem arises – monotony. It would seem that we have a game about superheroes: about the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, and Miss Marvel – an excellent opportunity to make the characters as unlike each other as possible in terms of gameplay. But again, no. In theory, each hero has unique abilities and features, for example, Iron Man and Thor are mainly designed for air combat, Black Widow, and Hulk – on the contrary, for close and contact fights. But when it comes to practice, you understand that for the sake of balance, all the heroes have lost their “zest” and were equalized in terms of parameters. Therefore, if you destroyed another robot in a minute, playing the Black Widow, then you will spend almost the same amount of time controlling, for example, the Hulk. Local pumping saves the matter a little, which allows you to unlock new abilities for the heroes, but they often bring only visual changes to the battle – all for the sake of balance in the PvE game, where the Avengers themselves cannot even be divided into full-fledged classes, they are universal.

The level design also suffered because of the equalization of the heroes – the third flaw of the game. If at first on the locations there were still segments designed for completion by a specific hero, then the closer to the end of the story, the more corridor and less variable they become. At the same time, a pattern is very clearly traced: the more heroes participate in the mission, the more monotonous it becomes.

To the maximum, all this monotony is turned in the post-game, designed for online and cooperative completion. After the completion of the main scenario, we will only have a solid grind, and the game finally comes down to destroying waves of enemies in the arenas.

To summarize, Marvel’s Avengers is a very average game. It has positive sides: interesting heroes and villains, a good plot, and some gameplay moments, mostly directed and tightly scripted – all within the framework of the single. But all this is not enough to draw out the overall most boring and monotonous gameplay, which even in last year’s Anthem was more interesting and varied.