Marvel's Avengers Review
From flying through the sky as Iron Man, to Swinging Mjölnir as Thor to or dual-wielding pistols as Black Widow, what could be more exciting than playing as your favorite avenger in a game? Upon hearing the announcement of an Avenger's video game, I, like many fans, was extremely excited about an Aveneger’s video game. With a seasoned developer like Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider Reboot Series) we could continue the trend of amazing superhero titles started by critical and commercial successes like the Batman Arkham Series and Marvel’s Spider-Man. With the unclear description of how Marvel’s Avengers would tackle their games as a service model, my expectations were low, but optimistic.
Based on the pedigree of Crystal Dynamics and the stellar voice cast, I went into the Avengers hoping for an engaging story campaign. I am happy to report that the roughly 10-hour story campaign is full of fun and heartfelt cinematic moments. The story is centered around Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American teenage hero who discovers that she has powers after the tragic death of Captain America during “A- Day” in San Francisco. Khan must use her powers to fight the corrupt AIM Corporation while assembling the Avengers to help her cause. While this plot may sound like a generic comic book story, Sandra Saad as Kamala Khan and the rest of the voice cast bring new life to their characters that make them feel relatable and engaging. It is also worth noting that you can play the story campaign while avoiding the majority of the more multiplayer/games-as-service side content.
The combat of Marvel’s Avengers is fun, engaging, but a bit repetitive. While I enjoy exploring the special abilities of each character, the combat lacks variety until you level up your character enough to see what the game actually has to offer. Throughout the campaign, you get a chance to play as all of the different Avengers and experience their unique abilities. Smashing everything in sight as Hulk in one mission and then swinging and stretching as Ms. Marvel in another helps the button-mashing combat remain interesting. Despite the fact that the combat feels varied when switching playable characters, the lack of enemy variety leaves something to be desired. Since the evil corporation AIM is manufacturing robots, you fight a lot of robots. Everything from spider-robots to flying Iron Man-like robots, robots, robots, robots! I would have liked to see more enemy types that encouraged experimentation with playstyles.
During my playthrough of the 10 hour campaign and additional time spent exploring the post-game content, I encountered many technical issues with the game. My game froze or crashed twice, forcing me to restart my PS4. Additionally I encountered regular drops in framerate, texture pop-in and excruciatingly long load-screens. These issues have been less apparent after recent updates, however this game is still far from polished. I am curious to see how the game will perform on next-gen hardwire and if we will see improvements to my aforementioned technical issues
As someone who typically struggles to stay with a games as service title for more than a couple of weeks I was surprised to find myself coming back to the Avengers to complete challenges, villain sectors and level up new heroes while playing with friends. For me, the incentive to continue playing came down to my pure love of marvel comics. I want to level up every character to see what their final move-sets play like and find cool collectibles and cosmetics that remind me of my favorite childhood memories reading comics for the first time. The charm of playing as the Avengers makes me forgive the repetitive mission structure and lack of enemy variety, at least enough to always enjoy my time with the game. However, if you aren’t a fan of marvel comics going into this game, I am confident that you won’t enjoy the games as service aspects in the game as there are other titles that utilize this system with a more satisfying gameplay loop.
While I believe Marvel’s Avengers is a flawed game, it is one that I would still recommend to fans of cinematic storytelling within the Marvel universe. The character of Kamala Khan paves the way for more equal representation within the games industry and for that alone this game deserves praise. The story campaign is very compelling and the gameplay loop provides enough fun to keep you coming back. While I hope to see more of the technical issues addressed in updates, I look forward to seeing more. As we watch the growth of Marvel’s Avengers with the upcoming dlc characters and content updates, this title has the potential to achieve greatness.
