Yahoo Finance Marvel's Avengers review: Is there hope for ailing superhero game?
Far from being the slamdunk it should have been, Crystal Dynamics punchy take on Marvel's Avengers -that ubiquitous band of superheroes- has travelled a more troubled path. Much of its apparently grind-tastic approach to video games --basing its loot-based multiplayer on the likes of Destiny-- left the watching world cold in the run-up to release. A curiously soulless and overwhelmingly corporate cash-grab was the impression. Something not assuaged by a fairly clumsy beta. And now, just a month after release, it finds itself struggling to keep its players invested.
After a period of reflection, it's clear this Avengers game -while not free of feature creep and significant structural issues- is more finely crafted and comes with a good deal more heart than its early showings let on. Tellingly, most of this comes through in its initially unheralded single-player campaign. A flashy if short-lived narrative that makes the bold choice of putting Kamala Khan -aka Ms Marvel- at the centre.
As an Avengers superfan, Khan finds herself at A-Day, a celebration of the merry band that goes terribly wrong after a supervillain attack. By teatime, Captain America is presumed dead, the other Avengers are vilified and scattered to the wind, while scores of citizens are marked as 'inhumans' after they develop superpowers of their own. Kamala is one of them, able to stretch and reshape her limbs to grapple across city rooftops or give bad guys a good bashing with a giant fist.
Five years later, amid a totalitarian takeover of the US by robotics company AIM -which has requisitioned all of Tony Stark's fanciest toys- Kamala has made it her mission to track down the Avengers and set things right. She is a thoroughly engaging lead, both resolute and wide-eyed at seeking out and meeting her heroes. Her own excitement upon meeting The Incredible Hulk and co translates to the player, who in turn gets a new superhero to bash AIM's robots in with. Kamala is a teenager riven with self-doubt and a certain degree of naivete, making her the perfect foil for the downtrodden and bickering Avengers. The game has genuinely smart flashes in its narrative as Kamala helps piece the broken team together against the backdrop of a dystopian America brainwashed by AIM propaganda.
As you hop around the globe, taking part in different missions and able to switch between heroes (almost) at will the game revolves around its combat. It's a well-executed brawler, with a real sense of connection and definable differences between each character. Ms Marvel has speed and range as her limbs fly. You feel Hulk's thunderous movement and swinging cannonball fists as they connect (and picking up fodder and swinging them around never gets old). As Iron Man you can hover around the battlefield firing off missiles or sweeping into a thruster-propelled dive. Black Widow's mix of martial arts, dual pistols and grappling hooks are impressively versatile. Thor's hammer Mjolnir connects with shuddering force.
In this sense, Avengers provides what many of its fans might be looking for. And, at times, when the narrative hits its notable peaks Avengers turns into the kind of thrill-ride its cinematic cousins are famous for. But (anyou knew there was a 'but' coming) the problem is that this feeling is too fleeting. And often pushed aside by the things that Avengers doesn't get right.
Its campaign succeeds despite of some of the mechanics of a 'service-game' creeping in rather than because of them. It left me longing for an Avengers game more dedicated to its campaign --made with obvious flair from the studio that successfully rebooted Tomb Raider-- than the long-term multiplayer that follows.
The idea is, presumably, to lock you into its cycle to keep you playing the game's apparent raison d'etre -the Avengers Initiative- after the campaign credits have rolled. It isn't long before you are bombarded with different item vendors, a bewildering array of buffs and items to equip and a never-ending volley of daily quests to smash X amount of robots in Y amount of time.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, of course. And despite the early negativity, you can see how a long-running co-operative game can fit the Avengers ethos. Each player taking their pick of a tooled up superhero to missions around the globe in a constant battle against emerging villainous threats. That part works. But less so the elements transposed from games like Destiny and The Division.
Each hero finds different tech that can upgrade things like melee and ranged abilities, like finding a new weapon to equip with different buffs. But because the Avengers move-set is carefully curated and set, any change to Iron Man's arc reactor or Hulk's spinal implants makes no tangible difference beyond making health points fly out of bad guys at slightly higher numbers.
It is a fundamental misplacement of what makes loot games work. Finding a new powerful weapon in Destiny brings a frisson of excitement because it can have an entirely different look and feel. You begin to develop favourites that you cannot bear to part with, even when the shinier toys with higher stats arrive. There is none of that here, with cosmetic suit changes handled as separate unlocks of full outfits.
(Some of these are brilliant, by the way, with Crystal Dynamics artists clearly having a lot of fun. But it would have been nice for costumes to develop more naturally through play than they do.)
It makes the multiplayer endgame feel a little hollow. Hopping between missions and smashing robots up before moving onto the next one and repeating. Having had a blast with the campaign, the Avengers Initiative was a familiar grind that I quickly lost interest in. And one that many others have too, with a recent report claiming that concurrent players on the PC version has already dipped below 1000. Which is, in no uncertain terms, a disaster.
For Avengers to entertain any thought of survival as a service game, then, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Most games in the area falter in their early days, if not necessarily to this extent, and there is the kernel of something good here, with strong combat and definable superheroes that are fun to stomp/fly/bound around with. With new heroes on the way to bolster out the roster, if Crystal Dynamics can find a way to hone the game closer to its strengths than its borrowed weaknesses, there may be hope for the Avengers yet. Otherwise the decision to compromise its otherwise solid campaign in the pursuit of all-consuming longevity could prove fatal.
