068REVIEW
you play as her icons. You get to do a lot of Hulk
smashing, but you also have your moments with
Bruce, and see plenty of the man behind Iron
Man’s emotionless mask. Bruce and Tony have
slightly larger roles as surrogate superhero dads
for Kamala (her real dad, too, is a delight), but the
other heroes are also great, and events culminate
in a finale that leaves you wanting more.PLAYING HERO
Thankfully, there is more. The campaign is just
the tip of the iceberg, introducing you to how
each hero plays, the way mission objectives work,
and the vendors in your social hub where you
can earn faction points and buy gear and skins
(the only way to change appearance). Gear offers
different buffs, but has no visible effect, meaning
until you get to the endgame gear chasing isn’t
all that exciting. You can buy cosmetics with real
money, but you don’t need to shell out as heroes
and storylines will all be added for free over time.
By the time you hit level 15 (out of 50) you
realise how different the heroes really are despiteall being built on the same
fundamentals. The basic
skill tree gives you access
to simple things like new
combo finishers, but both
the speciality and mastery
trees frequently allow you
to pick one of three effects
to specialise your play style
(switchable at any time). For
example, you can swap
between buffs during Black
Widow’s team-wide cloaking
shield, or give Thor’s hammer
the option to ricochet between
enemies at the expense of
pinning them. Combine that
with gear and you can, for
instance, add Pym shrinking
effects to those moves.ULTIMATE TEAM-UP
In the post-game online
multiplayer, operations group
missions and tasks together,
ensuring the game flows from
different mission types to
taking on villain sectors and
AIM hives. That said, even with
settings ranging from the UtahBadlands to Norway, things
can start to feel repetitive.
The same structures and room
layouts come up repeatedly.
What we do love is the mission
construction: some last just
ten minutes or less, and even
the bigger areas are mostly
filled out with optional points
of interest, so you can spend
an hour investigating those,
or blaze through the mission
in less time by sticking to the
critical path. Only in more
complicated areas like hives
do you need to make a firm
time commitment. Marvel’s
Avengers is approachable
whether you have lots of time
or only a little, and whether
you’re playing with a full team
of mates or alone – and that’s
something we greatly prefer to
a game constantly demanding
all our attention.
While combat appears to
resemble Batman: Arkham
or Marvel’s Spider-Man’s
free-flow fighting, in the end
it simply can’t be the same,“IT’S REALLY APPROACHABLE
WHETHER YOU HAVE LOTS OF
TIME OR ONLY A LITTLE.”
Right Scientists
supreme
MODOK and
Monica lead
AIM and are the
main villainous
threat, though
other villains
appear too...Left ...For
instance,
who is this
nefarious fake
Thor? Iconic
mission chains
add story and
centre on the
rest of the
Avengers.068
you play as her icons. You get to do a lot of Hulk
smashing, but you also have your moments with
Bruce, and see plenty of the man behind Iron
Man’s emotionless mask. Bruce and Tony have
slightly larger roles as surrogate superhero dads
for Kamala (her real dad, too, is a delight), but the
other heroes are also great, and events culminate
in a finale that leaves you wanting more.PLAYING HERO
Thankfully, there is more. The campaign is just
the tip of the iceberg, introducing you to how
each hero plays, the way mission objectives work,
and the vendors in your social hub where you
can earn faction points and buy gear and skins
(the only way to change appearance). Gear offers
different buffs, but has no visible effect, meaning
until you get to the endgame gear chasing isn’t
all that exciting. You can buy cosmetics with real
money, but you don’t need to shell out as heroes
and storylines will all be added for free over time.
By the time you hit level 15 (out of 50) you
realise how different the heroes really are despiteall being built on the same
fundamentals. The basic
skill tree gives you access
to simple things like new
combo finishers, but both
the speciality and mastery
trees frequently allow you
to pick one of three effects
to specialise your play style
(switchable at any time). For
example, you can swap
between buffs during Black
Widow’s team-wide cloaking
shield, or give Thor’s hammer
the option to ricochet between
enemies at the expense of
pinning them. Combine that
with gear and you can, for
instance, add Pym shrinking
effects to those moves.ULTIMATE TEAM-UP
In the post-game online
multiplayer, operations group
missions and tasks together,
ensuring the game flows from
different mission types to
taking on villain sectors and
AIM hives. That said, even with
settings ranging from the UtahBadlands to Norway, things
can start to feel repetitive.
The same structures and room
layouts come up repeatedly.
What we do love is the mission
construction: some last just
ten minutes or less, and even
the bigger areas are mostly
filled out with optional points
of interest, so you can spend
an hour investigating those,
or blaze through the mission
in less time by sticking to the
critical path. Only in more
complicated areas like hives
do you need to make a firm
time commitment. Marvel’s
Avengers is approachable
whether you have lots of time
or only a little, and whether
you’re playing with a full team
of mates or alone – and that’s
something we greatly prefer to
a game constantly demanding
all our attention.
While combat appears to
resemble Batman: Arkham
or Marvel’s Spider-Man’s
free-flow fighting, in the end
it simply can’t be the same,“IT’S REALLY APPROACHABLE
WHETHER YOU HAVE LOTS OF
TIME OR ONLY A LITTLE.”
Right Scientists
supreme
MODOK and
Monica lead
AIM and are the
main villainous
threat, though
other villains
appear too...Left ...For
instance,
who is this
nefarious fake
Thor? Iconic
mission chains
add story and
centre on the
rest of the
Avengers.