Reissued on Wednesday, July 13, 2022: Following the announcement of the PSPlus Extra and Premium lineups in July, this review will be reinstated from the archive. The original text is:
If anything, Marvel’s Avengers are victims of their own marketing cycle. Marketed under the Games as a Service banner, loot, repeatable missions, bounties, daily and weekly tasks, and microtransactions all make up the bulk of this superhero’s efforts. But that’s not all. Crystal Dynamics has avoided showing off its latest single-player campaigns before it goes on sale. That’s really disappointing. It’s far the best about Marvel’s Avengers.
Yes, it may not be clear in pre-release marketing, but the California-based studio’s decision to do it after the Rise of the Tomb Raider certainly features a story-driven campaign. .. You don’t have to team up with other players online, and you don’t have to invest additional cash above the initial $ 60 price. You also don’t have to look for better gear to see the story to the end. This is a traditional experience where you can completely ignore online traps until your credit is rolled back.
And the protagonist of the show is Kamala Khan. It may be the story of the Avengers, but Marvel is the main character. Pakistani-American non-humans are companies that have reorganized the Avengers and benefited from the full-scale collapse of Marvel after a superhero task force was assembled for a devastating attack on San Francisco. A character that takes it on its own to fight AIM. Khan believes she has found evidence that she has proved that the Avengers are not involved in the destruction of science fiction, and she does nothing to get it right.
Below is a 15-hour world-wide campaign full of action, set pieces, and quip that you would expect from a typical Marvel movie. The Hulk, Iron Man, Natasha Romanova, Thor, and Captain America (who isn’t dead, of course) are all in the limelight, but the story is back in Kamala Khan. Despite too many useful coincidences, instantly adorable characters are the driving force behind almost every storybeat and the high octane battle in between. Like her comic book debut, Marvel bets her claim on the protagonist and never looks back. She is an absolute victory for a superhero.
Even better, a cast of star-studded voice actors are on board to support newcomers. Troy Baker is at a point where all of the characters he plays sound exactly like him, but he plays the nuisance role of the Bruce Banner well. Nolan North, meanwhile, captures Tony Stark’s witty, stuck persona in his tee.
And while these personalities may be the reason you got into Marvel’s Avengers from the beginning, it’s a battle that will bring you back for more. Each of the six characters plays a different role, each with three different skill trees, which can be customized to play different roles. Everyone covers basic light, heavy and ranged attacks and quickly turns this into a third person brawler, but with little button mashing. Combos can be attacked quickly, takedowns kill most enemies, and both support and damage-oriented abilities leave a wasteland of destruction.
Here you can explore truly deep mechanics, both at the surface level for quick action and with the ability to personalize the build of your chosen superhero. He never beat the God of War Leviathan Ax, but seeing Captain America’s shield thrown and bounced between enemies and damaging it is a clear satisfaction. It’s great to see in full motion.
But even more striking is Crystal Dynamics’ success in making the six superheroes feel and play differently from each other. Iron Man dominates horror from the sky with a repulsor, Black Widow is a quiet assassin with a shadow veil ability that obscures her and those near her, and Hulk plays the classic role of a tank. increase. Kamala Khan, Thor, and Captain America all feel like they’re somewhere in the middle of these three extremes, but there’s enough nuance to prevent them all from playing the same way.
However, the variety of enemies is not very high. The power of AIM is mainly composed of robots that run with mighty fists and lack the brain to do more than die prematurely. Some are equipped with shields, while others have fixed expectations for jetpack safety, but the attack remains largely unchanged. Combat can seem a bit pointless because it relies on the player to be creative. Even the battle of the boss is rare. What’s there is especially impressive in the last few hours of the campaign. But given the ready-to-use cartoon world of Crystal Dynamics, it’s amazing how few villains have been realized in the form of video games.
Other than quarrels, Marvel’s Avengers are channeling the developer’s previous efforts with a set piece that doesn’t look out of place in the restarted Tomb Raider franchise. Make a big leap as Kamala Khan, run through the wall as Captain America, kick Iron Man’s suit overdrive and defeat the in-game timer. These moments are a welcome break from combat, no matter how fun it may be.
Then the credit is rolled back. This is where many players lose interest in Marvel’s Avengers, but even players looking for a Destiny 2 alternative may not find what they’re looking for. Endgame content is simply lacking beyond the beliefs at launch. Some new mission chains will be opened, some with their own cutscenes, but they basically only help reinforce the fact that the content is about to repeat.
Previous boss battle clones act as daily quests, Warzone missions use exactly the same interior and environment as the mainline assignments, and the goal is to stall like never before. Even more open-ended levels with optional tasks to complete are recycled over and over again. The quest will move you to the exact same location over and over again, but try to disguise yourself as a completely different location, even though you’re reusing your assets and environment.
Well, this isn’t new to these types of experiences — Destiny did it, and Division 2 did so to some extent. But it has never been so explicit. Marvel’s Avengers gameplay, stripped of narrative bets and fascinating dialogue, is so dependent on the battle that it begins to crack under pressure. These battles are great, but if you want to keep your player base months after launch, the game needs something more. It feels like the world has moved from repeating the same level over and over again due to a slight statistical upgrade to your character.
We refer to the stats because the loot you are picking up has no effect on the appearance of the superhero you choose. This is a mysterious decision as it removes creativity from the loot system and instead limits it to the minor boosts that come with the item. Thus, equipping new exotic pieces isn’t at all exciting, as it claims to affect what’s under the hood, not the human-visible decals.
Nothing is a little closer to Destiny’s Gjallahorn moment, and the only way to unlock a new skin revolves around luck, shattering, and microtransactions. The equivalent of the game’s Battle Pass will give you free costumes, but you will be limited by how much progress you can make each day. The in-game marketplace, on the other hand, sells legendary skins for about $ 15 each. It’s certainly an expensive offer, but it’s up to you whether it’s particularly terrible. What we can say is that cosmetic customization is not one of the strengths of the title.
As a result, we are in the same position as there have been many Games as a Service in the past. The late Marvel Avengers are missing at launch, but with long-term support promises, they can look quite different after a year. .. It has already been confirmed that more superheroes will be added for free in the future, and further expectations are being placed thereafter. I don’t know what the Crystal Dynamics project will look like next year, but when I’m asked to invest $ 60, I can’t live up to my expectations.
However, one thing developers absolutely have to deal with is the shocking frame rate of the game. It targets 30 frames per second, but it’s rarely achieved in combat scenarios due to the scattered action, enemies, and debris on the screen. The PS4 Pro doesn’t seem to be catching up with what the Marvel Avengers are putting out, and the frame rate anxiously plunges into teens on a regular basis.If anything, the upcoming PlayStation 5 version should do it I wonder for the title.
However, it does not allow the large number of bugs and glitches that exist at launch. From hard crashes that force you to restart the game to comedy flaws where Thor sees glitches everywhere as he tries to fly. Enemies stop in the air, weekly challenges aren’t really reset, game-breaking bugs ruin the fun in the HARM room, and unpleasant transitions between gameplay and cutscenes ruin the immersive feeling. There is a possibility. It’s definitely not the best condition to release, it’s for sure.
