Lego Marvel Avengers starts with the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the big snow battle scene. Tons of action, and fighting, iconic scenes and one-liners and shows the ending which introduces us to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, the mutant-non mutants.
Then the second level starts and we’re back to the original Avenger’s opening. It’s the biggest moment of disconnect in the game because I don’t understand why the game started with the sequel instead of focusing on the original movie and then the sequel. If the sequel was the bigger movie/better movie. That should have been first, but still, the choice isn’t open. You proceed and have to play all 6ish levels of the original movie. Then play two more levels of the second movie, then the game decided to give you four side missions, and make you play the final two story missions.
It’s… a very odd progression system to say the least. There are the standard 15 levels in the game. But they’re divided up in odd ways, presented in odd ways, and they never have the cohesion other lego games have, either the full licensed games or the universe exploration games like Lego Marvel Super Heroes. That last game is the bar this game will be compared to, as it was both amazing, and has the same subject matter, with an all-new story.
To put it simply though, Lego Marvel Avengers isn’t as good for a number of reasons. The biggest problem I have with Lego Marvel Avengers is it recreates the Avengers movies. That is what I should be expecting as I’ve been a fan of this series since the Lego Star Wars games. There, however, has been eleven years between that original game’s release and the Avenger series and vast changes.
Many changes are better. Graphical fidelity is of course improved. The split screen is far superior. The complexity of the games are great, and the number of characters is extreme, I believe there are claims of over 200, other sources say 196, but the point is there’s a lot here.
On the other hand, the characters talk. Now, this is a minor change in theory, though it does change the game quite a bit. Rather than mime out scenes, and really get focused on animations, the game cheapens the recreation but just having the characters talk. But Marvel Avengers feels extra lazy, and perhaps there’s a reason. All the characters in the game use samples from the original actors. Or rather original films. This is the crux of the problem with the game. Instead of being able to change the story, if the line wasn’t said in the film, the main characters can’t say it. You do get Robert Downey Jr.’s voice as Ironman which is cool. But he only says what you’ve heard him say.
That last part though is the real issue, the game doesn’t stray from the original stories except for a few sight gags, and maybe a few one liners that are still from the movie just in a different place. You don’t get a new story, which is acceptable, but the story does everything the original movie, and unlike the original star wars games that added a bunch of yucks, it doesn’t even attempt to diverge from the original tales. There are a few new jokes but the big one (a purple drink) gets old very fast. You’re seeing the same story, with the same iconic screens, and it suffers for it.
Outside of the game, you get a “Lego game” similar gameplay, which will be a bit stale but still mostly works. There are a few new Avengers twists of scanning but mostly you’ve seen it all, especially if you’ve played Lego Marvel Superheroes. I did like the Flying section that was like Defender, too bad it’s only used twice.
There’s down spots though. Quite often on button prompts you don’t get told if it’s a press or hold so you’ll mash the button or hold the button. You’re going to get it wrong about half the time. QTEs are similar. There’s still the “you can’t lose or fail” feature of a Lego game, but still getting a button press wrong is really annoying as you waste time figuring it out and the game rarely gives you a clear indicator about how well you’re doing.
In addition, the game seems to run back to fighting so often. There’s a few really good puzzles, but often there’s “fight 20 enemies:” or “fight 7 enemies then 7 enemies then…” and so on. The fighting system is similar to the old games and really isn’t good enough to support the same fighting objectives over and over. A shame when trying to get all the gold bricks because you fight so often, you’ll get sick of it.
There’s a ton of new hub worlds, including a reused map of Manhattan with hundreds of things to do on it. So there’s a good exploration outside of the main game, however, while the other hub worlds are great, Manhattan was already done in Lego Marvel Superheroes, so there’s a feeling of been there done that.
Aside from hub worlds, there’s not much else. There are 15 main levels, but no side levels, no 100 percent level (you get a stud fountain but that’s it and at that point you have everything).
I did mention that 4 of the levels are not from the Avengers and these deserve special mention. You get Thor 2, Iron Man 3 Captain America 1 and 2, and these are actually REALLY good levels, to the point that I wanted to see all 22 Marvel movies in a single level approach like the game makes. That would have made an excellent game, instead, the game focuses on Avengers for most of its time and it is faithful but not as good as the side missions which are more of an appropriate length.
One benefit though is almost every level is three sections (some are two) and the game allows you to free play from any point, so you can go and get all the free play only items relatively fast. That’s a nice feature which made cleanup easier. On the other hand, the entire game has taken me over 30 hours, and that’s a good number, but it’s not the most exciting 30 hours because I’ve seen all of this enough. Lego Marvel Superhero had more surprises and did better with the system.
Of course, there are some problems. There’s a season pass that’s going to give a good amount of content, but the stories there are quite weak. Those levels aren’t even attached to a movie, just characters who have movies.
Yet even worse. A certain type of character is missing here. Of course, that means X-men. I’m a huge Deadpool fan but I love the X-men but beyond that Spiderman isn’t here, Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t here, quite a few characters are DLC only. While the game has a better roster than Lego Marvel Superheroes by 40 extra characters, so many major omissions are here that it’s annoying. Even Xavier’s school on the south end of Manhattan has been replaced by a rather dull Avengers HQ seen at the end of Age of Ultron. I get the change, and it fits the story, but it’s not an interesting location whereas the X-men mansion had a ton to do in it.
I would find it hard to give any “marvel” game five stars without the x-men but that’s not the only issue. The adherence to the original story is so strong it feels more like a tie-in game, than a legoification that almost every other Lego game has. Even Lego Pirates was a great unique property. Lego Marvel Avengers isn’t as good.
Overall, Lego Marvel Avengers is what it is. It’s not going to change opinions but it’s not unique or different enough from the movies to really warrant a playthrough by big fans of the movies. Yet that’s who it targets. There are some good levels, there are good ideas, and ultimately I recommend it because of the hours spent. But this is one of the weaker Lego games. I didn’t hate my time, but it wasn’t the strongest game. I still recommend Lego Marvel Superheroes over this in almost every way. Ultimately I give it 3 out of 5. A recommendation, but barely at that.
If you enjoyed this review, want to see what I think of other games, or just am curious about my opinions on other properties. Check out my curator page at
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31803828-Kinglink-Revi... 3.0