Summer is an unusually quiet season for video game releases, that's until the early weeks of September when a few games suddenly pop up before the big holiday releases in the months afterwards. Which is one of the reasons why I decided to buy Avengers, despite none of the gameplay footage impressing me. The other reason is because it's made by Crystal Dynamics, the same company that made the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, of which I adored enormously.
So I went into Avengers with little expectations, I just wanted an engaging campaign and a fun multiplayer as a side distraction when needs be. To some degree I got both of these things, but I cannot help but feel the game lacks ambition, and ends up just being another games a service title. Long story short, the beginning of the campaign starts on A-day, which is a celebration of the Avengers, it is also a day in which they intend to unveil a new energy source called Terrigen. But things don't go to plan when San Francisco is attacked and the terrigen spills out onto the streets of the city. Leaving it devastated and many of its citizens with new superpowers they never had before, these people eventually become known as Inhumans.
The Avengers are blamed and disband soon afterwards, fast forward five years and we take control of Kamala Khan, a teenager who has superpowers owing to the attack on the city (in her case she can stretch her arms over longer than usual distances). The beginning of the story is by far the best part of the campaign, where you play as Kamala as she escapes from AIM (Advanced idea Mechanics), which is a private company that uses its machines to hunt down Inhumans. Kamala Khan is an immediately likeable character with her youthful naivety, but the campaign takes a dip in quality around middle of the game when it opens up and the missions begin to repeat themselves. Before going out in a blaze of glory in the last act, with an epic team up section and a challenging boss fight.
Aside from some small moments of platforming, Avengers is first and foremost a beat em up game, everything from the level and mission designs to the skill trees, function so you can pummel as many enemies as possible. The combat is rather simple and fun for the most part, with each hero genuinely feeling different from one another, and all have a pretty decent skill tree that you can upgrade to your liking. My two favourite heroes were Black Widow and Iron man, Black Widow is the quickest and most elegant to control, it was a joy to use her grapple hook to transport from one enemy to the next. Iron Man is difficult to use due to the finicky flight controls, but the satisfaction of using his ranged attacks never gets old. The Incredible Hulk is the only hero I did not enjoy playing, his slow movement and lack of interesting skills meant that I only ever used him when the story demanded it.
One area in which the upgrade system does not work is in the gear department, which works in a similar vein to what you see in Destiny and The Division. You collect the different gear by looting chest boxes lying around the game's worlds. But unlike those games, the loot just isn't interesting in Avengers because the stats just don't seem to make much of a difference. Although the combat is fun it's hardly complex, and adding a few percentage points on top of your damage or speed feels convoluted and pointless.
What makes matters even worse is that the gear does not change the way you look, it's just a number. Which is utterly baffling because one of the central pillars of grinding or collecting for loot is so that your character looks cool and unique to what you want. I know we are dealing with established characters that have a set look, so there might have been an issue with licensing. But it's a crying shame that the gear is just a stat sheet, it kind of takes away some of the incentive to progress through the post game content.
While sticking to the subject of cosmetics, the game has a battle pass for each hero, which give you certain costumes that would otherwise not be available. You can purchase in-game money to use for some of the more fancy gear on offer. I never felt the need to spend any money on microtransactions, one because it just isn't worth the value, and two because what's on offer is no better than the base cosmetics that you start with. The in-game store does seem egregious when the overall grind just isn't worth it. I am not especially against microtransactions in games, but I worry that it's gradually taking precedence over product quality, but that subject is for another time.
For a game centred on some of Marvel's mightiest heroes it's unfortunate that the locations in the game are rather bland. There's only one moment in which the story takes place outside of Earth, and even that is a short, linear section towards the end of the campaign. The other locations are set in a desert, a city and a snow covered locale, all of them are nothing more than a means to an end. Although you can explore them to find collectables and resources, they are neither visually interesting or engaging to traverse. Although I did enjoy finding the audiotapes and reading files dotted around the maps, each of them add a little depth to the story and characters.
In each of these locations will be enemy bases that you have to infiltrate for one reason or another, and it's in these buildings where the meat of the game's campaign takes place. It's where you will be smashing your way through countless enemies in narrow corridors that look rather identical to one another. The missions consist of the familiar protect or destroy objective markers, which is fine but rather unambitious. Rather like the open world maps, the enemy types are a little bland, consisting mostly of robots in some form or another. As cannon fodder they just about do their job, and they do have a purposeful role within the story. Which is especially the case towards the tail end of the game when they become more interesting and challenging.
Speaking of enemies, the boss battles are a real mixed bag, they generally require you to hit their weak points over and over, so they don't deviate too much from your usual video game bosses. But there were two that really stood out, one was at the start of the story and the other was right at the end, both were cinematic and important to the narrative. The others in the middle of the game became repetitive chores that lack imagination.
I might have been a little more lenient with my final review score had it not been for the technical issues that the game is littered with. This is especially the case in the last third of the campaign, where frame rates drop to ridiculous levels and textures take a while to load up. I have a base PlayStation 4 from 2016, and the game pushed it to the limit, causing it to crash three times during one rather uninspired boss battle against a giant, robot spider.
When the campaign is finished you're left with the multiplayer, some of these missions are new while others are retreads of those that you've already been through. To be honest I never played an overwhelming amount of the multiplayer, so I never tried a Warzone mission, which are bigger missions specific to the multiplayer. But from what I did play, the multiplayer does not deviate much from what you play in the campaign. You are still doing the same objectives and beating up as many onscreen enemies as possible. There is however a decent amount of content to keep you busy before more is delivered post release, which is not always the case with these games as a service titles on release day.
Despite all of my criticisms and what might come across as a highly negative review, Avengers is not a bad game by any measure. The combat hooks you in with its simple, undemanding button mashing, and that's a good thing to find in a game from time to time. It reminded me of how I felt as a kid when I played Streets of Rage back in the Mega Drive days. Although the story fades a little towards the end, it starts out exceptional, and overall it's pretty damn good. Aside from Thor each of the heroes play a pivotal role, and the villains have strong motivations for what they want to achieve. The story was certainly far better than I had anticipated. It's also elevated by some of the best voice acting I have ever come across in a video game, and a script that's full of charm and emotion. But this strong core is hindered by a mediocre outer shell, I really wish the game had focused on being a linear experience and left the open world stuff to the multiplayer and endgame.
At present Avengers is a decent game, it's the jack of all trades but the master of nothing. It does have the potential to get better, which will hopefully be the case as the developers have promised new content in the future. Not to spoil anything but the game does have an epilogue that hints at future story DLC, which does interest me. Can I recommend this game? only for those who are in need of a new game, as well as those who are Marvel fans. For everyone else I would wait for a reasonable sale.
Verdict: 6/10
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