I am an enormous fan of the LEGO games. Heck, I am a fan of LEGOs in general. There is always some sort of creative charm about the blocks, as well as the movie-based games. From Harry Potter to Hobbits and all the way through comic book movies, LEGO games have always been as consistently entertaining as the toys. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, though some folks will try to convince you otherwise.
Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that Tt Games has put together another LEGO adventure with LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, which leans heavily on Marvel’s Age of Ultron for direction and inspiration. You get some of the same levels, some of the same enemies as the movie and you even get a bevy of dialogue from the film to go along with the adventure. Incredibly linear in story and pushed along by the pre-existing dialogue from the film. That’s not to say that you won’t find moments of LEGO goofiness, but for the most part the game swings the direction of the film. Some of the games do that in the LEGO universe, so it’s no surprise this is how it all goes.
The joy of LEGO Marvel’s Avengers is that you get to play these scenarios, which for kids (like my seven year old son) is incredible amounts of fun. For example, the opening scene where the Avengers are raiding Strucker’s compound to acquire the mind gem, you get every scene from the film translated into the LEGO game. The first level caused joy/laughter from my son, which provided a good chunk of entertainment for me. He was captivated by Thor throwing a pig (randomly placed there) from the guard tower. Each time it happened he openly asked, while laughing, “Why is there a pig there? Why did Thor throw it?”, in which I had no answer for him. This game was made for his age group and speaks loudly to it.
For me, I found the construct of the levels a bit too linear and limited. I’m hoping that Tt Games goes back to look at their Hobbit series and opens up the world of Marvel in the same way. The LEGO Hobbit games weren’t open world, but they had large worlds provided for exploration. To an extent the LEGO Jurassic World game was the same way. For some reason, and I’m not completely sure why, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers pulled back a bit and constrained the size of gameplay. It felt like their LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean series, which was fun, but the world didn’t seem as big as LEGO Harry Potter’s did. This is my biggest complaint about the LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. It’s a manageable complaint and one that my son ignored while he was playing the heck out of this title.
As for the actual gameplay, the usual LEGO methods are employed to make the title fun. You collect a massive amount of studs (circular LEGOs with different values set for particular colors) to unlock achievements. You do enough to gain golden blocks to unlock other things in the game. You meet a lot of different types of characters that you collect/unlock as your adventure continues (one such ‘stud’ of a character is Stan Lee, who has lent his voice to the character — bless that man). Everything you do in LEGO Marvel’s Avengers has been done in LEGO games in the past. That’s a great thing for consistency, as well as great because kids just love collecting/unlocking things (exploration/reward sort of deal for them). There’s plenty to do outside of taking their favorite superheroes and causing beautiful havoc, which is what makes a game long in the tooth with young gamers.
In the control scheme category of gameplay, the players aren’t that difficult to control, though I will admit to having some issues with a few characters. One in particular, and this is probably me more than it is the game was Iron Man. For some reason or another I could not get the PlayStation 4 control scheme down mentally for him. I enjoyed what he brought to the table in the way of variety in weapons, but repulsor blasts and lasers were a huge confusion for me. No idea way, but they were.
Related to that was some slight confusion at times about what I should be doing, which goes back to the linear gameplay complaint. Early on in the game, in fact right out of the gates, they ask you to collapse a tower during the Strucker raid and then climb over it. Generally in LEGO games, there is some sort of indication of instructions, as well as clear targeting that indicates purpose, but nothing was clear with this puzzle. I think, by some miracle, I made it over by accident to the other side of the screen, but it was a bit confusing. This was the only puzzle that had me stumped, but there were a few later on that really didn’t give an easy indication of what I needed to do to move on.
Overall, the gameplay is pretty similar to past LEGO titles, but maybe not as good as some of the great titles recently released (Jurassic World and Hobbit come to mind first). I do think that Marvel’s Avengers will be relatable to young gamers a bit more because most know the superheroes by heart, which is a huge plus for Tt Games and LEGO.
On the presentation side of the equation, I think that the game is gorgeously done. While the worlds aren’t as open and huge as LEGO Hobbit, they still contain nicely replicated familiar territories from the movies, as well as goofy LEGO touches, so it’s always neat to see them translated into a LEGO world. It contains the same amount of visual personality as previous LEGO films with a touch of fun humor in well done cut scenes. On a side note, I’m really impressed that Tt Games integrated the dialogue seamlessly into their own world. That must have been tough to accomplish.
Anyway, onto the summary!
