Does anybody find it strange that Warner Bros., the parent company for DC comics, are publishing a Lego game with Marvel characters? Glad I wasn’t at that licensing meeting. Either way after so many successful Lego tie-ins I’m always excited when a new Lego game comes along. More than a lot of other recent games if I’m honest.
There’s a definite focus on modern Marvel films such as Iron Man and the Avengers. Iron Man makes his now signature weapon sounds and the style of most of the characters and their superhero counterparts are based around the new films. However, Marvel fans will be glad to hear that characters like Wolverine and Venom return to a style that much closer matches the comics. Also Wolverine isn’t the biggest, baddest character ever created by Marvel.
There’s a good balance achieved between characters from the new films, those that reasonably knowledgeable Marvel fans will enjoy and some for the Marvel diehards. Playing through the main game will use characters that most, if not everyone, will know so nobody should feel excluded but there’s still plenty for the comic buffs. The character list is truly impressive, as with so many Lego games.
The story is more than enough to carry the gameplay forwards and the classic Lego humour that so often (unfortunately) has me genuinely laughing makes a very welcome return. Seeing Hulk sweeping up with a dust pan and brush and watching the cleaning crew waiting impatiently during a cut scene with super villains are just two of my favourite moments. Everything feels nice and progressive and you’re always noticeably achieving something. The world map is a little bit clunky and takes a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it it becomes useful enough to get you from A to B.
Annoyingly almost every problem I had with Marvel Super Heroes can be attributed to one thing; the control system. The flaw with the control system is that only 3 of the buttons are really used. You jump with ‘X’, attack with ‘square’ and interact with ‘O’. But you also build with ‘O’ and use certain powers with ‘O’ and descend when flying with ‘O’. There’s a button specifically assigned for using horns in the cars you never use and yet another for boost which is only available in some of the cars you will never use and I’m reduced to using only one button for everything.
Worse still is the use of ‘triangle’. To switch forms with a character like Hulk or Spiderman (amongst many others) you hold ‘triangle’. All fine during your first playthrough, but during freeplay you also hold ‘triangle’ to bring up the character selection screen. The only way I’ve found to swap out a character with two forms is to let them morph (or whatever it is they do) in the background and then hold ‘triangle’ again during their animation. It works but it’s tedious. And then there’s selecting a character.
For some reason the character selection cycles through all the character’s forms continuously. If you don’t have all the different costumes for a character you will have to wait patiently until it comes round again and quickly press ‘X’ on it. Iron Man in particular has around 6 forms and not all of them have the same abilities so it actually matters which one you pick. When two of them are fun but effectively pointless Tony Stark models without his suit on this can become tedious quickly.
All the while ‘select’ is sat there doing nothing. Along with four triggers, two clickable thumbsticks and a D-pad that is for some reason assigned to movement along with the left thumbstick. That’s 11 buttons that could function to help this. Something like pressing ‘L1’ and ‘R1’ to toggle a character’s different forms seems so simple that I can’t believe anybody would have ever opted to assign them to a horn and a boost for the vehicles.
That being said I was quite impressed and surprised with the addition of vehicles. You can ‘borrow’ a car from NPC’s in the open world or spawn an unlocked vehicle from a vehicle spawn point. There are even planes, choppers, boats, tank like things and armoured cars. But I AM IRON MAN. Shall I borrow a taxi from someone or fly off into the distance with my cool blue jets? Not really a decision. The vehicles are varied and well designed but it seems like a huge amount of time and effort has gone into making something that most people will rarely, if ever, use. Admittedly if the vehicles weren’t interactive the open world would feel stale but all the same they just don’t feel right. Not a complaint as such but maybe if a little less time had been spent on crafting tons of vehicles give me a couple of cars and some planes and get the control system right.
Another problem sometimes is the required to build something out of Lego to defeat a boss while all the time you get insta-killed repeatedly. There aren’t really any ramifications to dying, which is good because it would ruin the game, but having Iron Man stand there building Lego while another wave of infinite spawn enemies kill you for the 10th time looks silly and unnecessarily breaks the pace. Even if there are no smaller enemies there’s usually a rather static boss ready to shoot some super-mega-death-beam at you or throw whatever objects he/she can find at you. It’s often best to just put up with the deaths and get the object built and defeat the boss rather than dodge attacks.
I would have preferred a less mindless approach to boss fights as well not seeing Hulk sarcastically die several times against puny enemies. The puzzles too are a little too simple and I imagine most won’t particularly challenge even the younger audience but it doesn’t particularly hinder the game. The only difficulty with regards to the puzzles is when the onscreen prompt says “Only a web-slinging character can interact” with such and such and yet actually many characters can do so. Even if web-slinger isn’t available this message will not change. It happens with a few different objects and can cause some confusion although usually the puzzle is simple enough that a solution should become obvious before too long.
Luckily, combat is as satisfying as ever and most, if not all, of the characters have reasonably unique scripted moves that they will perform automatically every now and again which are very cool. Thrashing around as Hulk is satisfyingly destructive and devastatingly effective. Spiderman spins and flips all over the place acrobatically. Considering most of your combat is essentially just repeatedly pressing ‘square’ it looks very cool and each character has their own style.
Overall another great addition to Lego’s outstanding roster games. It’s great fun to play and there are plenty of collectables to keep you coming back. A cool soundtrack, impressive roster of voice actors and smooth shiny plastic clad visuals make for very good overall presentation. I’m looking forward to getting a proper go on the PS4 version, but it’s hard to see how the Lego can look more Lego-y. Unfortunately the control scheme is poorly thought out and character selection can be irritating but it’s not enough to hold it back. Marvel Super Heroes is the most fun I’ve had playing as a Marvel character since the awesome Ultimate Alliance games. For true believers or those who just want a great platformer this is a must play.
Reviewed on PS3.
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