LEGO – a word that includes so much more than 4 letters. The LEGO- universe succeeded in transforming big franchise such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, …etc. into popular video games due to their simplicity and comical undertone. They made every franchise into their own thing and no matter what age you have, you insert the game disc, relax, play and enjoy.
Will LEGO Avengers be any different ? Let’s find out.
The developers at LEGO really made a lot of fun games with such a simplistic but successful formula. Of course, developers tend to lose their creativity when they’ve found a good formula. It’s a lot more difficult to leave the winning formula aside and start from scratch. LEGO Avengers is the same game as any other LEGO- game but this time, you take on the role of one of your beloved superheroes like Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, … There are 15 levels in the game and all these levels are set in the Marvel Universe, so you’ll have to fight your way through bad guys in the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier, take a look around in the one and only Stark Tower and meet up with your friendly neighbours in Manhatten City.
The game mechanics are very simple. Each level contains mindless bad guys, an end boss and some puzzle sections. Each episode, lets you start off with a pair of superheroes. Each superhero has unique combat skills and they can use their abilities to solve “specific” puzzles and aid you in battle by performing certain “combo” oppurtunities. For example: Iron Man can fly and blast his way through silver and/or gold objects, Captain America can use his shield as an automatic key to unlock doors or even extinguish fires, Thor can electrify stuff like connectors and such, Black Widow can become invisible to surpass security…
In your party, you’ll be able to switch between heroes on the fly and the computer will take over the other hero. If the computer doesn’t do his job like he’s supposed to do, you can always invite a friend to help you out, thanks to the local multiplayer option. This is a very helpful option, since most of the puzzles needs both superheroes. It’s sometimes a drag to switch up between heroes just to solve the puzzle. The game progresses a lot faster when a friend plays along with you.
“Gotta unlock them all!”
“Gotta catch them all!” is something Ash Ketchum would say when he was a big fan of collecting LEGO personalities instead of Pokemon. The game offers an open world section that’s set in Manhatten City where different side missions can be done to recieve coins as a reward. This open world experience is OPEN to a certain kind of level. The open world only contains places from the movie, like for example a replica of “Asgard”. It’s just fun to select a favorabel/ unlocked hero and roam the streets of Manhatten. You’ll be amazed on how much you can discover by sight seeing. It’s very entertaining to come across different heroes of the Marvel universe while doing your side missions. This part is more fun than the actual story mission.
The story missions lacks a bit of freedom, it’s too tight connected to the movie. A lot of scenes are re- made in the LEGO- universe with an occasionally and unexpecting placed joke. It’s these kind of moments that makes the story fun, otherwise it’s just copy paste from the movie. Even the voiced dialogues are taken from the movie. Even some of the big fights in the game turn into mindless bashing of “a certain button” in order to win. I mean the fight is just “a fight” repeated 4 times. At some point, I felt like I was playing a game on auto-pilot. Just bashing the same enemies over and over again with the same moves.
I do get one “strange” addicting feeling from this LEGO- game and that’s smashing every destructible object, so i could hear that heavenly sound of lego coins being inserted in my coin purse. These silver, golden and even blue coins can be collected from defeating enemies and destroying everything that’s breakable. The coins can be used for unlocking characters, vehicles and cheats. These unlockable characters can’t be played in the main storymine but they can be played in “Free Play” which allows you to play certain levels again to discover secret area’s that can be accessed by your new purchased characters. Be warned: these coins can easily be lost, as it can be gained. Once all of your health hearts are dissapeared, you die and you explode into bits and a certain amount of coins. All of these coins can be re-collected but the amount that’s lost can’t be fully re- gathered.
The mechanics in the game work even better than before but don’t expect something new. The game does however runs very smoothly and I didn’t see too much bugs and glitches appear on my screen. A few bugs that I would like to mention are the following: I’ve experienced some broken side missions, dead characters floating in the air and the interaction mechanic doesn’t seem to respond sometimes. These bugs can easily be patched and it didn’t wreck my gameplay experience. I do admit that the level design, could have been better. It seemed “uninspired” at times.
Conclusion:
If you like the series, you’ll probably buy it but don’t expect anything fancy. In the beginning the moves of our superheroes are pretty much awesome but it will get you bored at some point. The Marvel Universe is definitely worth exploring and the “Free roaming mode in Manhatten” gives you the ability to make some superhero scenes of your own. The characters are well designed but the main story ( looking at voice acting and gameplay scenes) is just a reprint of the whole movie. Still, the game can be enjoyable for some time and eventually turn into a mindless button bashing game.
6.5/10
