2021 charges on into May without much courtesy to stop and ask me what I'm up to. Luckily, I'm gonna write about it anyway. Near the end of April, Gamestop had a 4 games for $60 deal that I just couldn't pass up. I ended up getting Ocarina of Time and A Link Between Worlds for 3DS, Megaman Zero Collection (6 titles previously only on Nintendo handhelds) and Marvel's Avengers for PS4. Luckily, that disc lets you download the PS5 version for free.
Marvel's Avengers didn't have the greatest initial reception, which made me wonder how one of the most popular IP in the world with a AAA budget didn't have a slam-dunk game. So, Crystal Dynamics made an RPG loot shooter masquerading as a brawler. The RPG mechanics seem pretty well hidden during the main campaign. Story mode leaps between Avengers while mostly focusing on fangirl-cum-Avenger Kamala Khan's apprenticeship under reluctant Bruce Banner as she builds her polymorphism and becomes Ms Marvel. The story isn't amazing, but it keeps going and objectives and difficulty are well-balanced.
It's weird that the character models and voice actors are decidedly different from the MCU that we've seen in theaters for the last 15 awesome years. However, it feels completely familiar because the talent pool is the uniform AAA title roster: Troy Baker, Laura Bailey and Nolan North. You already know who they are because they've done voice work in everything you've played after 2010. These are talented actors, but they already voice so many other characters that the result ends up taking fame away from the Avengers. I don't hear Tony Stark, I hear Nathan Drake. I don't hear Bruce Banner, I hear Higgins from Death Stranding or Joel from Last of Us. And because this vocal diversity is extremely limited, we have tons of scenes where Troy Baker (Bruce Banner) talks to Nolan North (Tony Stark) and it sounds like someone arguing with himself.
The levels take place in the Pacific Northwest, Utah, and the East Coast, but these locations will quickly blur together into 'indoors' or 'outdoors' with a handful of configurations. The bland level design is because your cast of 7 Avengers have different movement types (flying, double jumping, regular jumping) and the levels were built to accommodate anyone.
But I didn't pick this game up for a nuanced story delivery or level design. I got Marvel's Avengers to kick ass! The combat looks and sounds absolutely amazing. You fight humans, which probably don't have any business clashing with Thor, Iron Man or the Hulk, but more often you're knocking pieces and bits off robots that try to get fresh with you. The graphical details are nice, the framerate is smooth even with a ton of action on screen, and the sound design is fantastic. The PS5 version has vibration adding to the intensity of the hits, making the chunky combat impactful and satisfying. The AI that controls the other Avengers works together with banter and it delivers on some quality beatdown scenarios. This all sings gloriously in the campaign.
Unfortunately, after that 8-hour romp, I stopped feeling like an Avenger because I was getting my ass handed to me regularly on EASY. There are another 100 or so hours of grinding stronger enemies among really similar missions. Those stronger enemies will often ignore your combos and defense, making a mockery of dodge and parry. At the 30-hour mark, I was getting downed as Thor so often that I started asking around on message boards. I learned to 1) boost the defense stat and 2) dodge and parry more often. While I've spent another 15 hours integrating these new habits, The Strongest Avengers still get beat up often because of stun locks and all the visual clutter that comes with fighting mobs of enemies in close camera angles. Nothing is worse than seeing the God of Thunder or Hulk get smacked around by unblockable attacks and brought to their knees by an offscreen laser that gave no warning. I am so shocked that one of the most popular franchises on the planet has a game that is not more accessible, ESPECIALLY ON EASY. You have to put in a lot more work than any Ultimate Alliance game.
As far as characters, the most interesting combat trophy goes to Black Widow, who feels like a natural brawler. She is animated incredibly well, has a diverse moveset, and is an absolute blast to fight with. Ditto Ms Marvel.
Structurally, Marvel's Avengers is a live service game, meaning the dev team is responsible for providing content for the game long past release. I have no love for this model because it seems to inspire developers holding back content from the main game and slowly trickling in underwhelming options. This week, we get custom name plates for replaying levels and collecting things as different Avengers. This isn't the only game that plummeted from a $60 MSRP to $15 within a few months, and it's really hard to defend live service as a structure when players are rewarded with trash.
All that said, I'll still play it because a few hours of Dualsense-powered combat to some good Spotify tunes is something I can relax to. I'd recommend the campaign to anyone looking for a fun week, but the platinum trophy is whole different idea.
The other title I'd like to talk about is April's PS+ PS5 game, Oddworld: Soulstorm. I had a very brief encounter with this side scrolling puzzle platformer on the original Playstation. This new one is just as glum and dreary, and the gameplay is slower and more deliberate than I was hoping. Abe is an escaped slave who is supposed to liberate more of his race from captors, controlling minds and sneaking around, but I died a LOT. The voice work is pretty gloomy and Abe's reluctance in the face of extinction was just a turnoff for me.
I hope to make my next post entirely about Returnal, which I've anticipated for a long while.
Hozzászólások