The Marvel s Avengers project is filled with internal conflicts and contradictions, and by scattering their efforts in order to please completely different audiences, the developers risk getting a game created “for no one.”
Marvel’s Avengers is a kind of action movie from Crystal Dynamics, whose cinematic projects were honed with the restart of Tomb Raider. Avengers fans have received the franchise’s gamification from Marvel, and while the traits of Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr. are hard to trace in the characters, the overall style is evident. Colors and camera angles, combat animation, even individual scenes were taken from the film. For those who prefer Russian dubbing, a pleasant surprise awaits, since many actors who worked on the films took part in the dubbing of the characters.
It is worth noting an important fact that the main character of Marvel’s Avengers is a character who has not previously appeared in films. A teenage girl Kamala Khan, known as “Miss Marmel”, will survive the disaster at the beginning of the game, after which she will acquire superpowers. The special emphasis in the game is on the fact that Kamala is Muslim, which is taken into account during her trip to a religious summer camp. In addition, the girl sews the superhero costume on the pattern of the Islamic swimsuit burkini. Thanks to the point of view of a teenage girl, it is possible to somewhat smooth out the dissonance between the game avengers and their prototypes from the films. The player does not immediately get access to control of superheroes, but only after they are revealed in communication with Kamala, as well as with each other.
It will be possible to get used to new faces quickly enough, since dialogues, as well as animation, fall into characters familiar from films. However, the cinematic plot is just one aspect of Marvel’s Avengers, while when it comes to gameplay itself, a rift in the game’s foundations is immediately exposed. We can say that the project is trying to simultaneously juggle three types of gameplay at once. It is worth noting that after Kamila manages to locate the Avengers aircraft carrier after five hours of play, it turns out that all the events that have taken place up to this point are just a prologue.
The real game begins only after completing the combat mechanics training in the VR room, and it will take about five hours to complete the tutorial. The game has an external customization system, with about 20 costume options available for each character. An unpleasant surprise can be the fact that you will have to pay for unique items, and since in-game credits accumulate too long, some players may not resist spending real money on equipment. So, for example, the Iron Man armor will cost ten dollars. Despite the fact that the battles in the game are impressive in their entertainment, and the balance is fine-tuned quite well, the battles are often more tiring than exciting. In addition, the paradoxical uniformity of enemies, represented only by an army of robots of different specializations, greatly interferes with the gameplay.
The question posed at the very beginning remains unanswered, since it is not clear who can get the most out of the game. Marvel fans may be attracted by the story itself, but scared off by the rather cumbersome combat system, while the audience of loot shooters may go into multiplayer mode ahead of time, suffocated by the linearity of the story levels. A similar situation is likely, especially if Crystal Dynamics continues to fill Marvel’s Avengers with new heroes and types of enemies, as well as new tasks. To summarize, we can say that the Marvel’s Avengers project, although it is quite spectacular and ambitious, but stuck between a passable looter shooter and a good film is quite controversial.
