Marvel's Avengers Review (PS4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia).
Marvel's Avengers is easily one of the most ambitious AAA video game projects to be released this generation. Developed by the team that worked on the Tomb Raider reboot, Marvel's Avengers aims to take the developer's classic cinematic platforming and apply it to the Avengers IP as an online co-op service game.
Despite being called Marvel's Avengers, this is more truly a story about Pakistani American teenager and biggest Marvel Super Hero fan, Kamala Khan. After a tragic event succumbs during Avengers day, Kamala finds herself with newly given powers in a world without the Avengers.
Now it's up to her and a growing rebellion to track down the members of the Avengers for a reunion against a new global dictatorship threat. Vague story details aside for the sake of not spoiling the game, I thought Marvel's Avengers did a fantastic job telling a coming of age story for Kamala under the veil of a Super Hero origin story but one from the perspective of someone living in a world with well-established heroes.
Her story also feels like it works well because it hasn't been touched by the MCU yet. The elephant in the room is that the rest of the Marvel heroes feel like actors playing the MCU characters which isn't directly a problem with the game but more of a problem with how iconic the MCU has become.
Kamala hasn't been covered in the MCU yet and thus following her story arc in this game feels like a breath of fresh air in the entertainment genre that the MCU has no doubt taken over. Kamala in the leading role is an endearing and lovable character.
Seeing her grow up from a child superhero fan to a teenager ready to learn to fight alongside the avengers was a beautiful character arc and seeing her persona grow both literally and figuratively was a fantastic time. Marvel's Avengers is a little bit of everything.
It has a single-player campaign, online co-op missions and it's also a live service game in the making. Because of this, there's no doubt this title will draw countless comparisons to other service games like The Division or Destiny 2. The single-player campaign that took about 10 hours to complete featured a lot of the gameplay staples Crystal Dynamics established with their Tomb Raider series but only now with Super Hero powers involved.
As Ms. Marvel, you can lead onto ledges, swing on objects to make far jumps, and so on. Her superpowers are engrained within the platforming and it's not just for her either. As you get the avengers back together, they'll join your roster of playable characters.
Hulk for example, can't stretch like Ms. Marvel can, but can make giant leaps onto walls and hang on to them with his bare grip. As more of the Avengers join the team, the narrative starts to break from a linear story to a more open hub where you can choose which missions to go on whether integral to the story or not.
And despite these playable characters being Super Heroes, Crystal Dynamics does a great job at not making them feel like overpowered characters compared to the villains. Each character had the cinematic set pieces that made each of them feel memorable and iconic.
However, the story wasn't afraid to also put them in situations where they were outnumbered or were wounded to the point of affecting their traditional overpowered status. Each character also plays somewhat differently though they have similar controls.
Almost like how Smash Brothers has every character having similar controls yet different moves and play styles, the same can be said with the avengers. Each character has a light and heavy attack along with dodge, parry, and block moves to defend against enemies.
The enemies on the other hand didn't feel like they had much variety between them, especially when playing as Iron Man. Perhaps it's that his gameplay feels a bit too repetitive with just launching range attacks that didn't feel like they had the same impact as other heroes.
When it came to missions, they were hit or miss depending on the type of missions they were. For example, most story-centric missions were fun, they felt uniquely designed for the narrative and had a pay off for completing them. This is when Avengers shined as an authentic story being told both from a writing and gameplay perspective.
The same can't be said for a lot of the side missions that like Iron Man's gameplay, felt shallow and repetitive most of the time. These missions would have me destroying key points or guarding certain parts of the map. These missions felt like competitive multiplayer game modes being applied to a co-op mode instead, just badly mismanaged.
On the other hand, some of the co-op missions are done well, these are the ones where each hero feels like they uniquely play their part in the gameplay. I just wish that as applicable to all of the content and not just some of it. Of course, you do get rewarded regardless of the mission types in the form of points toward new abilities for your characters.
Each character has a three-part upgrade system with over 100 abilities to unlock for them. These also fuel your power levels for characters which also act like level gates for some of the later mission content. Here's where the live service game comparisons will most likely be.
While gaining abilities is always fun, getting new loot isn't, at least not in this game. It's weird to find a chest in a mission that's a higher level arm or spine for hulk. No cosmetic changes to the character that let me show off my work in the game, just a higher number digit on my stats that feels like it barely did anything.
At least there are costumes you can unlock that are a great fan service to fans of the comics. After completing the single-player campaign, you'll quickly realize just how much more content there is to play through. All of the post-game missions further unlock more experience toward new abilities and power levels that essentially fuel the live service aspect of Avengers.
At the moment I'm not really a fan of the post-game content. Where the campaign felt like a steady growth arc, the live service aspect feels boring, repetitive, and just not rewarding at the moment. Perhaps that'll change once new characters arrive with their own content and stories.
I imagine or rather hope, they'll be like the raids or expansions for Destiny. At the moment though, nothing really entices me to keep playing Avengers passed its single-player campaign. It's without a doubt that Marvel's Avengers is one intensive game for current generation hardware.
When it comes to the base consoles, PS4 and Xbox One S, Avengers runs at 1080p on PS4 and 720p on Xbox One S, both targeting 30 fps but frequently dropping to the mid to low 20 FPS. While PS4 is more consistently hitting 30 fps than the Xbox One, to call it a stable performance would be a disservice.
On Xbox One X, performance hits a native 4k at mostly consistent 30 fps though with the occasional drops. PS4 Pro on the other hand uses a checkerboard 4k with the same 30 fps target but more frequently dropping FPS than the one x. Both of the pro console models offer a performance mode that drops the resolution to 1080p for a higher but very inconsistent frame rate.
In this performance mode, consoles usually hit around mid 40 fps but rarely did it ever hit a consistent 60 fps, if anything it just made the gameplay more unstable. I primarily played my review experience on my PC running a gtx 1070 and an i7 4790k.
I was able to run Avengers with a high preset at 1080p hovering around the mid 50 to 60 fps mark. Next-gen ports have already been announced for PS5 and Series X and like Control demonstrated last year, this is probably a game that was more meant for next-gen consoles than current-gen ones.
Performance details aside, Marvel's Avengers look great. There's so much destruction, mayhem, and oh boy the particle effect, the particle effects. It's no wonder this game is so GPU intensive with all the explosions and superpowers on display. Animation work is also stellar, shining best during the cinematic set pieces that are the highest points of the visuals in this game.
Ultimately Avengers proves to be one of the best looking games this generation but one you'll probably need to break the bank to even run well. Otherwise, you'll be coming across frame rate issues, low resolution, and just odd rendering bugs. Marvel's Avengers has quite the cast of characters and actors portraying them.
Troy Baker nails a timid but smart Bruce Banner. Nolan North captures Tony Stark's big ego almost too well to the point of making him actually annoying and Laura Bailey perfectly portrays a fierce Black Widow that could kick anyone's butt. I had no problems with the casting here, as just about everyone does a great job, especially Sandra Saad as Kamala Khan.
Just as diverse as these characters are, so is the soundtrack behind the whole thing. While one central avenger's theme plays and really is the backbone behind this game, the subthemes for all the heroes stood out to me most. I love the little touches of how Iron Man and Thor feature heavier rock aspects as opposed to the other characters.
Their instruments and music represent each of the character's personalities respectively. Like a lot of service games, it's hard to determine what type of game Avengers is going to be in the next year or so. I'm reviewing this game as it is at launch so take that into consideration when you watch this review.
At launch, I really enjoyed Marvel's Avengers' single-player campaign. I thought the narrative was well crafted, the heroes were portrayed mostly well, sorry Tony, and the set pieces were fantastic! I just have a lot of grips with the live service and multiplayer aspect.
Some of the co-op missions work but the majority of them are repetitive and boring. The rewards or incentives aren't that great and thus, there's not a lot of incentive for me to keep playing past the single-player. Had all that effort been put into really fleshing out the campaign more, I think this could have easily been a higher rated game.
