Marvel’s Avengers Is A Fun Game That Needs Performance Tweaks

I recently had a chance to sit down to play Marvel’s Avengers, the game that is currently being developed and polished by Crystal Dynamics while being distributed by Square Enix, and boy did I have an interesting time. Having spent a lot of time watching videos of the closed beta along with some other press release info, I came into the game with a very low expectation as a lot of the content I’ve seen has you simply fighting robots over and over again.

The game picked up fairly quickly in terms of plot with a nice introduction to the main enemies of the game — Advanced Idea Mechanics or A.I.M. In the comic universe A.I.M. is a global organization that uses advanced technology developed by them in numerous plots to take over the world. Among its many creations are M.O.D.O.K., the Super-Adaptoid and the cosmic cube. The A.I.M. in the Avengers game differs from the comic version in a significant way, with much of its story updated and changed, as Marvel does with a lot of its different properties.

The various playable characters have noticeably different combat styles and were for the most part enjoyable. Each has its own move sets and combat abilities, such as the Hulk being able to leap faster and faster or Iron Man’s jet mode which allowed him to rocket through the level firing repulsor blasts. Movement skills include Iron Man’s ability to shift into an actual flight mode as opposed to a hover mode that is supposed to emulate flight or Captain America’s ability to parkour the level while having a different fighting style. The levels themselves really lend to the ability to traverse quickly while being big enough to allow a team of four players to really contribute to the combat. I enjoyed testing the different move sets and seeing how they work. 

In regards to the narrative and how it’s engaging to the audience, I find a lot of it somewhat lacking, with only Kamala Khan being the character that really pops in terms of narrative and personality. It’s refreshing to see how she keeps such a youthful vigor and how they maintain her fan girl fascination with the Avengers and with superhero culture. The rest of the characters seem so boring and almost like the voice performances were phoned in. I was genuinely surprised at how ‘wooden’ Nolan North sounds as Tony Stark/Iron Man and I wasn’t impressed by Troy Baker as Bruce Banner/Hulk. Laura Bailey sounds pretty much what I would have thought the video game version of Black Widow would have sounded like. 

Despite some of the stilted dialogue and narrative that the game presents at intervals, it still does a good job of showcasing the usual Marvel story with its plot twists and with the escalation of plot and distress for the characters. One solid character storyline quest is that of Iron Man/Tony Stark who has an interesting progression from someone beaten down to getting back into fighting form in his armor again. It’s a large quest within a great many side quests but it has a distinct personal quality to it that allows you to see a more vulnerable side to the characters that intertwines with their more heroic personas. 

I’m glad that the game exists to really key into the gap between the comic book universe and all the other media universes however, I’m not a fan of microtransactions and boy is Marvel’s Avengers stuffed with them. In-game vendors exist to wiggle out that extra bit of real-world change you have with some nifty emotes, rare skins and gestures for the heroes. Since the game is relatively fresh the microtransactions aren’t too invasive, but I’m betting with DLC coming down the pipe it’ll increase in volume. 

Speaking of DLC, Marvel’s Avengers already includes free DLC in the form of Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye, along with her mentor and friend Clint Barton. Clint Barton is voiced by Giacomo Gianniotti who has fewer game voice credits to his name than most of the cast, but many on-screen roles, including Grey’s Anatomy. Kate Bishop is voiced by Ashly Burch who is well known for voicing Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn and Tiny Tina from Borderlands. A definite win for me in terms of characters as Kate Bishop seems to just scream the need for a voice actor that can handle her level of snark and attitude. Considering that Kate Bishop has yet to appear in any media outside of the comic books (although she will be a character in the planned Hawkeye series on Disney+) it shows me that Marvel might be willing to include more non-movie heroes in the game. I can name a lot of heroes that people would LOVE to play as, or even just see in general. 

I rate Marvel’s Avengers a 4 out of 5 mostly due to the microtransactions and several instances of crashing I experienced. The game needs more optimization as there was some chugging during the intro for me and it was bad enough to cause me to crash to the desktop. My friend Ed who I teamed up with to test the multiplayer function experienced a lot more issues with the UI and with the system chugging at some points which included some battles. Our systems exceed the recommended specs for the game so it was very odd to have these issues and often they are tied to optimization issues. I’m pretty sure it’ll be fixed up in no time (I hope).