The People Vs. Marvel's Avengers - The $60 AAA Broken Experience. Remember BioWare Anthem? (Review)

[Music] a game where we as players can experience in both single player and co-op what it's like to be earth's mightiest heroes do i have any true believers in the house yes awesome because you will instantly recognize your favorite superheroes and villains but you'll also see that they're unique to this game as this is crystal's interpretation of these iconic characters somewhere around the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015 marvel's gaming division would approach and discuss making a superhero game with developer insomniac games this was significant because marvel was changing their approach with video games going more hands-on and actually making an effort to produce some top-notch superhero console games made by talented aaa developers for the longest time marvel simply licensed their characters out to the highest bidder like publisher activision blizzard who held onto the spider-man license until 2014. but what that meant was a lot of uninspired mediocre cash grab titles for over a decade with a level of care and creativity being there maybe at the beginning with some surprise hits but over time there was just big stinkers like 2011 spider-man edge of time or 2014's the amazing spider-man 2 developed both by bnox what changed at marvel to make them finally want to produce some worthwhile superhero story focused games i'm not entirely too sure the video game industry is a very lucrative market maybe it was about just money or maybe it was looking at the competition seeing what warner brothers and dc comics had put together with their critically acclaimed batman arkham franchise and wondering why can't we do that the one difference though is that warner brothers has a proper gaming division with their own talented studios while marvel does not largely i would assume because of parent company disney's stance on video games which is that they don't want to get too involved as they view it as a risky business disney enjoys the position of licensing their properties out with some like star wars going to the highest bidder the marvel characters being treated seemingly different of course they're still being licensed out but marvel has more control with who gets to use their prized heroes and villains in june 2016 after revealing to the world for the first time that insomniac was developing a new spider-man game for the playstation 4 exclusively marvel games head jae-ong explained in an interview with games industry.biz the new direction that they were taking saying along with the senior executives at marvel and my team within the games business we devised a brand new strategy to be very selective and only partner with the best game companies on earth we wanted to work very selectively with companies that shared our vision our ambition and really usher in a brand new era for the marvel games business that new era would officially begin with insomniac spider-man being released to the world on september 7th 2018 and being met to universal acclaim from both critics and users alike the game at the time would break playstation sales records and later go on to be showered numerous awards this was a giant success not just for insomniac and sony but also marvel but even before the release of insomniac spider-man we got a taste for what was next to come from marvel's gaming initiative and that was a partnership with publisher square enix on january 26 2017 marvel entertainment revealed on their official youtube channel a short teaser trailer for the avengers project a game being developed by crystal dynamics in collaboration with developer idos montreal two talented studios which have created some of the best single player games ever in addition to this teaser trailer marvel also noted that the avengers project would feature a completely original story packed with iconic characters environments and moments along with a universe that gamers could get invested into for years to come despite the early promise of new details on the avengers project in future games that was supposed to come in 2018 it would actually be over two years until we got our first look at what crystal dynamics had been putting together that would happen at e3 2019 a few years ago crystal dynamics and marvel began collaborating on an original avengers game one that combined epic action adventure with cinematic storytelling you'll play as your favorite avengers in an all-new original story showcasing authentic marvel heroism and humanity it's about losing what matters to you most and fighting to get it back you'll assemble into teams of up to four players online where you can master extraordinary abilities where you can customize a growing roster of heroes and defend the earth from ever escalating threats oh yes oh yes and to make sure everyone comes on this journey with us we're incredibly thrilled to announce that every new superhero and every new region will be delivered at no additional cost so our promise to the community is that we won't have random loot boxes or pay to win scenarios in the weeks leading up to this presentation massive leaks began to emerge much of which has 100 accuracy like the fact that the game's main protagonist was none other than kamala khan regardless on june 10th crystal dynamics shared to the world for the first time what they had been working on for the last number of years now called marvel's avengers the reveal event brought tons of hype and anticipation this included at the start of the show cinematic footage of a day which sets up the game's storyline and shows some of earth's mightiest heroes in action furthermore developers took to the stage discussing the ambitious nature of the game revealing new gameplay and story details such as the heroes we would be playing as this included captain america iron man black widow hulk and thor we also got a look at the all-star cast voicing and assuming the roles of these avengers finally the show concluded with the announcement that this game featured co-op with up to four players and was indeed an online live service that would see its narrative being expanded upon over multiple years crystal dynamics additionally focused in on the point that all new heroes and regions would be free and there would be no loot boxes or pay to win scenarios they also teased a partnership with playstation in which ps4 players would get early beta access along with other quote-unquote benefits that would be revealed at a later date all of these details would be met to an enormous applause from the in-person audience now while much of the reaction to this reveal was positive there certainly was some skepticism a decent chunk of gamers felt let down by what was shown many dissatisfied with character designs which looked extremely generic and uninspired another gripe with the reveal was that no actual gameplay was being publicly revealed only those in attendance were actually able to play a behind closed doors demo but that would not last long as immediately following e3 2019 off-screen footage would start to leak and that was really when concerns began to mount regardless this reveal accomplished its ultimate goal which was creating anticipation but also getting people's attention marvel also was very happy about the progress of this project with marvel games head jae-ung saying in a statement crystal dynamics is one of the industry's most talented and respected game development studios and we could not be more excited about their ambitious vision for marvel's avengers it will thrill our fans and serve as a key part of marvel's storytelling delivering an authentic and innovative take on our heroes as never seen before this game is what's next for the avengers originally this game was set to launch may 15 2020 but in mid-january 2020 was officially announced by crystal dynamics that the release date was moving to september 4th 2020 as they needed more development time focusing on fine-tuning and polishing the game this decision was hardly a surprise considering crystal dynamics were criticized over the game's unimpressive character design but also the gameplay which received a somewhat mixed reception from those in games media that were able to play the e3 2019 demo fast forward to june 2020 what would have likely been an e3 presentation instead crystal dynamics had its first of three digital events called the war table which provided users with an in-depth look at marvel's avengers days following the second war table event which revealed upcoming beta details and dates this is where things started to turn a bit upside down and when controversy surrounding the game blew up on august 3 playstation proudly announced that spider-man would be coming to marvel's avengers exclusively on playstation consoles in 2021 immediately outrage over the announcement would dominate social media with many xbox and pc players claiming they would not purchase the game anymore on august 4th it would be announced by crystal dynamics on playstation's website tons of more exclusive content this included playstation players having 30-day early access to a legendary outfit legendary emote epic takedown and nameplate for each superhero as they are released additionally playstation players would receive exclusive community challenges and playstation plus subscribers would get a miss marvel bundle on launch day along with a free bundle containing a rare outfit name plate and 100 credits with the arrival of each new post-launch hero on august 5th crystal dynamics studio head scott amos would seemingly push the blame on playstation for the spider-man exclusivity claiming that it was their quote-unquote unique relationship with marvel which decided this when asked how xbox or pc players should feel about this exclusivity amos reportedly said they have the option to do so on playstation i would say that marvel's avengers has a lot of heroes with the scope and the breadth of this game in this universe players are going to have their hands full with a lot to play with also on this days when multiple gaming outlets published their impressions of the game's beta as they were able to get access early the reception was extremely mixed game informer said marvel's avengers left them cold vg247 saying that the beta gave them huge anthem fives ign said that the game was trying a little too hard to please everyone forbes said that they left wanting to play more polygons said that they were excited for the avengers to assemble and ars technica was concerned with a looter shooter beat-em-up combination on august 10th marvel's avengers creative and combat directors confirmed that spider-man would star in his own self-contained story arc in this game additionally that same day gaming outlet vgc would report even more exclusivity coming to this live service with verizon up virgin media and intel customers getting exclusive cosmetics and those who purchase special packs of five gum in the united states would be able to claim a special in-game emote throughout the month of august marvel's avengers went through three beta stages all of which i took part in as i said in multiple videos and tweets at the time i found marvel's avengers beta to be very lackluster with the primary issues being the fact that loot is close to the word pointless with most of it not actually having an appearance mission and level design also was very unimpressive with most of the environments feeling copy and pasted with the same puzzles the same encounters the same enemies and the same corridors combat was hit or miss with it feeling clunky at times problems like camera shake matchmaking and motion blur were fortunately fixed as the beta went on but the one part of this beta experience that did stand out as a positive separating it somewhat from the game i felt it was rightfully compared to bioware's anthem was the story which seemed intriguing and at the very least had my interest and attention one big question following this beta was in regards to monetization and how the character challenge card system would work essentially this feature is your standard battle pass which includes rewards such as outfits emotes resource bundles name plates takedowns units and credits notably every hero has their own card that can be leveled up 40 tiers on august 29th crystal dynamics in a blog post explained how gear and cosmetics worked in the game emphasizing that microtransactions would be cosmetic only not pay to win it would help fund content for years to come they would also note that they were taking a player first approach with their in-game economy the reception to this post was again pretty mixed with some unhappy but the idea of a 10 battle pass for every single hero being in the game day one a freemium model being used for a full price triple aaa product that also included a massive marketplace on september 1st the game would go live for those who purchased one of the more expensive editions of the game which included the added benefit of getting to play the title three days early after a few years of waiting starting with a great teaser trailer in 2017 to the first real reveal at e3 2019 to players going hands-on just last month with the beta to now present day marvel's avengers has officially released the next questions are how does this game play has it changed since the beta are the issues present in the beta still relevant to the fall release version is the story worth it well all those questions will get answered now that could instantly patch bond seal and repair marvel's avengers has us assume the role of kamala khan super fan of the avengers who tasks herself with bringing the team back together after the avengers disbanded with bruce banner blaming themselves for allowing the catastrophic event a day which happened a few years prior leading to the death of captain america the formation and rise of organization aim and countless regular people being turned into super-powered beings thanks to a powerful terrigen crystal that turned into an infective gas as the helicarrier it was powering was destroyed on a day kamala khan who was aboard the ship during the attack was one of the victims or you could say beneficiaries as she gained super powers allowing her to stretch and expand her body's size pretty much like mr fantastic so this is the synopsis setting up the start of marvel's avengers and after spending about 30 hours or so with this game i can firmly say with great confidence this is the most average mediocre narrative that you will play in the year 2020 it's certainly not terrible but it's also not this work of art it's just quite meh it's forgettable it's extremely predictable with no real surprises it's your typical generic good guy versus bad guy plotline with not much else in between it's like eating a loaf of bread that was left out overnight versus an actual delicious sandwich which has two pieces of arnold's whole wheat bread toasted cut into triangles because everyone likes triangles and has provolone cheese bacon boar's head mesquite turkey mustard mayonnaise lettuce and tomato in it marvel's avengers story makes you hungry for something more it feeds you with a product lacking substance with game design at war with itself the main story campaign has a run time of about 10 to 11 hours with a ton of extra side content and mission stapled on to last likely hundreds of hours of playtime while i sound obviously very sour so far in this game kamala khan is a great protagonist she is at the center of the story with surprisingly some avengers barely having a presence in this campaign the marketing for this game was pretty abysmal because i don't think anyone was quite under the impression that much of this game's campaign is a coming of age tale with kamala khan learning to embrace who she is as now a superhero i guess the best comparison i could make is that marvel's avengers is the better looking cousin of bioware's anthem with a storyline that for some reason reminds me of the power rangers anyway before we get into the actual spoilers let's discuss everything else starting with menu options it's very standard and there isn't much more to say than just that you have the ability to change brightness turn on subtitles choose from a 4k or high performance graphics mode four difficulty modes with easy normal hard and brutal there's also different control schemes target assistance and aim camera and shake sensitivity skills so again the usual nothing special but i do find it a bit annoying how it appears every single aaa publisher is now forcing users to log in or create accounts on their website to access content and that is the case with the avengers game you must be connected to square enix to take part in much of the online portion of this title now there is also a very efficient photo mode which i found myself not really using ever compared to some of the other games that have photo modes that i used recently like gosu tsushima it's pretty lackluster but it's it's a photo mode nonetheless now the structure of the gameplay experience directly mirrors that of bioware's anthem which tried taking on the destiny formula i would consider this action adventure a little closer to what bioware tried doing with anthem players begin the game following a few linear introductory levels but once you move past that majority of the time you'll find yourself in these single-player hubs where you can visit vendors like roy that offer gear or cosmetics that you can purchase with resources that you obtain as you play through missions some vendors do have all these items unlocked with you being able to purchase everything if you have the necessary resources but there's also faction vendors which is a little more complicated as it requires lots of grind to unlock faction specific levels which in turn allows you to get better unique gear so for example one of the factions is shield doing missions and taking on challenges for them will have you gaining levels which every level up comes with a faction reward that includes a decent amount of resources that you can accept or decline although again the way that this system is structured is that you likely will need to log in regularly completing daily challenges and missions as to unlock the full item catalog a faction vendor has could take well over 100 hours of gameplay so again typical live service stuff now additionally in these single player hubs some story related events take place but outside of that you can have some small interactions with certain objects and heroes but i'll be honest there's just not much to any of these moments than that which is disappointing because at least anthem attempted to give some of the npcs in these locations some character and story even though it was pretty low quality and lackluster but the primary focus of these hubs are the war table which is where you pick and choose what missions that you wish to take on each mission has difficulty levels that you can easily change there's also mission modifiers which can make things even harder especially during boss fights the campaign offers as you might expect some unique environments and missions but unfortunately nothing at all stands out with the design of these levels some are indeed fun like when we experience the badassery of iron man as he makes his way through various aim structures and facilities that are guarded by countless lasers and cannons that try taking tony down as he flies by with rock music playing in the background or when hulk faces off with abomination for the first time with these two monsters going back and forth as they wreak destruction or havoc on everything that surrounds them with each punch or body slam delivered most of these missions though largely has you battling waves of enemies securing a circle or square controlling three rectangular positions destroying multiple objects like reactor cores and an occasional boss fight at the end also you'll always find yourself jumping into a good old elevator which is the not so subtle loading screens but much of these levels feature additional side content that players can take on and my god does it get repetitive with the same exact special enemy that you have to take down the same exact civilians that you have to save that are trapped for some reason and a giant container and then there's the same exact resource boxes that are scattered throughout every single level that you have to run through and the same exact loot crates that are locked inside a building and can be only unlocked by a very generic stand on or hit a few buttons puzzle open levels that are featured here are simply just a waste of time the environments look visually good but are filled with the most uninspired and boring repetitive optional side content created possible could have been cool to add some npcs running away from aimbots or something like that and the avengers coming to the rescue but that would require effort the more straightforward missions have you walk down a hallway kill some enemies and advance to the main objective based room this type of mission is repeated i don't know how many times with the same locations and objectives being used over and over again outside of the campaign in the end game portion of this live service these nitpicky gripes i have are much worse as every location and thing you've already done is repeated many more times like i'm certain i've played in about 15 or so different missions with these same exact boss being either abomination a giant aim robot or task master cool marvel villains sure but i want to believe that crystal dynamics could you know add a few other bloody options to the mix also it probably should be mentioned that these boss fights get beyond repetitive because of lackluster animations and movement every encounter is pretty much the same thing giant robot does have some complexity i suppose with having to destroy its vulnerabilities like its glowing red reactor core events and then attacking its eye with our marvel villains taskmaster or abomination these battles are them slowly walking around as my ai companion heroes crowd them spamming melee attacks until they need to be revived oh and occasionally a wave or two of more lower difficulty enemies will spawn into these fights that's about it fortunately the end game does include some unique story content for each hero which surprisingly is actually not that bad from a story perspective now this is probably the right time to finally discuss our heroes and again another positive thing i can say is that each of them feel different enough hulk you can feel the full force of his powers as he jumps 30 feet in the air and as he slams down to the ground he uses his thunderclap which causes severe damage for any enemy in the area iron man flies through the air as he lays down a barrage of rockets on a target as he spins away from incoming fire miss marvel enlargens her size by about 10 times easily kicking and punching anything near her away thor glowing in lightning as bolts around his body uses his god blast to decimate nearby enemies black widow uses her agility and fast movement to her advantage as she blasts enemies away with her handguns and utilizes a cloaking ability that allows her to get the upper hand on her foe lastly captain america 360 no scopes all enemies with his one-of-a-kind shield and heart each hero has their very own abilities including an ultimate one all of which can be further customized by upgrading skills through the somewhat head scratching three pages of skill trees the hero that i found myself most often using was thor which so far i've upgraded his power to above 60 in its level to above 20. see in marvel's avengers power plays a huge role with much of the end game content having a recommendation of 30 to 40 power for certain missions how you upgrade your power level is obtaining better and higher level gear like legendaries or exotics that feature multiple unique perks the gear system like in most games has your comments which are in gray and the best of the best gear being exotics and orange so completing missions or challenges or purchasing items at a vendor or opening up a bronze silver or gold loot crate which are scattered throughout levels will grant you gear and you are constantly upgrading gear because it is quite literally the most pointless part of this game it literally suffers from the same problem anthem had there is a lack of unique loot and for some odd reason loot has no appearance on most heroes so you'll find yourself before during and after missions constantly fiddling around and upgrading numbers to ensure that you're not outmatched for example you may gain a very useful legendary breastplate for thor that has a max power rank of 40 and a few really nice perks but once your hero advances to say an overall power of 45 that legendary piece of gear becomes obsolete well the only thing for you to do with it is to dismantle it and gain some resources back that you can use to then upgrade the next piece of gear until it again becomes useless this is a cycle one that really does not make any sense at all if you're going to attempt to make a looter shooter like game that takes inspiration from the destiny formula maybe you should consider going with what worked with destiny and not anthem which ended up being a pretty massive mess anyway besides power collecting comets which are scattered throughout levels it can also be found i believe in crates and completing these sets gives out some gameplay bonuses albeit very minor and leveling up is very important as you gain skill points for each rank up unlocking new abilities new attacks and at level 15 for each hero you unlock a second minor artifacts gear slot finally let's discuss cosmetics which this game is lacking severely when your game doesn't have loot with an appearance and much of the cosmetics at launch are featured in the bloody marketplace or behind a time-consuming battle pass that's a major problem nothing like being presented with the option to spend 14 on making iron man colored in black and gold or hulk dressing like he's on vacation in hawaii or kamala khan with just a really random casual outfit for the equivalent of 12 in the game's premium currency you can purchase some new animations like an epic takedown for black widow things are getting a little too repetitive with fighting moves cough up some cash pretty much it also doesn't help that many of the cosmetics that can be unlocked through things like challenges or literal re-skins time to make another mention to anthem but that game actually had a brilliant customization system which allowed you to play around with colors and really have freedom with designing your javelin i have a sneaking suspicion that the lack of unique cosmetics are because one square enix wants to monetize the better skins greed but two because having complete control over say iron man or miss marvel's appearance is something that marvel themselves would not allow thus why there's a limited amount of skins ones that marvel approved and loot that doesn't bring any appearance either way this is yet another big disappointment especially since the other company who owns superheroes dc comics is letting their developers go wild with some of the different types of customization for their characters next though we moved to the graphics of the game which i actually thought was pretty solid sure there are various moments in which textures look extremely blurry or flying as iron man or thor you can see in some of the more open levels textures popping in from right below you but overall i thought it looked good crystal dynamics did an admirable job fixing some of the graphical issues that were found during the beta especially some horrifying images that surfaced of kamala khan's assassin's creed unity-like face the opening of the game looks phenomenal and much of the environments are extremely detailed whether that be the snowy tundra in russia or the hot uncharted like desert of the utah badlands what's most impressive though is the particle effects whether that be the intimidating design of modok who emits a sort of purple electricity around him and on the things that he controls using his technokinesis power or when you attack an aim robot in sparks fire or an explosion emerges as you land each hit then there's the unique abilities that each of our heroes have like when iron man supercharges and uses his powerful unibeam attack or black widow when she uses her ultimate ability which features a glowing red shock baton visually this is top-notch work one criticism that i recall that originated following the game's first demo being released publicly is characters facial animations or look and here with the full release again i actually thought each character looked great there's definitely no mass effect andromeda situation here in present day all the characters faces look realistic you can fully grasp the emotions that they are expressing certainly it's not on the level that we saw with say naughty dogs the last of us part 2 but this is still extremely well done now with enemy design it's just all right a bit uninspired with some of these enemies pretty much being reskinned with an elemental effect or some extra damage and health definitely though i would have preferred seeing a greater degree of variety especially with bosses next let's take a look at audio design sounds pretty big for an accident there are no accidents thor tony check it out at once try to keep up grab the queen gentlemen just in case on it hundreds of people were infected people died nat take it easy did you take some responsibility tony oh there's the bruce i know throw everyone under the bus why don't you no it's not the time no it's okay now see he's been waiting to do this since golden acres haven't you haven't you god another enemy defeated the good news is that everything to do with sound is great in a game like this i actually think it needs to be music and sound needs to give you that feeling that you are a superhero when hulk smashes the ground or lands a punch you need to hear and feel that force when thor the god of thunder is glowing with lightning bolts surrounding him it's necessary to have those bolts zapping around him and for players to feel his power as he summons a lightning strike down on an enemy nearby adding to the intensity of a battle good background music is important to increase the tension and thankfully all of this is here in regards to just voice the entire cast of marvel's avengers does a good job bringing these heroes to life many times though i could strangely hear the last of his character joel and bruce banner that's because well obviously troy baker portrays both characters overall some really great performances that actually really summarizes my full thoughts on audio it splendid with some great moments like tony stark rocking out or when the avengers assemble for the first time so now to combat this is an area where again i just feel very mixed on of course there's some really cool fighting abilities or animations for each hero but quite often many large-scale battles turns into a clunky mess with the screen being dominated by chaos which made countering or being a little bit more strategic pointless at times i would argue against someone describing the combat as just button mashing as there is a good deal of combos that can be unlocked and utilized and learned but i also can admit that there was quite a few situations where i felt that other aaa games from last generation have done this far better but if you spend the time really mastering a hero you can unlock some really cool moves doesn't get more satisfying than hulk dodging an attack going into his rage mode punching a robot into the air and following up with a mix of light and heavy attacks that send this enemy flying 50 yards away to their doom i guess what i'm saying is that there are definitely layers but that may only be fully realized if you're willing to grind dozens of hours past the campaign also i think combat for myself ended up being less satisfying because of how often i had to rely on ai companions by my side instead of real players matchmaking still doesn't work all that great a few times i sat around waiting by a mission for five minutes to maybe once in a while get another player to join in but most of the time ai companions which are dumb as a brick it's not as big of an issue as it was in the beta but you cannot rely on your ai heroes to be there at all whether that be to secure a location or staying alive against high-powered enemies unfortunately marvel's avengers is probably the buggiest game that i have played in 2020 with my playstation 4 pro sounding like an airplane there were various moments whenever numerous bigger enemies spawned in that the game took a noticeable and significant frame drop the fact that at times this was struggling on a playstation 4 pro makes me wonder how this performs on the base versions of the xbox one and playstation 4. but besides fps drops there were ridiculous long and lengthy loading screens throughout this experience almost always taking at least a minute to advance to one of the game's hubs or to a match this can get quite annoying kind of like anthem when it had this issue but probably what's more frustrating were the big bugs most coming in the end game with multiple times companion and enemy ai just randomly ceasing movement completely enemies spawning in behind a door under the floor audio for a thor side mission not at all triggering this happened more than once abomination mid-boss fight t-posing in a corner forcing a restart of that encounter as he had become invincible to all attacks captain america suffering some sort of strange facial bug with one of his iconic suits and thor flying around a level and escaping a restricted zone to then being launched to i i don't know where outside the map the entire level just completely bugged out again forcing a restart so yeah a game that could have used more time in the oven for polish let me emphasize these are just some of the notable things that happened there was still many times with blurry textures enemies clipping into walls being stuck in a vendor menu unless i purchased an item and some animations bugging out when another npc or companion got in the way optimization just isn't there with this title thankfully though my experience was not hindered too badly like others in which yeah this game just has some really nasty bugs some of which is making this game unplayable for some whether that be not being able to advance through a level infinite loading screens or numerous crashes your arm is like a rubber bed [Music] [Music] do [Music] and i can't go anywhere stuff was in there [Music] i can't i can't i can't do anything i uh i literally can't i can't do anything and they love to hear themselves talk sounds familiar ooh i feel seen take much more punishment whoa i just got tossed across the map anyway to wrap up my thoughts on marvel's avengers gameplay it's not great while the campaign does a good job covering up lackluster design with the charm of kamala khan it's quite clear in the end game that this is a game that i probably won't return to ever again i didn't push forward for 30 hours because i wanted to but because i felt i was obligated to see if things got better and it never happens if anything it just becomes more repetitive with boring pointless grind this is a game that is at war with itself trying to deliver a superhero story while also incorporating a live service looter shooter-like system into it that can be expanded upon for years to come basically marvel's avengers campaign is a mediocre experience with some great performances that i probably would have rented from blockbuster for the weekend and then forgot about a few days later if it was possible now that's just the campaign judging the full experience with the online live service endgame nonsense being factored into it this is a mess with no clear design direction you probably could say a broken mess the loot system is the most broken part of the game with no real reason to waste resources on upgrading gear is after a match or two it'll become useless much of my time with this game i found myself thinking why bother the only way players will stick with a game like this long term is if loot mission and enemy design level design boss fights get a complete overhaul or story content really delivers in the future there is a path forward like with any of these aaa live services marvel's avengers has some redeeming qualities like heroes and how they fight that's the potential that may be realized one day but for now it's just a mess but now let's finally take a deep dive into the narrative of marvel's avengers discussing spoilers and all that fun stuff kamala khan is the star of marvel's avengers she's a delightful strong character that brings the band back together the game opens up with kamala getting extremely hyped about meeting the avengers as she won some sort of comic contest and was getting the ultimate prize of meeting the team she shares her excitement with her father is quite supportive and proud of his daughter through the first level kamala has a brief moment with each of the avengers and even overhears some shady business going on behind the scenes between george tarleton and monica frappuccino i mean rappuccini then as the celebration of a day is going on after iron man makes his grand entrance chaos occurs with an attack happening miles away at the golden gate bridge this is the setup to the main narrative as each of the avengers battles the threat at the bridge with captain america staying back surprise surprise the helicarrier goes down captain america is assumed to be dead kamala gains powers in the avengers dissemble five years later george tarleton who was also infected by the terrigen gas secretly gaining powers forms advanced idea mechanics or simply aim which seems to have a handle or control over just about everything with the resources being spent tracking down any and all infected in humans who gain powers following the a day event publicly they declare that they're trying to cure these diseased inhumans but secretly they're experimenting and torturing them around this time kamala khan who doesn't believe the narrative out there that the avengers were responsible for what happened during a day gains access to tony stark's aim account thanks to her super fan knowledge i suppose and uncovers damning evidence that makes it look like tarleton may have killed captain america but part of this evidence is cut off or corrupted as aim discovers her unauthorized access this leads to a mysterious user going by the name tiny dancer raising the alarm bell warning kamala that aim is on to her tiny dancer arranges a meeting in hiro's park which has seen better days before kamala can meet with tiny dancer everything turns upside down as she protects a civilian who is being picked on using her powers and in turn exposes herself as an inhuman kamala then goes on the run escaping from aim after being briefly captured and questioned by rapuccini and tarleton she also unknowingly escapes from tiny dancer and goes out to utah as she previously had discovered or learned one of the last resistance locations was somewhere out there the search leads her to finding the chimera helicarrier which also has a hulk inside who does not take too kindly to kamala's arrival eventually after an aim attack hulk saves kamala then later inside the helicarria the mission to reassemble the avengers begins with kamala revealing and convincing bruce banner to fight back they do this by first infiltrating a former shield compound which has since been turned into an aim facility their hulk encounters and defeats abomination as kamala retrieves jarvis who helps them discover tony stark's whereabouts after a tense moment between banner and stark kamala reveals the new evidence of what happened on a day and gets stark to rejoin the team later kamala and banner roaming the utah desert discover resistance headquarters an inhuman sanctuary run by dr hank pym kamala disobeying orders to wait on attacking an aim facility holding inhumans gets captured by aim but overhears rappochini mentioning that the inhuman cure has been a failure leading to tarleton whose head is increasing in size putting all resources in their adaptoid program which are robots that can mimic inhuman powers finally tiny dancer or black widow arrives saving kamala many other inhumans in capturing rappochini after a short unproductive interrogation on the chimera the helicarrier is attacked with thor making his first appearance as he battles aim forces but ultimately rappuccini escapes the avengers are again on the verge of falling apart as jarvis uncovers additional footage from aday which proves that captain america was responsible for what happened this causes the conflicting personalities of banner and stark to briefly clash in a fight not losing hope missing our family kamala digs deeper finding a clue from rappuccini's questioning that indicates that the adaptoid lab may not be located on earth but in space with this new clue the avengers come together again with iron man taking off to space to discover that surprise surprise captain america is alive and has had his blood harvested for the last five years being used to keep tarleton alive and power the adaptoids with captain america now free he explains to stark his reasoning for what he did on a day which ultimately saved lives meanwhile tarleton discovers that rappuccini had lied to him by not revealing that he was live thanks to captain america's blood which is used in his regeneration formula that's been injected into him for the past five years tarleton then attempts to kill rapuccini by giving what he believes to be a lethal death of his regeneration formula to her the avengers now assemble to take on tarleton who now goes by modoc and comes up with a new strategy for curing inhumans which is killing all of them with the release of a dark terrigen gas worldwide after the avengers nearly defeat modok he then throws a curveball by taking control of a giant kree sentry which was buried under san francisco's bay the avengers have little luck with taking on this giant being with hulk's life being in jeopardy kamala comes to the rescue and embraces who she has become which allows her to grow to the size of this being and she finally finishes off and defeats modok after a brief reunion between the avengers kamala returns home and has a sweet moment reunited with her father but boys and girls the story is not over as rappuccini survives the what appeared to be lethal dose that was injected into her earlier and now she takes over as aim supreme leader the endgame concentrates on some of her next projects like cloning technology which is an in-game convenient explanation for why the game has us battling abomination and taskmaster over and over again there's also some smaller story related content for each character like thor having to face an imposter who may destroy the world and bruce banner apologizing to hulk as i said earlier this is your generic superhero tale with game design that conflicts and makes things even more predictable captain america being alive is not a shocker any actual drama or suspense never really happens because i know with this game set up that there's no way crystal dynamics will kill off or sacrifice any of the heroes kamala khan is though a bright spot in all of this as we see her grow up and embrace who she has become not a mistake but a powerful force for good she is the hope and the light that brings this team back together stopping modoc's sinister plan again though i have a different set of standards for video game narratives i'm sure this will be more than enough for a lot of people but for myself i just wanted something more thor and captain america barely having a presence in the main campaign was also a pretty big surprise maybe more so thor the pacing of all this just felt off with there not being enough time spent better tackling some of these heroes like i found it odd that crystal dynamics didn't further expand on what captain america did on a date it's briefly mentioned in a line of dialogue and just never comes up again even captain america's return felt like it could have been done better bruce banner and monica rappuccini's previous romantic relationship also felt like a missed opportunity to better flesh things out there just isn't a feeling of stakes in any of this as awesome as it is to see tarleton's transformation through the game and rappuccini's role in everything being exposed as she's responsible for what happened on a day and to what happened to tarleton i never could get invested or really feel the threat of aim because after the first few hours which does a good job setting the chess pieces up it hits the fast forward button the rest of the way i guess what i'm saying is that it felt like the campaign was quite literally racing its way to the real part of the game which is the awful live service that's already loaded up with microtransactions i recall multiple times over the years crystal dynamics hyping up this game as being super ambitious with an all-new original story but i can firmly say now that this isn't very unique or different indeed there are some phenomenal moments like the beginning of this campaign with kamala fangirling over the avengers or black widow facing off against rapuccini or hulk embracing thor's return by throwing an aim robot at him leading to a laugh from thor or the final boss fight with modoc which was actually pretty exciting but the game just doesn't have enough of that for 60 or maybe more depending on the edition that you purchase you get an unremarkable superhero experience that mirrors that of bioware's anthem the difference though this game will sell millions of copies because of the name alone i have to imagine about five or so years ago square enix executives sat in a room thinking what's the most lucrative marvel game that we could make they thought of doing the avengers they also thought how do we copy the destiny formula so this is a game that brings in boatloads of revenue off of microtransactions for years to come some will defend the cosmetic system in place but this aaa games industry is normalizing something that was unacceptable just a decade ago having the in-game store loaded up day one with the best of the best cosmetics shows where priorities were really at the battle pass for each hero is the same story enjoy a long tedious grind or pay up marvel's avengers doesn't remind me of any past superhero games but that of recent live service dumpster fires like fallout 76 and anthem which both of those games also had what felt like a slapped-on story although admittingly avengers campaign is better than both of those efforts but as this is a live service avengers is just beginning and crystal dynamics has already outlined future content such as a new resistance outpost shield substation zero or in other words this is a new single player hub because we definitely needed more of that and this is coming soon which is led by commander maria hall there's also new missions with once a week co-op focused aim secret lab that supposedly includes a huge boss fight weekly mega hives which is a solo challenge for players as you face off against waves of enemies on multiple fours with things getting more difficult as you advance forward villain sectors is some of what i already played before which is boring boss fights with cloned versions of abomination and taskmaster and lastly shield vaults are hidden missions that are unlocked by exploring other missions crystal dynamics has additionally outlined the first new hero coming to the game and that is kate bishop based on the first teaser trailer it appears nick fury's disappearance will be a significant post-launch storyline and hawkeye will play a role in this this is being called a double feature so likely some story focused missions with both kate bishop and hawkeye coming to the game as the first few post-launch heroes other than that we already know of peter parker arriving in 2021 on playstation exclusively and recent data mining has indicated a lot more heroes are set to come to the game this includes captain marvel she-hulk war machine ant-man wasp vision black panther doctor strange falcon marvel mockingbird quake winter soldier scarlet witch and hulkbuster certainly some re-skins of other characters in there like with war machine and she-hulk but also some new ones such as doctor strange however right now this is all unconfirmed and even with it being in the game's code who knows if or when some of these characters will arrive so those are some of the planned content coming in the future but for right now the overall reception to this game is extremely mixed you've already heard my opinion but on open critic based off of 38 reviews marvel's avengers has an overall score of 73 out of 100 with 67 percent of critics recommending this action-adventure title although that seems to be decreasing every single day as more reviews come in on metacritic it's the same story with very mixed reviews for the playstation 4 version based on 20 reviews the overall score is a 73 out of 100 with the highest score coming from gaming outlet hobby consoles awarding the title an 89 out of 100 saying marvel's avengers is a very ambitious game with a spectacular single player campaign and multiplayer designed as an mmo trusted reviews gave the game a 70 saying marvel's avengers has proven to be a pleasant surprise even if it's live service identity arguably hinders the true potential of its world story and characters and the most critical review comes from vgc who gave the game a really bad 40 out of 100 saying marvel's avengers offers a reasonably entertaining campaign but it's highly derivative everything in it has been done better elsewhere and the longer it goes on the more it's hampered by desperately repetitive missions and a mindless upgrade structure for the xbox one version only five reviews are in but an overall average of 70 out of 100 the pc version also only has five reviews but an overall average of 71 out of 100 with outlet game star giving the game a 75 out of 100 stating marvel's avengers could have been a much better game if crystal dynamics had relied more on its own strengths instead of emulating mainstream trends so in conclusion to wrap things up marvel's avengers has some people that really enjoy it while some do not and i suppose i fall into that last category of not really liking it sales numbers are right now unavailable but judging by the brand name power and the beta's success as it has become globally the most downloaded beta in playstation history it's probably safe to say that this game will do well for square enix also using late night talk show hosts for advertising is smart marketing albeit a bit cringe wait dad i just got the new marvel avengers video game oh marvel's adventures let's go even by my friends to join me oh i'm gonna play as miss marvel if you're kamala i'm black widow i'm iron man i call hulk avengers assemble also not sure why greg miller is in that but he is regardless this partnership between square enix and marvel seems to be just the beginning with future plans beyond this title undisclosed at this point my hope is that in the future attention and care is given to the quality of the product rather than chasing profitable trends because marvel's avengers is everything i despise from this aaa games industry it's certainly not the worst thing i've played but it had the potential to be something far better the foundation was there it's just unfortunate that foundation was expanded upon with live service looter shooter like nonsense anyway there seems to be a wide array of opinions out there on marvel's avengers what's yours let me know your thoughts down the comment section below but thank you for watching make sure to leave a like if you did enjoy this video or found any informative value and make sure to follow my other social media accounts for updates on new videos links are always down the description below i'm most active on twitter giving opinions on news that i do not always get into video form so do make sure to follow me over there also check out my discord for all sorts of discussion on games and again thank you for joining thank you to the patrons that make content like this possible consider subscribing for more videos like this if you have not already and i'll see you later you

Channel: LegacyKillaHD

Views: 403,151

Keywords: Marvel's Avengers, Avengers game, Marvel's Avengers Review, Marvel's Avengers gameplay, Marvel's Avengers ending, Marvel's Avengers Before You Buy, Avengers game review, Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Avengers, BioWare's Anthem, Anthem Game, Destiny, Destiny 2, Fallout 76, Bethesda, EA, Activision Blizzard

Id: 2QaU7Gvrzns

Length: 51min 52sec (3112 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020