Marvel’s Avengers Game Review
The main story campaign in Marvel’s Avengers, the new game from former Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics, is excellent. Sure, it doesn’t have any of the likeness rights for the actors from the movie universe that it’s kinda-sorta aesthetically based on, but it still tells a thrilling comic book narrative with more polish and care than I was expecting. It even gives several of the characters room to have well-developed emotional arcs, with long cutscenes featuring surprisingly good performances. There’s an excellent turn by Sandra Saad as Kamala Khan, and Troy Baker puts in amazing work to fully embody Bruce Banner.
As you may have seen in the many other reviews that went up sooner than mine, Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel takes center stage in the plot line here, as the circumstances of the story push her into a world-spanning adventure to reunite Marvel’s legendary superhero team after things have Gone Very Wrong. So yes, it’s the millionth story about superheroes learning to work together as a team to fight evil, but Kamala’s earnest enthusiasm and teenager-into-adulthood character arc give it exactly the right emotional heft to make it feel new and interesting all over again.
When you’re not watching the lavishly-produced and lengthy story sequences, (rendered with some of the best graphics that have appeared on current platforms), you’ll be playing a competent third-person action RPG that borrows plenty of gameplay tropes from Crystal’s Tomb Raider games and throws in a handful of Warframe for good measure. All of the characters play the way you’d want them to, although I didn’t have as much fun with Iron Man as with the rest. He relies mostly on fiddly flying abilities which are cumbersome to use inside the tight corridors of the various interiors present across the game’s expansive world. They also allow him to skip all of the exterior environments entirely and miss important gear and leveling opportunities.
You’ll have the chance to play as every character throughout the campaign, and each one has a little bit of story attached to…
