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Subject: Lego Marvel super Hero's .. Full Review
Replies: 21 Views: 3337

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:57pm
Here's your litmus test: Ego the Living Planet is bobbing around in the corner of the start screen for the latest Lego game. Ego is a deeply obscure 1960s Marvel character, a giant sentient planet with a moustache. And he's in this game, if only fleetingly. That's the level of silly Silver Age nerd bait on offer here. If this news makes you grin like an idiot, then this game is for you. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:57pm
If you've not warmed to any of the previous Lego games, however, this most definitely isn't the game for you. Unsurprisingly, it follows the same template of scenery smashing, stud h*arding, character swapping and gentle puzzling that has typified the series since it first appeared back in 2005. That's not to say the franchise has stood still - play the original Lego Star Wars back-to-back with Lego Marvel if you want to see just how fast the formula has evolved - but it's definitely not about to shake things up with any radical departures from what young fans expect. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:58pm
And that's a good thing. Some game formats lend themselves to iterative repetition, others wear themselves thin. Much like Mario, the Lego series has found strength in familiarity, advancing the core mechanics slowly but surely while using context and character, along with levels designed to delight, to win players over. Certainly, there are generations of youngsters for whom the tell-tale tinkle of a blue Lego stud or the swoosh-thunk of a minikit will be as iconic as the jingling coins and wahoo yelps of Nintendo's mascot. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:58pm
Marvel, it turns out, is a perfect match not only for the Lego games' fondness for huge rosters of playable characters, but also their silly and surreal aesthetic, very much shared by Marvel's own colourful universe. The storyline finds the various Marvel heroes working together to take down a coalition of supervillains working for Loki and Doctor Doom. The villains are stealing cosmic bricks, made from remnants of Silver Surfer's board, to build some kind of super-weapon * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:59pm
Though it's not an official game of the Marvel movies, it takes many of its cues from them - Clark Gregg voices Agent Coulson of SHIELD, and the events of the Avengers film are obliquely referenced. The impersonated voices also defer to the big screen, with passable versions of Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Even the non-Marvel produced movies get a nod. Professor X and Magneto sound like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, even if their costumes are saying 1960s comic book. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 01:59pm
Crossovers are in Marvel's blood, of course, and one of the game's biggest pleasures is how often it mixes up its cast, offering new team-ups. Some levels focus on a particular team - the Fantastic Four and X-Men each get their own stage - but you're just as likely to find Captain America, Iron Man and Wolverine accompanying Thor on a trip to Asgard. Where Lego Batman 2 made fans wait until the very last levels to throw the Justice League into action together, Lego Marvel can't wait to add new faces into the mix. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 02:01pm
And that's just the core cast. There are well over 100 playable characters here, mining deep into Marvel's eclectic and often bizarre history. M.O.D.O.K is playable, as is H.E.R.B.I.E, the daft robot introduced in an early Fantastic Four cartoon. Captain Britain is in here, as is Moon Knight and even Howard the Duck. Stan Lee, inevitably, is all over the game, appearing in every level in some ridiculous predicament, offering gold bricks and quips when rescued. The honorific bestowed for meeting the stud total in each level - True Jedi in Lego Star Wars, True Hero in Lego Batman - is, of course, renamed here as True Believer, and is accompanied by a cry of Excelsior! from Stan the Man. * +

popcap 11.11.13 - 02:04pm
It's an absolute joy of a game for Marvel fans, in other words, and there's a gleeful generosity to the way the comics, cartoons and movies have been mashed up to provide the widest possible array of obscure and cool characters. They've been well used too, with the expected abilities applied to obvious characters - Spider-Man can use his webs much as Indiana Jones used his whip to climb or pull down objects - but there are also new variations on old themes. Iceman can create bridges and form water into useful structures. Thor and Storm can summon lightning and then use it to charge devices. Functionally, it's all simple stuff - you stand near something and hold down a button - but in the context of large, intricate levels, populated by iconic superheroes, the interplay of powers and abilities, each opening pathways for someone else to use, is as beguiling as ever. * +

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