Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Xbox Series X)

Marvels Avengers is an action-adventure video game inspired by a combination of the comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The story opens on A-Day – a yearly celebration to the Avengers – and you initially take on the role of Kamala Khan, a huge fan of superheroes with an encyclopedic knowledge of their world. As one of the finalists of a fan-fiction competition you have been invited to the event and attend along with your father.

Unfortunately things take a turn for the worse when the Golden Gate bridge is attacked by terrorists, forcing the Avengers to respond, however the attack proves to be a distraction designed to lure the Avengers away from the Chimera Helecarrier where an experimental mineral named “Terrigen” is being stored. The Helecarrier is destroyed, with the Terrigen being released in gaseous form, destroying a large part of the city, killing thousands and mutating thousands more into beings with fantastic powers.

In the aftermath of the destruction a public inquiry is held and the Avengers outlawed after they are considered a threat. In their place a new organisation called Advanced Idea Mechanics is created by one of the survivors of the disaster – George Tarlton – who promises to create a world that no longer needs super heroes to maintain the peace and protect the people, releasing thousands of robotic drones onto the streets as peacekeepers whilst interring those “Inhumans” mutated by the Terrigen mists in captivity for their own “safety” whilst secretly experimenting on them to create a new breed of programmable super soldiers and effectively creating a police state which the entire city now lives under.

As Kamala you are hiding the fact that you too have gained super powers which you are hiding from your family, the public (who have developed an innate fear and hatred of super powered beings), and the authorities that are looking to incarcerate your kind. That is until one day you come into possession of secret files obtained from the Stark Industries servers on the day of the disaster that prove it was not the act of arrogance on the behalf of the Avengers that the general public believe it to be, but was in fact a deliberate act of sabotage by Dr Tarlton and his associates designed to give them free reign to usher in their new regime whilst removing the one group of people who could stop them.

After your powers are outed whilst defending a boy in the park from a gang of drunken youths, you find yourself as an outlaw, on the run from the forces of A.I.M, and hit the road to search for the last suspected resistance cell in the hope of joining up with them, reassembling the Avengers and clearing their name, and stopping the real threat once and for all.

Game play is presented from a third-person perspective and offers both a single player campaign and multiplayer options. The initial playable characters are Captain America, Iron-man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Kamala (Ms Marvel), with more to be added as downloadable content in the months ahead, including Hawkeye (Clint Barton and Kate Bishop) and Spider-man (PS4 exclusive) having already been announced.

There are also a wide range of supporting characters that should be familiar to Marvel fans, such as Nick Fury, Jimmy Woo, Dum-Dum Dugan, Hank Pym and Maria Hill, as well as numerous well known Avengers foes such as Taskmaster and the Abomination who usually appear as end of level bad guys.

Each character has a wide range of moves and abilities available to them, from basic light and hard attacks, take downs, ranged attacks, counters, and special moves, with some characters such as Iron-man also being able to engage in flight and air born combat, and the manner in which these moves work is unique to each character.

Iron-man for example makes wide use of his repulsor technology and other armour systems, where as Cap favours the use of acrobatics and shield-slinging. Black Widow can utilize her firearms, widows bite, grappling hook, and electro-batons, whilst the Hulk uses pure brute force such as his “thunder clap” and ability to lift and thrown large objects or scatter whole groups of enemies with area effect attacks. Thor has a series of lightning and hammer based attacks, whilst Ms Marvel can “embiggen” herself and his enemies from range with her elongated limbs.

There are a variety of enemies that you can face at any one time, from basic grunts (close and ranged combat versions), shield-bearers that require you to break their guard before you can damage them, flying drones, automated gun positions, and massive brute-type enemies that can soak up the damage whilst unleashing devastating attacks of their own. Combat is fluid and exciting with success usually being down to your ability to use the right abilities and powers against the right enemies, with numerous different enemies appearing on the screen at the same time.

The first thing you notice about the game is just how good it looks. Graphics, sound, and voice acting are generally excellent, and a lot of effort has been put into the various environments which include many interactive elements that really enhance the feeling that you’re living in the world of the Avengers.

This is apparent from the first scene as Kamala walks around the Avengers fan convention participating in interactive games where she can attempt to lift Thor’s hammer and fire Black Widow’s wrist blasters in order to earn special addition comic books and get herself a VIP seat to the event. This is a level of detail that is maintained throughout the game in places such as Kamala’s bedroom where you can view her Avengers posters and memorabilia as clearly as if they were on your own wall, or in her secret hide out filled with full sized cardboard cut outs of her favourite Avengers. Environments are also littered with Easter eggs and other collectables that only enhance the immersive experience.

Prior to release there were concerns by some fans as to why the game was to rotate around Kamala’s character. She’s never appeared in the MCU, is a relatively new character, has never been a full Avengers member in the comics, and many people considered her a strange choice and made allegations of “pandering” in light of her status as a young, female Muslim – claiming that a character such as Spider-man would have been a much better and more organic choice. Let me assure you though that any such concerns are put to bed almost immediately and there is no doubt at all that Kamala was the right character to fill this role of young apprentice.

Outside of the main campaign you can also access the “Avengers Initiative” from the main menu, which places you on a SHIELD Helicarrier and from where you can access things like multiplayer and the HARM (Holographic Augmented Reality Machine) training suite, war table missions that can be played either multi-player are single player with AI companions, and purchase upgrades and cosmetic items to change your characters appearance.

As good as the story and game play are, the game is not without it’s problems.

First among these is the fact that the game requires a massive download and day 1 update before you can even play it. My game arrived late in the day from Amazon (1830pm) and then it was another three or so hours of updates before I could play the thing, which kind of makes a mockery out of pre-ordering so that you can enjoy a product on the day of release.

There are plenty confirmed bugs too, including crashes on loading/saving screens, unlockables suddenly being locked and unavailable again, and a doozy of a glitch where your characters “fall out of the world” when accessing the Avengers Initiative menu, meaning at the moment I can’t access that part of the game at all. The publisher is aware of most of these bugs and is actively working for solutions, so hopefully there will be a fix soon, but it’s another example of a company essentially using it’s paying customers as beta testers and releasing a product that isn’t quite finished or hasn’t been properly tested and is extremely frustrating.

Another problem for me personally is that whilst the game doesn’t exactly utilize the increasingly popular “pay to play” formula (you do have a fully formed game here), most of the extras require financial transactions and those transactions are not exactly cheap, needing to be paid for with credits that have to be purchased from the store.

To put this in perspective 2000 credits is going to cost you 15.99 to purchase, but a single costume can cost anywhere up to 1400 credits to obtain, an emote 1000 credits, or a new move for your character 1200 credits. It’s clearly a rather cynical system designed to keep fans paying for a game they’ve already shelled out a substantial amount for and intended to take full advantage of the fact that every fan has their own particular favourites, and potentially it’s a game that you might never stop paying for – and lets be honest, a lot of those default costumes are a little bit sucky!

Despite these faults you do have a really good game here that will only get better when they finally iron the creases out of it, and it’s well worth a pick up if you’re a fan of either the films or comics – just keep an eye on your wallet once you do!