Traveller’s Tales continues their domination of addictive, fun-for-all-ages, family games in the newest installment of their LEGO series of video games with LEGO Marvel's Avengers. TT Games once again blends the fun of LEGOs with a fan-favorite franchise, a formula they've been perfecting for a decade over numerous titles that feature the classic gameplay elements of creation and destruction, puzzle solving, and stud collecting, all while playing through your favorite stories. The LEGO series of games may as well be considered a genre of its own at this point, and TT’s latest release, LEGO Marvel's Avengers, fits right in with the others.
LEGO Marvel's Avengers is the second LEGO game to feature Marvel characters (after 2013's LEGO Marvel Superheroes). Like other film-based LEGO games, Avengers not only follows the events of the two Marvel Studios Avengers films, but parts of the game also feature content from Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. TT Games smoothly blends all of the films into one coherent story this time, instead of breaking each film into individual segments.
Gameplay
At this point, anyone picking up a LEGO game should have a general idea of the basic gameplay, and while gameplay hasn’t changed very much over the years, this game does sport an exciting, albeit small, new combat feature in the form of the team-up attack. Any two playable characters can come together during battle to perform a powerful attack that deals a wide radius of damage. Each character combination will have its own unique team-up attack based on the powers of the two heroes involved. Some are, of course, better than others, but it is a lot of fun to experiment with obscure character pairs to see the results. This is a great addition to the single player experience, but it absolutely shines during cooperative play, especially in free-play mode, as it is very easy to swap characters on the fly.While gameplay is still just as solid as it’s ever been, it will, at times, come to a complete standstill during story-based missions in the form of the "Discovery" ability used by Iron Man and Black Widow. The player will be prompted to use this ability at certain points during the main game, forcing them to stare at a screen, searching for small inconsistencies on a grid. This certainly isn't a difficult puzzle by any means, but they use it far too often, making it all too apparent that the pace has gone from explosive fun to a total halt. It's especially noticeable when you've got a room full of friends taking turns playing. Another unfortunate inclusion comes in the form of drivable vehicles that are nearly impossible to control. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue if the player wasn’t forced to complete races in order to unlock certain content such as new characters, which can become very frustrating over time. Both of these features detract from otherwise great gameplay.
Characters
Over a hundred characters from each of the five films featured in the game, along with many other Marvel characters that have yet to appear on the big screen (the most notable being a fully voiced Ms. Marvel), are unlockable and playable. This game is, however, based on the Disney-owned Marvel Studios properties, so unlike LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, this game is noticeably lacking in characters from the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man franchises. This is especially apparent when you're unlocking a character spot for yet another alternate version of Steve Rodgers, or any other character for that matter. After a while a lot of it seems like filler, and the only real excitement comes from unlocking super-obscure characters that even Marvel Comics fans might have forgotten about. The level of care that TT took on each character, no matter how obscure, is always in view, however. Every character plays the way that you’d expect them to and with the powers that they should have. Some powers do overlap between characters, so multiple heroes will be able to do similar thing and solve similar puzzles, but that's hardly a fault of TT Games – they're Marvel's characters, after all.
Story Mode and Free Play
It should take roughly 12 hours to complete the main story missions, but as with all LEGO games, there's also a high degree of replay value. The game will start in story mode as a pretty linear experience, but it will ultimately open up on fully explorable hubs like New York City, complete with crime-in-progress mini-missions that breathe life into the little LEGO city. You can also explore other less expansive locales including Asgrad, Malibu, the Helicarrier, etc. Playing free-play with different characters and exploring these locations is just as fun and rewarding as ever as you unlock characters and cheats, which can still be unlocked by collecting red bricks. It's easy to swap characters in the open world, keeping the game feeling fresh as you buy new characters with studs and test out their abilities.The Avengers storyline over the course of the Marvel Studios films is all there, only told in the same style of whimsical humor that the LEGO game franchise has become known for over the years. Familiar situations from the films will almost always have a hilarious twist on them. The game is also backed by the same scores that appear on the film soundtracks, which often gives it a grand, epic feeling. Characters are also voiced over, either by actual voice actors, or with sound clips taken straight from the films, though the latter tends to male the voice acting feel very disjointed. The addition of voices also takes away from the creativity that TT Games has showed in the past in terms of storytelling. Previous games, such as the LEGO Harry Potter series told volumes of a story without a voice uttering a single word. The creative paths that were taken to achieve this often led to a unique and hilarious, yet completely faithful, adaptation of your favorite stories. Characters in Avengers are performed very well by the actual voice actors, but the clips taken from the films sound off, and often come up in the middle of gameplay completely out of context, which can get quiet annoying. The addition of Stan Lee’s fully voiced "character in peril" cameo in each level, however, is a fantastic addition.
Co-op
As with every LEGO game, the real star of the game is its cooperative play mode. Sitting down with another person and playing through the story, or just roaming around in free-play is as fun as it has ever been. It is still easy to drop in or out of the game as the second player, and both players earn trophies for the game as long as they are logged in.
