Two years have passed since the release of the awesome Lego Marvel Super Heroes, an original story with a huge roster of characters and a huge Manhattan open-world to explore with plenty of secrets and side-objectives.  Since then we’ve had many a Lego game, but with 2016 in its early days we’re greeted to the latest Lego/Marvel videogame mash-up with Lego Marvel’s Avengers.

If you’ve seen any of the Avenger related movies over the past few years, then it will feature in Lego Marvel’s Avengers.  Rather than a unique story like its predecessor, this outing takes the tales from the lives of Avengers Assemble and Age of Ultron being the main focus.  However, in a short mission/story telling form, this outing also includes Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Thor: Dark World and Iron Man 3.  If you’re a PS3 and PS4 owner, Lego Marvel Avengers will also feature Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War via free DLC.  But never fear for other gaming format owners, as the aforementioned content are timed exclusive, so it will be arriving on PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One at a later date.

While Lego Marvel’s Avengers features the tried and tested gameplay formula, with some added double-team take-downs to boot, one of the games biggest ploys are the eight open-world/hub areas, each with its own activities and unlockables.  Unlike Lego Marvel Super Heroes having just Manhattan to explore, Marvel’s Avengers has Manhattan, Asgard, Barton Farm, Malibu Mansion, the S.H.E.I.L.D base, Sokovia, Washington D.C and South Africa.  Having so many freely explorable areas is fantastic and is a step in the right direction for the Lego series; however, the exclusion of an open map is an odd choice, especially when hunting down objectives in Manhattan.  When exploring Manhattan in Marvel Super Heroes, you could open the big map via a push of the button, but instead in Marvel’s Avengers you have to rely on the small cluttered mini-man located in the corner of your screen, which is certainly inconvenient.

For me, the best part of playing through a Lego game is being able to share the experience from start to finish with my son.  It’s one of the few series of games that appeals to all ages, and as a result, is one of my most enjoyable co-op experiences.  Playing local co-op is somewhat of a rarity nowadays and over the recent years; TT Games have created a split-screen camera that works great by following each player and rotating when it needs too.  However, there were times when the co-op camera would obscure some parts of the screen, making it impossible to see certain elements or even collectibles without having to ask my son to stop what he’s doing and make his way over to my character so that I could access the said location.  Perhaps it would be great if TT Games could make the camera pan out a little to avoid such minor annoyances?

One of the benefits of having movie tie-ins (for Lego games at least), is that it is possible to rip the audio from the movie and place it straight into the game, after all it’s much easier (and cheaper) than paying the actors to read through their lines again and in my opinion, it’s a better option than to hire impersonators.  As with all Lego movie tie-ins since Lord of the Rings, Marvel’s Avengers takes full advantage of the movie counterpart.  In the most part it works great and TT Games have done great work in putting their own visual spin on certain lines by adding their signature humour and it makes great use of the official soundtracks being implemented into the game.  However, while the dialogue does sound great 90% of the time, some lines do sound a little ‘tinny’, but that is merely a small gripe and in no way hindered my enjoyment of the game.

I may not have timed my playthrough of Marvel’s Avengers, but it did give me the impression that it is one of the shortest campaigns from the franchise, which is a little disappointing.  However, all of its replay value comes in the form of replaying levels with newly unlocked characters to access previously unreachable secrets, and you also have bite sized missions from all the relevant Marvel movies associated with this game outside of the two Avenger movies.  Let’s also not forget that you have the eight open-world hub areas to explore packed with its own content.  So while the main campaign may be very short, there’s still plenty to keep you very busy for many an hour in Lego Marvel’s Avengers.

The Lego series is a strange franchise, ever since the release of Lego Star War’s many years ago (or in a galaxy far, far away if you prefer), the series has barely evolved, but yet it remains incredibly enjoyable and Marvel’s Avengers is no exception.  In all fairness, with the release of each game, there have been subtle tweaks here and there to keep things a little fresh and more accessible.  Lego Marvel Super Heroes still remains my favourite Lego outings, more so down to the fact that it had an original story, but the next person may prefer the more direct movie tie-in.  On another day, I might say I prefer Marvel’s Avengers or even Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.  That’s the great thing about this franchise, much of them might remain the same, but each one has their own strengths and weaknesses.  But the bottom-line remains that Lego Marvel’s Avengers is one of the best in the packed franchise yet and whether your love of Marvel is the reason this game peaks your interest or if it’s just the pure enthralment of Lego, either way, Lego Marvel’s Avengers is a game not to be missed for all fans alike. Excelsior!

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