Lego Marvel Super Heroes on PS4 is Excellent Family Fun!

    I knew I was going to have to get out of my comfort zone. Going back to school at the age of 35, things would be different than my last foray into higher education (when George W. Bush was still the president). But going back to study Children’s Media, I was excited to take the leap into the world of kid’s entertainment. And when we got the assignment to play and review a contemporary video game? Wow! My friends would be so impressed that THAT was my homework. The only problem is that video games left me behind a long time ago. After mastering GoldenEye for Nintendo 64, the trend in gaming (at least among my friends) went toward the more advanced gameplay of PlayStation and Xbox. By the time Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 came out, my motor functions were no longer able to keep up with the skill level required to play and enjoy games. (No comment about what may have been impeding my motor functions in the first place.)

Too much information, dude.

    So now that it was time to pick a game to write about, I had grand designs. I  borrowed my brother-in-law’s PS4 and invited my friend Mike, Cinematic Lead Animator at Ubisoft, over to teach me how to play FarCry 5, a super-complicated, ultra violent, open world game. After two hours holed up in the living room, with the kids locked out (for their own good), I was finally past the tutorial stage. That’s when I looked at the assignment again and realized that Mature-Rated games were not eligible for the assignment (OBVIOUSLY, PHIL!) So, after a visit to the local used video game emporium, I finally settled on 2013’s Lego Marvel Super Heroes, and boy am I glad I did.

    Lego Marvel Super Heroes is the best-selling Lego game of all time, outselling such popular licensed franchises as Batman, Harry Potter and Star Wars. It was developed by Traveller’s Tales, the British company that has been making Lego video games since 2005. I was surprised to discover that it was distributed by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment (WB Games), whose parent company owns DC Comics, which technically makes them the competition. The game itself is a linear vertical-scroller, with many puzzle-solving sequences. P.O.V. is third person, and the camera angle can be adjusted by the right joystick, but only to a minimal degree. The visuals are predictably bright and colourful, and characters designs are very distinct. The game is rated Everyone 10+ for cartoon violence, which is a good fit for this game. It feels quite kid-safe, but being a super hero game there are the inevitable fisticuffs. Most of the villains are non-human henchmen, like robots and sand golems for heroes to annihilate free of guilt. However, I do think there are certain puzzles that might stump younger players, but more on that later. 

    The storyline is on a pretty grand scale, opening amidst the great expanse of outer space. The planet-devouring eternal Galactus is hungry, and he has his sights set on earth. He sends his herald the Silver Surfer ahead, but Dr. Doom has plans of his own. He blasts the Surfer out of the sky, shattering his surfboard into pieces, or since it’s a Lego game, bricks. Doom sends his cadre of Super Villains after the fragments of the cosmic surfboard, sending the heroes into action, lead by Iron Man of the Avengers. Each level is set in locations from Marvel Comics which have been raided by a super villain who must be defeated by whichever combination of heroes you’re dealt. The story is easy enough to follow, and the cutscenes look great. The polished animation is only a slight step down from that of the CG animated Lego films, and the voice work is really good. The dialogue is written in the snappy, humourous style that has been a Marvel trademark since Robert Downey Jr. first donned the Iron Man armour. I’m not personally a huge fan of that style of writing, but it works fine for a game aimed at kids. The only voice talent to cross over from the films is Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson, who talks you through missions. My personal highlight was Futurama’s John DiMaggio as the cantankerous Daily Bugle Editor J. Jonah Jameson. Also, Stan Lee appears as himself, because of course he does.

But why is Stan working with the villains?

    Apparently there are 180 playable characters, drawing from the Marvel Comics universe, although I only unlocked a handful in my time playing, including Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and Mr. Fantastic. This is actually one of the few venues that fans can see the Marvel film characters interact with characters from the Fantastic Four, X-Men and Silver Surfer comics, due to those characters’ film rights being split up among other studios. In the past few years Marvel’s licensing department seems to have shied away from using some of those characters in favour of Avengers, so I was pleased to see Jean Grey of the X-Men on the back cover of the game, especially decked out in her uniform from the ‘90s cartoon. Many fans cynically believe that Marvel has been snubbing those characters because they can’t profit off them at the box office, but whatever the reason, seeing characters like Jean and Wolverine was a real thrill for an X-fan such as myself.

    The game’s controls are pretty straightforward and easy to learn. The action buttons control jump, attack, switch players and a unique action, individual to each character — for instance, Spider-Man can use his Spider-Sense, while Mr. Fantastic merely turns into a teapot. There are constant hints and reminders of what buttons to push as you work through the various puzzles. Each character having individual skills also means that there are times you have to switch back and forth between them to get through the puzzle, which gets more intuitive as the game goes on. You can even turn from Hulk into his alter-ego Bruce Banner, as Hulk’s problem-solving abilities leave something to be desired.

My Spidey-Sense says that trick is useless.

    All games in the Lego universe follow a few rules that make for a distinctive playing experience. Everything you see is made out of Lego bricks, and most objects you come across can be smashed to bits. When destroyed, the pieces will usually fade away in a few seconds, but if they don’t they can be put back together to create a tool that will get you further in the game. For example, to get past the Sandman’s wall in the Sand Central Station level, you need to destroy a decorative globe and rebuild it as a water cannon. This is a really cool component, although I have to admit there were a few instances I was unsure how to proceed, as the pieces were obscured or among other detritus. The environments are generally quite crowded, and I can’t deny the designers’ attention to detail, but it can also be a bit overwhelming. Another problem I had was that certain objects that needed to be destroyed wouldn’t show any sign of damage after one or two hits, so I didn’t know if I was on the right track or essentially doing the equivalent of punching a wall. It was easier when I realized that as Iron Man, you can aim at objects until the crosshairs affix to them, indicating that it’s damageable. Then you simply switch to Hulk and let him do what he does best.

...which is smash.

    To be honest, there were several long stretches when I was stuck not knowing what the heck to do next. The first time the heroes face off against Sandman, he has taken on the form of two huge sand hands. The first one is easily destroyed by a Hulk-hurled hot dog cart, but without anything left to throw at the second hand, I was lost. I wandered the atrium of Grand Central Station vainly searching for something to throw, avoiding the villain at all costs. Eventually, I was so frustrated I gave in to my daughter’s begging for a turn and handed over the controller. After a few minutes of Hulking about, she ran right toward the evil hand, which crashed into some nearby turnstiles, revealing another object for the Hulk to toss. It was a good reminder that kids play games in a totally different way than adults, not afraid to get their hands dirty, as it were. While I was wandering around trying to find a secret room or something, my kid was just mashing buttons and seeing what happened. That actually helped me in ensuing gameplay, to be more exploratory and experimental.

Give the kid a hand.

    If I was going to improve this game, narratively I would lean a little bit more into established Marvel continuity. It’s kind of a grab bag of characters jumbled together and tossed against random bad guys. Although the unusual pairings can be fun, it would also be cool to play levels as established teams like the Fantastic Four or Defenders, or see classic rivalries play out. The story is totally serviceable in terms of moving the plot forward, but I don’t really care about resolving the “Cosmic Surfboard” storyline. I’d be much more motivated to keep playing just to see what other characters I could unlock (I never got to be Jean Grey). There is also a free play mode where you can go back to beaten levels as newly unlocked characters to potentially uncover easter eggs that are only achievable by characters with certain powers or skill sets. Although the Lego brand design is naturally chunky, there are moments in this game that feel clunky. Characters kept getting stuck in crevices, or unable to jump over objects. This feeling was exacerbated when they couldn’t interact with objects for reasons that weren’t readily obvious (i.e. Mr. Fantastic couldn’t slip through a grate because the grate at the other end was blocked off, though the game kept telling me what button to press to make it work).

Teamwork Rules!

    Overall this is a pretty awesome game, and I plan to continue playing. I’m a massive fan of the Marvel stable of characters, which is the element this game leans upon heaviest. Marvel is absolutely turning down money by not making a Lego X-Men game, but now that the film rights appear to be going back to them, maybe it’s more of a possibility. I would brand it as joyful family fun, with a good replayability factor. As Stan Lee would say: Exelsior!

MY RATING: * * * 3 stars (out of 5)