Game reviews: Lego Marvel’s Avengers and The Deadly Tower of Monsters
Lego’s bland, mashed up mess and The Deadly Tower’s shallow shoot-em-up pay tribute to the Marvel universe and B-movie sci-fi classics
TT Games
Is it just me or has the Marvel cinematic universe become a tad oversaturated? Ignoring the 26 movies either released or in development, its video games have gone from bad to nonexistent. The first big-screen wave was accompanied by terribly inept third-person console adventures, the second phase a series of crappy smartphone games, and the upcoming third, seemingly nothing – unless you count Lego Marvel Avengers.
Like its increasingly regulated and ultimately bland slate of films, the game isn’t bad in any sense. It just isn’t particularly great. Available for nearly every system – PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U – it’s a set of Lego tropes executed with little innovation and encumbered by the universe’s already-bloated history.
Unless you’re fairly well versed in Marvel’s entire cinematic output (and we doubt that its young audience members are) you’ll immediately be at a loss. The game jumps backwards and forwards between last summer’s Age of Ultron the first Captain America movie, to Iron Man 3, through to Captain America 2, across Thor 2, and back to where we completely lost track. The strange thing about all that cutscene world building though, is that this is a Lego game and the plot is far from essential compared to the gameplay’s formulaic dynamics.