Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Xbox One)

The Avengers may have been one of the biggest films of 2012, but it missed out on having a video game based on it. Thankfully (and only one year later), Warner Bros. has come to the rescue with Lego Marvel Super Heroes. This is a game that continues the popular trend of merging popular properties, such as Star Wars and Batman, with the Lego universe.

Clash of the mightiest

The story of Lego Marvel Super Heroes centres around the Silver Surfer’s surfboard shattering into pieces and falling down to earth. Doctor Doom and Loki want to gather the surfboard pieces to power the “Doom Ray of Doom,” so it is up to the heroes of the Marvel universe to stop them, as well as any other like-minded villains they encounter on the way.

As with past Lego games based on Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and others, Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a platforming title with open-world exploration elements. The setting of the game is New York City, albeit in Lego form, and you are able to use the superhuman abilities of your selected character to run, swing or fly throughout the environment.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes draws upon the expanded comic book universe to introduce more than 100 heroes and villains. This is roughly the same amount of characters found in 2006’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which also brought together a large cast of heroes and villains into a virtual environment.

All of the popular favourites such as Spider-Man, Hulk and Magneto are playable in the game, as well as more niche characters such as Iron Fist, Beetle and Howard the Duck. Not only have the characters been turned into their Lego equivalents, but each one also comes with their signature skills and abilities.

Bigger but familiar experience

The impressive scale of the cast and locations is accompanied by high resolution graphics that make good use of the Xbox One’s horsepower. Characters are well animated and detailed in appearance, and the game runs at a steady framerate even when running or flying around the city at fast speeds.

As a Lego title, the gameplay is predictably accessible and the controls are responsive. Navigating environments and platforms is a simple matter, and so is targeting enemies during combat and using your character’s unique abilities to defeat them.

The scale and graphics of Lego Marvel Super Heroes are a step up over past instalments, but it contains the same tried and proven gameplay that is mostly unchanged at its core. There is more open-world adventuring than in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, but it’s still not on the same scale as other open-world titles on the market.

The sheer amount of content available in Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a major draw card, and it comes with enough missions and brick collecting to keep you occupied for a long time. While certain areas of the game may spike in difficulty, the endless lives ensures that the experience never becomes frustrating.