Agents of L.E.G.O
Lego Marvel Super Heroes continues the formula of past Lego games including Lord of the Rings, Batman, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones to name a few. It includes pretty much every Marvel character you can think of and has tons of references to the films like The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble for us UK fans) Iron Man and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV show.
As in recent Lego games, its open-world with story-based levels thrown in. Before it was Lego City and Middle-Earth, now it’s Manhattan. As you would expect, there are plenty of objects to smash, build and items to collect that are scattered throughout the city and the levels. Each Marvel character has their own ability, like Spider-Man can detect climbable walls and levers to pull with his webs using his spidey sense, Hulk can pick up and throw heavy objects and return to Bruce Banner, Iron Man can fly and launch rockets while others can use paranormal abilities to help.
The story revolves around the Silver Surfer crashing into Earth and Marvel’s super villains collecting the “Cosmic Bricks” from the crash, expect cameos from Dr Doom, Magneto, Mystique, Doc Ock, Sandman and Whiplash to name a few. The typical Lego humour is there as you would expect and comes with hilarious voice-acting and animation like the past few games.
The load times can be a little on the long side, which is a shame but Manhattan looks great in Lego form. The Marvel characters look superb and like they were designed purely for Lego purposes, while the framerate is consistent for the most part. Music is also authentic to the Marvel films which is also a nice touch.
If there’s a problem with Lego Marvel Super Heroes, it’s that the typical Lego formula still hasn’t changed all that much. You still have to complete the story mode to unlock more characters to replay it and find the collectables scattered through the levels and main hub. It’s still fun to do and chances are it always will be, but I’d like to see TT Games take some risks and there’s none to be found here.
The Verdict
Lego Marvel Super Heroes provides the Marvel experience that fans have been dreaming of. It’s funny, authentic to the franchises and is a joy to play. I can’t fault it for anything other than playing it a bit safe, other than that it’s probably the best Lego game to date and worth picking up if you love comic book superheroes.
