Lego games have never stopped their expansion to include various properties to be a part of the Lego video gaming universe and one of those said properties would be none other than the comic book giant known as Marvel. Known for creating many memorable superheroes such as Spiderman, Wolverine, and Hulk, they now have their own shot to be legofied and star in their own video game with an original story from the team at Travelers Tales using the marvel heroes as inspiration.
A gang of Marvel’s greatest villains such as Doctor Doom, Loki and Magneto are teaming up to conquer earth using pieces of fallen cosmic bricks from the silver surfer after escaping from Galactus. Now it’s up to many of Marvel’s superheroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman, the X-men and The Fantastic Four to stop the villains in their tracks before the situation gets blow out of proportion.
You can definitely tell that the people making the story are in love with Marvel superheroes. The overall narrative plays around with the campy attitude that Lego video games and even Marvel comics are well known for. The core of the narrative is not the most important aspect as mainly the dialogue consists of your favorite marvel characters butting heads with each other and spewing one liners. In any other game that would be considered a bad thing, but this game is clever enough to not take itself too seriously and have as much fun with the initial concept as possible.
If you’ve played a lego video game before then all of the gameplay will seem very familiar. You start out with just a few Marvel Lego characters to play with as you’ll be able to explore an open world hub of New york finding collectables and earning golden bricks for completing small tasks. The main missions of the game have more restrictive gameplay as you’ll be set on a path with obstacles blocking your path that can be overcome by use of a certain character's abilities. Levels of the game can be replayable which encourages you in finding hidden items and saving Stan Lee cameos which can unlock extra content.
It seems that with every evolving Lego game, the graphics always improve and get more expansive in its detail. The amount of lego bricks inserted into making memorable locations from Marvel properties is great as fan service and visual splendor. To see places like the Shield Aircraft and Stark Tower come to life in Lego form is outstanding in capturing the feeling of being a Marvel superhero in a world more technologically advanced than our own. Even the city of New York, while not built entirely from lego, is large in scope and the way they designed it to have whichever character to navigate through the created world brings a feeling of freedom and exploration.
One of the most surprising things this game has that I never expected a Lego game to have is such an epic movie score that almost sounds like you’d hear it from an MCU production. The score was composed by Rob Westwood who is well known for scoring the soundtracks for other Lego video games including Lego The Incredibles, Lego Jurassic World, and even The Lego Movie Video Game.
This is another great Lego video game that will please Marvel fans of all ages and even non fans might possibly enjoy themselves as well. It may be campy in its storytelling and characterization but that’s the kind of tone the Lego video games have pretty much established since their first game. The graphics are great as always the gameplay is simple but effective and the music is epically top notch. This is all and all great lego game will no doubt please kids and diehard Marvel fans everywhere.
(Final Grade: A-)