Saturday, October 10, 2015

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes - 6/20 hours

ZOMG! This game is totally adorable! All these familiar super heroes, running around in LEGO form, their stubby little arms and legs flailing around, climbing buildings, punching enemies, and just generally being super cute. If I had one complaint about the game, it's that only the destructible and activatable set dressing looks like it's made from LEGO, the actual terrain is just standard 3D modeled stuff. I suppose it has the advantage of making the difference between background and foreground clear, but I'd have liked to see a LEGO New York City. Ironically, I imagine it would probably have been more difficult to draw.

The plot of the game so far is your standard video game (comic book?) folderol. There are these things called "cosmic bricks" that have some vaguely sinister, but unspecified powers. The villains are going after them, and the heroes have to stop them. For some strange reason, it appears as if all the Marvel villains are working together on this scheme, so of course, all the Marvel heroes are in play as well. It's a story completely devoid of moral complexity, and the heroes and villains often seem more like opposing sports teams than people divided by any great ideological differences.

Which is fine, because I'm entirely sure that LEGO Marvel Super Heroes doesn't need some kind of challenging, intricate plot where alliances are tested and the heroes are tempted to stare into a Nietzschean abyss, where the pleasures of power and righteous violence act as a subtle drug to corrupt them into excesses worthy of the most depraved villains. Though, how hilarious would that be? LEGO Game of Thrones is probably the best video game that will never get made.

I've also had a few, brief opportunities to explore the game's open world, and I'm really liking the concept. I ran into Blade, who challenged me to some kind of scooter race, and I did a bunch of short, funny missions on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Including one where I had to get some snakes of the gosh-darned helicarrier (paraphrased slightly from a command by Nick Fury). I'm looking forward to doing more of the open world wandering around nonsense, but my plan is to first finish the story, so as to get a maximum number of characters unlocked.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get it all done in 20 hours, which seems like a hell of a thing to say about a silly, casual game.

No comments:

Post a Comment