If you’re like me, you’re secure with yourself enough to admit that you love Legos, no matter the age. Why not? Legos are awesome. And you know what’s even more awesome about Legos? The Lego videogames.
Initially a bit trite if amusing, the Lego games evolved immensely to accommodate open sandbox gameplay with the second Lego Batman game, allowing players to explore Gotham with a whole bevy of DC Universe characters. Now, Lego and Marvel have teamed up for a similar experience but on an even larger scale, and the results are rather great. And if you happened to pick up this game rather than the big, blockbuster Batman game that also came out and is arguably garnering more attention, then you were probably in for a real treat of mindless and comical multiplayer gameplay this weekend.
Now, I won’t bore you with a review, if only because there isn’t much to say. If you’ve ever played a Lego videogame you’ll like this, and if you’ve ever liked Marvel you’ll like this. That’s really all there is to it. The gameplay has been improved somewhat to include more things, the world map is larger and offers more opportunities and the graphics are rather incredible for a Lego game. The people behind these games have really stepped it up a notch in terms of delivering top quality gameplay for a slightly discounted buck (the Lego games retail for $50 rather than the average $60), and completing the game doesn’t even account for a quarter of available gameplay.
So I don’t think there’s anything more to say there: if you like running around as a Lego Marvel character and blowing things up alone or with a friend of any age, this is $50 well spent.
What I’d like to do instead of a review is look back on just how silly and weird this game. It’s a touch narcissistic, a little bit backwards and all ridiculous, and while I’ve not even completed 50% of available gameplay myself I’ve found that there are more than enough ridiculous stories to recant to you, the reader, in order to convey just what this game is actually like.
Join me as I look back at the game I sunk a portion of my weekend into playing.
5. SHIELD is Exceptionally Lazy, Surprisingly Sexist (Although, Maybe Not Surprisingly)
Alright, bear with me on this one for a bit.
As you explore the SHIELD helicarrier, which really is quite impressive (especially if you saw the Avengers and thought, “man, I wish I could explore all that but in Legos”), you find yourself in the room where Tony and Bruce experimented on Loki’s staff for a while with the on-board janitor in the corner looking distressed. When you ask him what’s wrong, he tells you that this big window keeps getting graffiti’d up by Deadpool (who, by the way, has his own room on the helicarrier) and that he has to clean it before he can leave, but he really needs to go to the bathroom. So, you are charged with a mission to clean the windows.
The thing is, the only person that can actually do this mission out of the core cast of characters that you earn… is Jean Grey.
It’s a very silly thing, honestly, and it’s a very minor thing to pick on. Of all the ridiculous missions that the game has, this is easily one of the least ridiculous ones in the game. Yet, it stuck out to me. Maybe it’s just because I find myself aware of these things in pop culture and noticing various trends in the media that I consume, but I couldn’t help but notice that the only character I could accomplish this task with was Jean Grey.
Oh, wait, sorry. I’m wrong. You can do it with Sue Storm, too!
And to add insult to injury, not only is the task incredibly easy and will take you all of zero minutes, but upon completing it the SHIELD janitor that couldn’t be bothered to do his job congratulates you on being really good at cleaning and then gives you something he found in the trash.
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Granted, you need that gold brick, but it’s still an example of just really poor word choices.
But, it’s a kids game. And yes, there are plenty of adult things about it and adult jokes, but it is designed for kids who probably won’t be thinking about this stuff. You will notice, though, playing as an adult that the female minifigures are designed differently than the male ones, both in how they walk (with a distinct swaying of their brick-hips) and their introductions (particularly noticeable in the post-credits sequence where the Guardians of the Galaxy show up and all the male characters strike a menacing pose while Gamora, arguably the most hardcore member of the group, curtseys and smiles and giggles).
I digress.
(Note: Upon reading this article after writing about all the silly stuff, I relent — you may be able to do this with Galactus once you earn him. But, then again, there’s really nothing that the Galactus minifigure can’t do.)
Of course, all of this essentially comes back to the fact that SHIELD — and, truthfully, the entire Marvel Universe — is exceptionally lazy. Superheroes have apparently made people complacent, and the assortment of meandering tasks that you are charged with (some of which we will cover in this article) prove that people in the Marvel Universe now no longer care about getting anything done, because when in doubt any number of superhero will come along and do it for them.
And I’m not just talking rescuing cats from trees (although you do rescue a monkey from a tree, in which “rescue” seems an odd choice of word because we’re talking about a money).
4. The Marvel Offices is a Land of Vanity
In one of the in-game missions that you can buy, Spider-Man and Mr. Fantastic visit the Marvel Offices only to find that Ryan Penagos, Joe Quesada, Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort are being held hostage by the Vulture and Howard the Duck. Narrated by Deadpool, of course, who narrates all the special missions.
No, you didn’t read that incorrectly. All those people are in the game, and they are held hostage by a duck with a rocket launcher.
Not only that, but the Marvel offices are not just adorned with Marvel superhero related imagery (an Iron Man 3 poster and a photograph of Coulson, Doc Ock and JJJ that only makes sense later among other things) which generally speaking makes sense, but adorned behind a red velvet curtain is what I can only assume is supposed to be a painting of Quesada, Alonso, Brevoort and Stan Lee. Naturally you destroy it in order to complete other tasks of the mission, but it pretty much indicates one thing about the Marvel offices: it is the single most vain place in the entire Marvel Universe.
Keep in mind that Doom has built a castle named after himself full of robot versions of himself, and the Marvel offices still manage to end up as a greater temple to their own self-worth. And, yes, this is all tongue-in-cheek and I’m not actually trying to accuse Marvel of being excessively egotistical, but it stands worth noting that since the game essentially exists within the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe (all of the sets are based off what we’ve seen in the films), that means that the comic company that exists within that world thinks they’re so great that they need a painting of their head honchos in the offices to remind their workers who is in charge.
No sign of Jack Kirby anywhere.
Oh, and you never fight Howard the Duck. He knocks himself out. If you later choose to buy him and add him into your roster, you receive an achievement that reads “Really??”
3.The Draxophonist
In what is arguably the best of the character-based missions (ie the missions you undertake in order to unlock the opportunity to buy characters), Drax the Destroyer, whose only mission in life is to kill and to kill Thanos, arrives on Earth and asks you to assist him in helping him with his main passion: playing the saxophone. Per his charge, you must break into a local music shop and take (without paying!) a saxophone to give to Drax, so that he may jam to his hearts content. Because inside the heart of an alien creature designed to kill lies the soul of a jazz maestro.
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However, things do not go so easy for Drax! No! Upon receiving his sax, the next mission you receive from him is to help him defeat a mob of angry AIM agents. Why, you ask? Because: AIM hates jazz, and they especially hate Drax’s jazz music. It’s not that Drax is particularly bad, I don’t think, but AIM has such an unbridled hatred for this type of music that they swarm him and attack him with intent to kill. Now, I’ve heard people talk about music and say “I like everything but country,” but I’ve never heard of anyone who hates jazz!
To paraphrase a great philosopher, this is some serious shit.
When you defeat the mob and it is time for you to unlock Drax himself, Drax invites you to the top of a random building in New York where he has set himself up a little cafe. Why it’s on the top of the roof I haven’t the foggiest clue, but he has a stage and some chairs and he’s ready to play. The only problem is, he doesn’t have an audience to actually play for — which is where you come in.
So, because you’re playing this game and you really want to play as Drax the Destroyer, what do you have to do? You have to bring him a lion to listen to him play jazz.
Yes, a lion.
I don’t particularly know why. Apparently Drax went to the circus in Central Park and thought that the lion looked particularly jazz-less. Nevertheless, you are charged with going to the zoo, kidnapping the lion (which, I might add, you have to bring to the zoo in an earlier mission!), ride the lion back into the city and up a series of annoyingly difficultly angled ramps in order for the lion to listen to Drax play the saxophone for him.
Because he is the Draxophonist.
2. Nick Fury is Actually Just Samuel L. Jackson and the Hulk Loves Dirty Dancing
Another in-game mission finds you entering Stark Tower to attend a party that Tony is throwing for all the Avengers after saving the world, including the Avengers that had at that point not once been featured in-game. Unfortunately, the party sucks: Hulk danced so much that he destroyed the speaker system and everyone seems bored that they can’t dance. The mission finds Iron Man and War Machine rebuilding all of the dance equipment so that everyone can have a good time, including the release of a disco ball and a brand new speaker system.
Where this becomes anything more than sheer ridiculous is when you build the DJ turntables back, at which point Nick Fury remarks, “And you will KNOW I am the DJ when I lay my beats down on you!” before hopping behind the deck and spinning out some sick beats.
This isn’t the only time that it happens, but this pretty much solidifies that Nick Fury is not just Nick Fury but rather just Samuel L. Jackson in disguise. Since Jackson is clearly the most badass person on the planet, it only makes sense that his Earth-616 representation ends up being the head of the SHIELD organization, to the extent that his famous movie lines end up being reiterated as extensions of the character.
In fact, while on the helicarrier, a SHIELD agent tells you, “Director Fury told me that I needed to … get these gosh darned snakes off this gosh darned helicarrier. I’m paraphrasing a bit, though.” And when you complete the mission, he says “Thanks! Who knows what kind of silly, campy madcap mayhem they would’ve caused if left to their own devices.”
Because Nick Fury is Sam Jackson.
Not only that, but as it turns out, Hulk is either a huge fan of Dirty Dancing or is Earth-616’s Patrick Swayze and/or Bill Medley (whichever is more funny) as he lifts Black Widow over his head and exclaims “HULK HAD TIME OF HIS LIFE.”
OK, so it’s a Deadpool impression, but still.
1. The Marvel Universe Has a Keen Sense of Fashion
In what has to be the single most funny thing to have happened during my playthrough of the game, it’s this.
When you finish the Asgard mission, you’ll find a lone Asgardian sitting on the roof near the portal to Asgard. When you engage him, he relents that while he loves being on Earth, he doesn’t want to stand out. His Asgardian clothes make him a bit of an eyesore, you see, and all would be a lot better for him if he had something popular, trendy and fashionable to help him blend in.
So, being a superhero who has time to clothes shop for Asgardians, you fly away to a nearby clothes emporium to pick him up an article of clothing. Knowing what you do, you have to pick something that will help him blend in, something that when people look at him they’ll either just acknowledge him with a sense of belonging to a particular group of people or just flat out ignore him, thus allowing him to keenly masquerade in our society.
And what is it, you ask, that allows this Asgardian to hide in plain sight with this brand new fashionable item?
If you said a fedora, you’re absolutely correct.
It’s possible that it’s actually the early- to mid-1940’s in the Marvel Universe, so wearing a fedora and pretending you’re Sam Spade is still cool. Heck, it’s possible it’s the early 80’s and everyone wants to be Indiana Jones. Or maybe the Asgardian is just a REALLY BIG FAN of Tom Brevoort, and as we saw earlier, the fedora is good enough to make into a painting in the Marvel offices.
In the Marvel Universe, anything is possible.
