Welcome back true believers, for the second major addition to Square Enix’s Avengers, which, six months after the game’s launch, finally lets players step into the shoes of Clint Barton. Picking up several weeks after Kate Bishop’s DLC, it sees Clint waking up from his tachyon-induced coma, and resuming his search for Nick Fury in the dusty Wastelands of the post-Kree invasion future. Along the way, he and Kate will have to retrieve Lucky the Pizza Dog; find out why the Wastelands seems so familiar; and battle this dystopia’s Supreme Leader. Spoilers after the jump.
1. Well That Was Abrupt
Future Imperfect is probably as large as its predecessor, Taking AIM, but it feels shorter, and shallower: a lot of time is spent as Old Man Hawkeye, and then time-traveling Hawkeye, scouring the post-apocalyptic wilderness. After running into his older self, the loop begins again, as Clint confronts the Supreme Leader, who turns out to be the despotic old Hulk Maestro (hence the name of the expansion, and probably why the character’s starred in a couple of miniseries lately.)
After the boss fight, Maestro informs the young and old Bartons that Fury can be found “beyond the storm,” and it’s shown that SHIELD and AIM didn’t so much as stop the Kree’s onslaught, but froze it in time with a Cosmic Cube. Old Man Hawkeye basically says, “damn, oh well,” and wishes his younger self the best of luck, instead of doing something dramatic and desperate like trying to pry open the bubble to rescue Nick — the colonel’s sadly just going to be stuck there, apparently. (How anticlimactic.)
2. Where’d Everybody Go?
Clint and Kate have a lot of banter here, but Natasha, Tony, Thor and Kamala only have dialogue at the start, and Steve and Bruce make no appearances whatsoever — the implication is that in-universe, despite the required presence of two more teammates, Kate and Clint have gone solo on this mission. It’s still weird though, given how characters would always comment during previous side missions, regardless of whether they were present or not thanks to the intercom — you’re telling me, Pym turns a Quinjet into a time machine for the Hawkeyes, and no one else has anything to say about this?
3. Other Seams
I imagine Crystal Dynamics probably had to prioritize building the Wastelands, Lucky, and Hawkeye himself, as well as all the other stuff that came with this patch (the next-gen graphics, the ability to replay the Reassemble campaign, and the customizable HARM room), but it was still disappointing that some cutscenes were animated so cheaply: seeing Kate and Clint just stare and talk at each other, and occasionally put their hands on their hips, utterly undermined the drama of her learning he’d planned to retire before Fury asked for his help.
Remember how Mass Effect 2 gave each squadmate an introductory mission, or just a cutscene, to show them joining the roster? Perhaps the devs should start adding the characters first, before developing the new storylines: it’d be perfectly in-character for the likes of War Machine to show up this way (“look it’s me, I’m here, deal with it. Let’s move on.”)
4. Old Man vs. Young Hawk
Giacomo Gianniotti’s voiceover as the young Clint leaves a lot to be desired: he sounds like Nolan North and Troy Baker, but doesn’t have the sheer force of personality from their performances. He does well when Clint’s written to be snarky, but otherwise falls flat eg. when Taskmaster (yes, him again) shows up, he reads the line “Taskmaster?” as if he were waking up from a dream, instead of being irritated by his unwelcome appearance. Gianniotti’s much better as Old Man Hawkeye, as he gets to lay on the grizzled veteran growl thickly, and it’s likely this is why he was cast in the dual role.
On that note, it was nice Hulk actor Darin De Paul got to do more than growl some minimal dialogue as Maestro, and hopefully he’ll get that opportunity again.
5. Customization is Skin Deep
The DLC unlocks two free appearances for Clint: a civilian look based on David Aja, Javier Pulido and Matt Fraction’s “Hawkeye” run (blonde hair, broken nose), and the “iconic” look created for all promotional materials, including — sigh — a shaved head. It’s ugly, and odd given Clint actually compliments his own hair after waking up from his coma! I don’t like the other superhero costumes on offer either, because they also have a shaved head, sunglasses, or a mask; there really needs to be an option to toggle those on all of them, because I don’t want to wait and pay for tweaked versions of them in the marketplace. In the meantime, I guess my Hawkguy will have to continue to fight robots in a t-shirt and jeans.
Continued belowBonus Thoughts:
– The entrance to Maestro’s throne room has huge Tomb Raider 2013 vibes.
– Hawkeye’s ultimate attack — the Hunter’s Arrow — is basically Yondu’s Yaka Arrow from the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
– Could you imagine if we had to chase after the truck that kidnapped Lucky? Hawkeye’s grappling is not as fast as Iron Man and Thor’s flying, but what a missed opportunity.
– Yes, all the Avengers can pet Lucky on the bridge of the Chimera.
– Turns out Kate is in SHIELD Substation Zero whenever you’re not playing as her on the helicarrier, even though her name is still on the door of Hawkeye’s quarters.
– And now that there are eight Avengers, they are rotating on the helicarrier now, lending the illusion the other half of the team are going on separate missions.
So from the roadmap released last week, it seems it’ll be more than three months before we meet Black Panther (possibly during the game’s first anniversary), although we may see the story progress slightly with this summer’s Cosmic Cube villain sector. Until then, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments — excelsior!
