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My last completed game of 2021 and first platinum in 2022 is Marvel’s Avengers.  I also completed the Hawkeye, Kate Bishop and Black Panther expansions. In a nutshell, how I feel about Avengers is best summarised as this:  “Avengers is only fun with mastery”. I was watching Whitelight’s review when he made that brilliant observation. Some of that review (like most reviews of Avengers) hasn’t aged well but some of it, for better or worse, still rings true even in the game's current state.

Let me take you back a bit: Remember when Square Enix threw Crystal Dynamics under the bus by telling everyone how the failure of Avengers was because Crystal Dynamics was not up to the task? Everyone lambasted Square Enix for that and they deserved the kicking. It was unprofessional, backstabbing and nasty. Imagine how deflated you would feel as a Crystal Dynamics developer hearing your own publisher outright call your game a disappointment while claiming that you were the cause. And the saddest part of what Square Enix said about Crystal Dynamics? All of it was absolutely 100% true.  Don’t get me wrong, they still shouldn’t have said it. You don’t trash talk your devs while they’re still under you, especially when you’re so obviously doing it to deflect blame during yet another controversial, greed-driven decision. But that doesn’t mean Squenix wasn’t right in their assessment and anyone who has played this game extensively knows it. 

Avengers is fun. At 235 hours I’m still enjoying it even after getting the platinum (which is usually my cut-off point) but it’s hard to recommend it on principle when everyone involved in its creation clearly does not care. Crystal Dynamics is largely to blame here and I say that as someone who platinumed both of their Tomb Raider games and can see many of the baggage they brought over from them. It's been widely stated that Marvel’s Avengers should have been more like Guardians of the Galaxy, i.e. an Uncharted style linear experience but I disagree - that’s just criticising Avengers for what it isn’t. The fact of the matter is, Crystal Dynamics was tasked with making a game in the form of the GAAS model and their job was to do it well, no excuses.

For the most part, Crystal Dynamics succeed in spite of themselves, and for a good few hours it very much plays like the story driven superhero game fans wanted anyway. In fact, the loot is so minimal to begin with that you’d be forgiven for thinking that you accidentally purchased the wrong game, and not the “soulless looter brawler” the journos made it out to be. That perception comes to a screeching halt, though, when the story stops dead in its tracks to tutorialise all the endgame shenanigans. The sudden genre switch was so comically sudden and full-on but, to be honest, it was where I started to get excited because it felt like the real game was being unveiled.  Not to say that I wasn’t feeling the Uncharted-wannabe opening hours but from a gameplay point of view it wastes time with one-time-use-only mechanics. For instance, why is there a mandatory stealth section? And why is Kamala Khan doing it? Stealth is not a viable mechanic in Avengers unless you’re Black Widow and you tap your Veil of Shadows ability (invisibility). Even then, it’s not encouraged whatsoever to just sneak past enemies, since they are a resource of XP and loot. It’s a problem of pacing - they could have introduced the real game much sooner.

Essentially, the campaign follows Kamala Khan A.K.A Ms Marvel and her quest to reassemble the Avengers following a falling out after the tragic event  known as ‘A day’. Many people either died or turned into ‘Inhumans’ as a result of A day, including Kamala, now a polymoth. Guilt ridden Bruce Banner feels responsible for what happened to her and recruits Tony Stark and others for help. That’s the gist of it without spoilers. 

The story is OK. It’s serviceable for a game in this genre, but I think the best part is how reassembling the Avengers reflects in the environment as time goes by. The Chimera helicarrier (Avengers HQ) starts off as a barren and dusty fixer-upper but rooms fill up with our heroes as you acquire each one; engineers can be seen with notepads in hand speaking with staff; vendors gain a permanent stand for their wares; Spider-Man and Kate Bishop occasionally stop by to hang out (in Spider-Man’s case, quite literally!) I also enjoy the optional conversations between each character and, impressively, there are dialogue exchanges for every imaginable interaction, even the DLC characters. I like the fact that you can go into every Avenger’s room but if you go to Kamala’s you have to knock first because she’s a teenager. I like that Bruce is in Hulk form in other locations except for the Chimera because it’s revealed in a conversation between him and Steve that Kamala's presence makes Bruce happy. I get a kick out of Spider-Man being a Black Widow stan and calling himself ‘Black Widow Man’ in his early days. Little details like this make the Avengers headquarters feel lived-in, and watching the Chimera gradually reach this state with every plot development almost feels like a staff management simulator (which I'm a huge fan of). 

Even the main menu - which shows the characters in full motion wearing all the cosmetic outfits you picked out for them - mirrors the "reassembling" by only adding characters you have acquired at that point in the campaign. By its nature, the story makes you feel like you’re progressing. Keep that in mind because I’ll get to how this game handles actual  “progression” later. Additionally, the narrative context for gameplay quirks is clever at times. For instance, Tony uses the fabricating machine to assemble his Iron Suit (which he lost during the intervening years, along with his fortune) but in gameplay terms this is simply a loot box roll for cosmetics, paid for with an in-game resource known as ‘patterns’. The loot elements for the Hulk, however, do feel out of place (why would Hulk care? And skeletal gear??? 😂) but for the most part it makes sense.

As for the characters, individually, Kamala is the best written by default seeing as she gets the most screen time and development. Her do-gooder spirit and sweet nature makes her genuinely endearing, and I found her relationship with her father heartwarming. Her talent for inspiring others is even reflected in her character kit: her support ability, ‘Team Spirit’, heals herself and teammates, and each time she uses it she yells something like, “we’re okay!” or “that’s alright!” It’s corny but in a good way. She got a lot of unfair hate when she was unveiled as the lead from the usual unsavoury corners of the Internet even though you can choose to ignore her in the endgame. And some youtubers with unchecked racial and gender biases still say she’s “cringe” to this day, despite admitting in the same breath that her fangirling mirrors how they would react if they met their favourite superheroes… Ignore them. She’s great. There’s also been some criticism about her never getting that climactic moment where she officially becomes an Avenger, which isn’t quite true:

Although I wouldn't blame folks for missing this (more on why later). Kamala also has the advantage of not being established in the MCU prior, and thus having no other version to compare to except the comics which I wager the majority of players don’t read. Whereas Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man. Chris Evans IS Captain America. Scarlet Johansson IS Black Widow. And that’s where the snickering about these Avengers looking more like the actors' stunt doubles stem from which, to be fair, yeah. That said, I really liked this version of Thor - Travis Willingham always makes him come across as truly noble, dare I say it, worthy. Troy Baker is fine as Bruce Banner with the material he’s given. Laura Bailey lays it on a bit thick as Black Widow with the whole tough girl act but that rock hard exterior is kind of the point of the character. Ashly Burch as Kate Bishop has some great quips and one liners, as expected. The only performance that I really disliked was Nolan North as Tony Stark. It's Nathan Drake in a mask. What’s worse is that all characters quip during combat so if you play as Iron Man expect to endure constant Nate Drake-isms when you’re throwing down. Or not.  I instantly mute him now.

I’ve mostly played the (digital) PS5 version despite also owning the PS4 version. The load times in missions are virtually instant. The 60 fps coupled with the shaky cam brings an intimacy to the quieter character moments while still feeling cinematic. There’s an impressive amount of breakables in the environment, meaning that, for the most part, if you can see it you can smash through it. And there is just no way that the PS4 would be able to handle any of this, so I totally believe the complaints about it being bugged to hell at launch.  While I would not say that Avengers is a next gen game, as maybe more time in the oven could have made the PS4 version better, I will say that Avengers greatly benefits from the PS5. On that note, the game is mostly polished but although it doesn’t rain often, when it does rain it pours. I still can’t get into the endgame raid as it freezes during matchmaking and if your game crashes in the middle of a mission you’re basically starting again since it doesn’t save at checkpoints when you’re offline like Anthem does. If a co-op partner drops out due to poor Internet connection then you’re a member down for the rest of the mission because there's no 'join session' feature. 

Bugs can and, likely, will be fixed but there is stuff inherently wrong with Avengers that can’t be improved with a patch: whereas the Chimera feels like a living, breathing space the same can’t be said for the rest of the world design. I’ve always said that, for me, the most important aspect to the GAAS model isn’t the loot, it’s the world and the lore. The Black Panther expansion is great (save for the terrible final boss) because it recontexualises the game within the world of Wakanda. Outside of Wakanda, however, every level in Avengers feels overdesigned to accommodate all the characters. Every handhold, every mark on the wall, every building structure feels so deliberate and unnatural.  I don’t buy that this is a real place that these characters just so happen to stumble upon. It also doesn’t help that there’s no free roam to speak of which, in fairness, makes sense as multiple Iron Mans and Thors running around would be immersion breaking (Crystal Dynamics begrudgingly updated co-op so that two players can select the same Avenger in a mission). But this also serves to make the world feel enclosed and sectioned off. Avengers is based on comics with a long, rich, legendary history brimming with lore and yet, somehow, that doesn’t come across. 

Crystal Dynamics implement features from their previous games that are wildly out of place. Let’s start with the most annoying one by far: Why the bleeding hell is there survival instinct in this? Oh, I’m sorry, I mean “tAcTicAl aWaReNeSs”.  It made sense in Tomb Raider to ping the environment but in a looter shooter your HUD is your everything and any moment without it renders you virtually blind.  (IIRC, Destiny 2 outright tells the player that if you disable HUD the game will be unplayable 😂) It’s so annoying having to spam up on the d pad to bring icons and mission objectives for directions especially as it has a cooldown. They also brought back the quick-time events from the Tomb Raider trilogy. Again, why? Quick-time events are lame, a lazy way of making the player feel involved in what is a glorified cutscene.  They’ve even plonked them in real time combat encounters for no good reason - when I’m doing a dps check I want the enemy to die instantly. I don’t want to be forced into a mandatory cinematic takedown.  There is only one badass moment at the end that benefited from a quicktime event because the character had to do something they’ve been struggling with throughout the story, and allowing the player to participate in that by using the controls you normally would in combat made it even more epic. You can make the mashy quick time events less annoying by changing it to single tap only in the menus but it's still an unnecessary feature.

Additionally, the button for opening strongboxes (chests) has far too long a hold time. I know it’s to create suspense but it’s a burden on the thumb. It also takes a while for the game to register its input so you often end up punching into the air when you’re trying to loot or looting when you’re trying to punch! Perhaps the button wasted on “tactical awareness” would have been best applied here instead.  It’s as if Crystal Dynamics never factored in that players would be repeating these tasks over and over so won’t want to be bogged down with needlessly overcooked controls. Oh, and sometimes loot drops from an enemy just as a mission completes which freezes your character into place, rendering them unable to collect it. In similar games there is a countdown at the end of missions to give players time to quickly scoop up any dropped loot.

These silly oversights are forgivable with time but what I think is going to be the first make or break aspect for many players will be the combat. I’ve seen complaints that it’s, “button mashy” and, while I don’t agree with that, I can totally see why people think this. It’s deceptively methodical and when it works you can see what the devs were going for. The character kits are fantastic and exactly what you would want. You can tell that the designers did their homework; some of the animations are direct copies from the movies' best action sequences. Each character has ‘Heroics’ which are comprised of a support ability (left bumper), assault ability (right bumper) and an ultimate ability (left bumper + right bumper). These are basically high damage/high defence skills that the player can trigger with long cooldowns. Each character also has an intrinsic ability which is a passive skill that regenerates more quickly and only depletes upon taking damage or using special moves tied to it. There are other ways to speed up regeneration, be it orbs (which tends to be dropped from takedowns) or the gear perks.

The problem is the enemy behaviour is inappropriate.  Firstly, the camera is like looking through a peep hole at times. This in conjunction with enemy projectiles can make for some frustrating encounters. Ranged enemies are super accurate to the point of feeling like they’re using aimbot and they do far more damage than the melee enemies. They're also so abundant that even if you dodge one projectile you’ll likely be hit by another.  And with the camera being as close as it is you’ll often find yourself getting shot by enemies you can't even see with no way to read their attacks. Sure, sometimes there are ranged indicators but a lot of the time there isn’t and I don’t think it’s a bug. Some ranged enemies can teleport which they will do a lot so unless you’re Kate (who can also teleport) or another ranged character, like Hawkeye, expect to be chasing them up and down the map as the Benny Hill theme plays in the background. 

The dodge button is a strange one because the game tells you that red attacks must be countered with perfect dodges in order to avoid damage, which I think is good because it punishes the player for just spamming circle. However,  the game doesn’t always read your input. That, or the dodge window is ridiculously small. Also, enemy AOE damage is usually larger than what the red zone indicates so even if you get out in time you will still take damage. Worse still,  when you do get hit enemies tend to follow-up with more punches so glass cannon characters like Iron Man or Spider-Man could be stun locked to their deaths. 

But I don’t want to give the impression that the combat is bad. Far from it. The big caveat to this is that all of the aforementioned issues are early combat annoyances. You will eventually overcome them which circles back to Whitelight's takeaway: Avengers is only fun with mastery. Basically, all the characters, bar Hawkeye, are either terrible or mediocre at low levels so you’re almost bashing against the controller as you brute force them into being the superheroes they’re supposed to be. Then by about hero level 35 onwards you finally feel like the Avenger you’re playing as and all the combat annoyances are rendered trivial. The contrast between the high level Avenger and the low level Avenger is so huge that the worst disservice you could do as a first-time player is drop a character or, worse, the game early on. I guarantee that the character you think is trash at hero level 15 will be your favourite at the max hero level (50). But, then again, why should it take that long for a character to get good?  I was lucky enough to have my first experience with Avengers during the quadruple XP event and it was by far and away the most fun I had with the game. Not only was I getting constant dopamine hits by levelling up virtually every minute but it allowed me to see how good characters I had previously written off were at their maximum power. 

Hulk was my least favourite character to begin with and I groaned whenever he was assigned to me, but I will never forget the first time I got the skill that enabled me to grab two enemies and slam them together while he laughed manically. It was so fun and totally played into the “Hulk smash” fantasy! From then on it was just unfiltered and uninterrupted gamma raging chaos and I loved every second of it. If you build him right you can even grab larger enemies by shrinking them with pym particles. And because I managed to level up 3 characters in this time I continued to grind all the other characters to max level even after the quadruple XP event was over because I knew it would be worth it.

Thor, my main, has an oppressive passive skill where bolts of lightning chais between enemies over and over again meaning he doesn’t have to lift a finger (or hammer, to be exact) a lot of the time.  My Thor can also decimate high level, heavily armoured enemies in seconds while dealing continuous status damage because I’ve built him to have infinite heroic regeneration and high heroic damage. I very rarely actually need to hit an enemy with him unless I somehow run out of heroics (which is basically never). 

Ms Marvel’s intrinsic Polyamory skill coupled with her Embiggen ultimate knocks all surrounding enemies off their feet, cancels their animations and auto dodges their attacks making her excellent for crowd control. She can also heal herself up to 3 times with her support skill alone, an additional time with her intrinsic which regenerates much faster than the others, and with mastery and the right gear you’ll never run out of intrinsic energy.  Oh, and she can self revive as well as revive her teammates without having to go over to them… If you die as Ms Marvel, especially in co-op, it’s genuinely embarrassing. She is the most balanced Avenger, making her a great support character while being able to hold her own.

Iron Man, or more like, Tin Man, is absolutely atrocious at low levels. Dude can’t go 5 seconds flying without being knocked out of the sky but the amount of gadgets and the creative ways the game utilises them is really something else.  His skill tree is completely unique from the others in that most of the others consist of a light attack tab, a heavy attack ranged tab, and an intrinsic tab (and then the next two pages are specialisation and mastery). But Iron Man’s skill tree is more about how you can get the best out of his gadgets, i.e. repulsors, lasers and rockets, by chaining your light and heavy attacks. His range and melee are one and the same, meaning that if you equip lasers or rockets his traditional melee attacks turn into lasers or missiles instead. Of course, his gadgets are tied to his intrinsic so you need to be sensible with spamming gadget attacks but, like the others, if you build him right you can fire lasers and rockets all day long. Oh, and his support skill can be upgraded to cancel insta-death kills from bosses…

Black Widow is arguably cracked. I built her to have infinite invisibility while being able to perform takedowns without needing to build the stun gauge, so enemies can’t even track me while I’m doing an obscene amount of damage with my intrinsic and ultimate skills. I’m surprised she hasn’t been nerfed yet.

Black Widow Man’s. Spider-Man’s spidey sense actively cancels the annoying off-camera ranged enemies because as soon as the Spidey sense aura appears you know to dodge instantly even if you don’t know what is trying to hit you. He also has a gear perk that forms a protective bubble around him which, again, if you build right can trigger regularly. His spider drone gadget does such ridiculous web damage that it’s great for keeping ranged enemies off your back. The fact that he doesn’t need to build the stun gauge to do takedowns - provided he doesn’t get hit - was obviously a compromise to make him feel more like Insomniac’s.  Although… try as they might, Spider-Man’s animations are so poor in comparison to Insomniac’s that it genuinely makes me feel sorry for Crystal Dynamics. You can tell they did not not want to include the character because he only really exists to sell skins (more on that later).

The animations for the other characters are excellent, especially Hawkeye, but Spider-Man looking so bad here makes me question whether that’s true or if I just think that because there isn’t a better video game version yet. Obviously, the combat was never going to feel like Insomniac’s as this Spider-Man operates within RPG parameters, whereas Insomniac’s Spider-Man is from the Batman Arkham school of brawler that every studio was aping at the beginning of last gen. But the one thing they had to nail was the swinging and they really dropped the ball here. Insomniac’s Spider-Man is about momentum - it always feels like you’re effortlessly barrelling forward even during tricks and turns. Avengers' Spider-Man has to stop mid air to flex his acrobatics before resuming and it just looks and feels awkward. In isolation it’s fine but having experienced what the perfect Spider-Man swinging feels like it’s hard to accept anything less. The voice actor is good and I do enjoy how he delivers the Spidey quips (“itsy bitsy ass kicking!”) but that swinging, oof.

As for who is the best Avenger, well, objectively, without a doubt, it's…whichever one you enjoy playing with. Seriously. They are all excellent at high levels with the right builds. My advice would be to make sure you go into the HARM training room early on to get used to their different skill sets as there is a lot to learn. To me, Thor and Hawkeye are the best but I have witnessed badly built Thors be put to shame by high damage Spider-Man builds in co-op.

Speaking of which, you know how a lot of these GAAS types promise players they can play solo even though level design and enemy behaviour is quite obviously suited for co-op?  Well, it’s true this time. You can totally play this game solo… with A.I. team mates. The only exception being strikes and raids in which the game outright forces you to play in co-op, which makes perfect sense. Plus, the community is mostly pleasant. I’ve noted before that dead games tend to have nicer communities as they can’t afford to drive away the few players left, and I do recall one instance where I had to tell a player off because he was being a dick to another player to which he claimed he was joking. 🙄 There's always gonna be people like that but, for the most part, the community is cool. 

Outside of strikes and raids, though, you can do any endgame content you like “solo”, including hives which are these 5 floor, 6 floor, 14 floor corridors comprised of different activity types from the main campaign. In fact, the weekly mega hive (which grants unique rewards) is a true test of this because the idea is that you have to complete the 5 hives the mission chain gives you but you only get one life to live. You must swap the downed Avenger for another one of your high level characters and continue. If all your eligible characters go down before the final hive you have to start the entire mission chain again (and Ms Marvel’s self revive doesn’t apply here; not that you need it for her). My Thor, despite not being the strongest defence wise, can run an entire mega hive without going down once simply because he kills enemies too quickly for them to strike. In fact, the best part about building your characters to mastery is bringing them along as A. I. teammates and seeing how they behave when you’re not controlling them.

Different combinations of heroes can make for some unique situations. For instance, Black Widow, Captain America and Spider-Man and Ms Marvel on one strike team is just a brawler showdown with takedown after takedown as they drop orbs for one another; enemies don’t stand a chance. Or playing as Iron Man and watching Spider-Man web bomb an annoying enemy to the wall while dropping constant intrinsic orbs for me so I can split that enemy in half with my laser. Or Black Widow’s invisibility support allowing my Spider-Man to perform even more takedowns on enemies without even needing to fill the stun bar or his intrinsic bar as long as their health is low. The point is, your A.I. companions take their gear perks and skill upgrades into the battlefield so not only are you building your character but you’re creating entire team builds too. 

It’s been said that the A.I. team mates are “dumb” because they don’t prioritise objectives which is not technically accurate. They do run to objectives…once the area is cleared. The thing is, they are so aggressive (sometimes annoyingly so when you’re trying to complete dailies lol) that they can take care of enemies for you while you complete the objective yourself so you don’t actually need their help for objectives. However, when it comes to boss fights your A.I teammates will not use their heroics because Thor and Hulk’s Ultimates can nuke a boss in one hit. I end up just watching my A.I. teammates wail on a boss that I know can be ended with one heroic strike between the four of us and it looks very silly.  

There is one exception: The main campaign villain, Monica Rappaccini, is a great character and her post campaign villain sector (endgame boss missions) is by far and away the best boss fight in the game because Crystal Dynamics found a way to prevent your A.I. team mates from one-shotting her with heroics without literally stopping them from using their heroics. But she is not a true representation of the rest of the bosses who are awfully designed, especially Klaw. Sadly, this is the type of boss encounter that critics will show you in reviews to demonstrate that the combat sucks but, again, that is because no reviewer is going to take the time to level up most of the characters like I did to face Monica, and nor should they be expected to. Anyway, in short, don’t bring along A.I. Avengers to villain sectors if you have built them to be dependent on heroics. 

Another criticism often lobbied at Marvel's Avengers is that loot is weak which just baffles me. Avengers has some of the best build diversity I have seen in a looter shooter and with the loadouts feature coming soon it’s about to get even better. But, again, I can empathise with why people think loot in Avengers is unsatisfying. I’ve already explained how Avengers is best at mastery but what I haven’t quite touched on is just how long it takes to get there. Most players check out before the loot begins to matter which is power level 100 onwards. Prior to power level 100 you’re constantly swapping out loot or dismantling it seeing as you can’t boost low level gear (anymore) and every mission is automatically scaled to be a minimum of 5 levels above the player on normal difficulty until you hit power level 150 and then you can finally outscale them.  So, for too long you’re just chasing power as opposed to loot. 

You can circumvent the power level grind to an extent with vendors, provided you have enough resources but the hero level XP progression is far too steep. By the end of the campaign you would have only unlocked a third of the primary skill tree which is seriously bad. This is where any scrutiny of Crystal Dynamics ends and the spotlight is placed firmly on Square Enix because the whole progression system is a direct cause of the game’s one universally agreed flaw: microtransactions. Holy cow. I have never seen microtransactions this intrusive. It’s so baked into the design philosophy of Avengers that it feels like Square Enix is waging psychological warfare against the player. Sure, the grind can be counteracted by simply, you know, getting to the max level but they recently raised the level cap while the endgame content remains bare bones even after a year. There is one strike and one raid and you can only get high level gear and resources from it once a week per character. They’ve recently introduced the rush event where you get one exotic per week, per roster. Not per character. Per roster. That’s laughable. 

And their thought process is so transparent. They know that more rewards means less grind, less grinding means less air time, less air time means less time in the game’s ecosystem and if you’re not in a game’s ecosystem then you’re not spending money on cosmetics. Squenix needs CD to constantly move the goalpost back because they have no confidence that the content that’s already there is enough.  Additionally, Avengers has lost them so much money that it’s doubtful they’re willing to spend whatever it takes to please the community and gain new fans. They have no interest in getting new players onboard; they know the game’s reputation is down the toilet.  The only thing Square Enix cares about is keeping active players in a chokehold through artificial grinding so they can make as much money out of the current player base as possible. Because if you’re still playing Avengers at this point then nothing is going to turn you away. That is their gameplan.

That’s not even getting into the actual microtransactions. Each character has a battlepass in the form of challenge cards where you complete daily and weekly assignments, earning cosmetics, emotes and resources as you go…or you can just pay your way to the top by purchasing credits. I completed Thor’s battlepass and you know what I got for my weeks of grinding for my main? Nada. Sure, I got the rewards the assignments granted on the way but nothing for 100% completion and yet the battlepass still has the cheek to keep refreshing the daily and weekly challenges. The battlepasses for DLC characters (Hawkeye, Spider-Man, Black Panther and Kate Bishop) are not even free. You have to pay to “activate” their individual rewards, including paying to “activate” a currency card with said purchase currency which makes absolutely no sense. Even the base game characters have limitations in this area seeing as the rewards don’t reset, meaning eventually you will have to fork over the cash. There are units you can earn from opening strongboxes to purchase in-game cosmetics but the vendor is ridiculously overpriced and they are on a timer so you have to check daily to see if they’re even stocking the outfits you like. 

I used to subscribe to the brainwashed line of thinking that cosmetic microtransactions don’t matter, but Avengers changed my mind on that completely. The way your character looks is crucial because it plays into whatever fantasy the game is trying to provide. It changes how you play with your character, it changes how you feel about your character. It’s what distinguishes your Thor from sexydick100’s Thor and makes you the one true, mighty Thor because you have a better hairdo and cape. Cosmetics in games matter and if they didn’t game companies would not monetise them. Hilariously, Crystal Dynamics didn’t even stick to the 'cosmetics only' mantra seeing as they throttled hero XP with the introduction of XP boosters. So not only did they not do the one thing they needed to do to make the game more enjoyable at earlier levels, they stuck the middle finger up at fans and went the other way.  Microtransactions in any form are bad and the ones in Avengers are disgusting. 

However, *checks for Crystal Dynamics snipers* Avengers has an embarrassing amount of exploits, one of which are its infinite units. You know the fabricating machine I mentioned earlier that Tony Stark first uses? Well let’s just say that after resetting my campaign progress I’ve been making a lot of trips to the fabricator at that point in the story…I’m proud to say that because of these exploits I haven’t bought a single thing out of that damn store but Crystal Dynamics are bound to patch it since they’re banning anyone who promotes it.

This post is too damn long. I recommend Avenger only, and I say ONLY during quadruple events and *checks for red dots* with any exploits you can find. I would say if you’re an Avengers fan pick it up cheap but do not start until that event. It will give you enough time to level up at least three Avengers and see them in all their glory. I don’t want to give the impression that it’s what reviewers said it was on day one - It is a fun game with excellent character and team build diversity at high levels. The challenge will be whether one has the patience to overcome the Crystal Dynamics quirks to get there, and whether it’s fun enough to withstand the endgame greed of Square Enix. For me, it is, but for others it won’t be. The frustrating thing about Avengers is that its problems are easily fixable. I do believe it could have a bright future with some very simple adjustments around progression and adding more content, but all of that requires a company that cares and it’s clear at this point that the dev team's hearts are just not in it.

1.Firewatch. First completed game of 2022. I also obtained all trophies (though it doesn’t have a platinum).

Firewatch is a game that I like but probably would have loved about 6 years ago when it was released. Today, with so many similar narrative driven Indie types, it seems rather by-the-numbers.  Throughout the course of this particular walking simulator we follow a fire lookout named Henry and his supervisor, Delilah. The story is set in Shoshone National Forest in the 1980s after the Yellowstone fires, and that’s about the extent of what I will give away. 

The text based prologue initially had me worried with the toe-curling lovey-dovey romance inducing unpleasant flashbacks to the sickly-sweet one in Maquette from last year, but the game cuts that nonsense out quickly. The voice acting is very good, especially Delilah who is the most interesting and likeable of the two leads. You never quite know whether to trust her or not (I suspect her name was a very deliberate choice by the developers) but, at the same time, she’s fun to talk to on the walkie talkie due to her laid-back nature and dry sense of humour. On the flip side of the coin, Henry is really unlikeable and I never warmed to him, so it was difficult to care about his well-being outside of his interactions with Delilah. The fact that he is often needlessly rude and hostile actually made me like Delilah more for having the patience to try and get along with him, even though he didn’t deserve it.

There’s an almost cool Metroidvania style to the level design of this part of the Wyoming wilderness in that certain paths won’t be available to you until you advance in days or get more equipment.  Some of the paths even remain optional throughout the duration of the critical path. For instance,  I got most trophies during my initial playthrough of the story bar one, its requirements cheekily tucked away behind a hidden path that I had the tool for but somehow forgot to go back and use. Thankfully, there is a freeroam mode post campaign (which, to my understanding, was added after release ) so I was able to pinch it thereafter. 

Firewatch is dedicated to maintaining immersion,  allowing players to bring up Henry’s in-world map and compass at will to help with navigation. Finding the various supply caches laying about will prompt Henry to update his map (visually represented by him scribbling the location down with his pen), making subsequent treks back to said path easier to follow. These supply caches also house a story collectible revolving around two former lookouts and their taboo relationship, which suddenly made the choice of time period make sense since such issues are easier to admit to existing when you think of them as being in the past - a similar cop-out seen in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, for instance.  

Unlike Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, though, (which, to be fair, is superior to Firewatch), the walking is slow but not unbearably so and you can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time. There was the occasional hitching coupled with squeeze-through-gap-to-mask-loading-screens trick that made me suspect that this was the fastest speed the engine could allow without tanking entirely. I also appreciated how the player is spared the tedium of backtracking all the way to Henry’s watchtower - return trips, provided the main goal has been completed, are quickly interrupted by cut-to-black time advancements. You’re then promptly back at whatever starting location you need to be at, ready to begin your next adventure for the day. There was only one cut-to-black during a pivotal character moment that made me feel cheated. It was so predictable that I let out an audible yell and rolled my eyes. 

A lot of these Indie walking simulators never stick the landing and Firewatch is no different. I predict that many will reach the end and say, “that it?” with the usual replies of, “no, you don’t get it! It’s not about the mystery but about the journey of the characters!” Normally, I would agree with the latter perspective but, then again, Firewatch kind of wasn’t about the journey of the characters. At a certain point all friendship bonding between Henry and Delilah takes a backseat to this murder mystery in the woods so by the time it circles back to their connection at the end it didn’t quite have as much of an impact. 

Overall, Firewatch has well written and well acted characters, an interesting location to explore with quality-of-life elements that are baked into the storytelling devices it uses. I’d say pick it up if you like this sort of thing but don’t go in expecting to be blown away like the reviews at the time would have you believe. I think it’s because at this point I’ve played this sort of walking, talking, exploring game so many times now that it’s hard not to feel like going through the motions. Furthermore, it’s been done better -  I still think What Remains of Edith Finch represents the very best this genre has to offer,  well, and another pleasant surprise I played this year which I can't wait to talk about.

Told ya. And if it's irritating you now then by the end anything good about it will get buried under the plethora of BS due to its sheer length. It's not a good game.

I actually powered through Outer Wilds and got the platinum. I've developed a love/hate relationship with it. There's so much that is great and so much that is f*cking irritating all at the same time that I still don't know whether I like it or not. I'd mutter angrily as I had to start yet another loop due to something going tits up and then end up playing until late as every bread crumb enticed me to uncover more. Even the ending was equally beautiful and annoying. It's one of those games where I can totally see why it has such a cult following but at the same time have to wonder why its obvious flaws and lack of respect for the player's time are never mentioned. Like Days Gone, I took a leap after all the praise it got on here but at least in the case of The Outer Wilds a lot of that praise is deserved. It's a very, very clever, high concept game and exceptionally well detailed. I have to applaud the devs for their dedication at the very least.

mmm I would have thought the collection is more for people who really love the series and want an incentive to play it again. Plus it doesn't include the original trilogy. Personally, I'd play the first three to begin with as Uncharted is very story driven and the new ones will be more meaningful with that history behind it. If you enjoy them then get the PS5 Legacy of Thieves collection.

2. Virginia. Completed and platinumed. 

Not really much to say as this game is appropriately short - took about 9 hours to platinum but non trophy hunters will finish it in half that time. It features an ethnically ambiguous FBI agent and her black female partner entangled in a murder mystery/government conspiracy which means of course it’s not set in the current time period. I would say it’s cliched but apparently it’s based on a true story so I’ll allow it. 

The good news is that Virginia is better than the developer’s previous outing, Last Stop, a game that put up the illusion of choice for too long, and then unfolded into one binary decision that did not factor in any of the player's previous “choices”. Virginia proves that sometimes a story works best when there’s only one voice. Or no voice, to be more precise - the silent narration aids the mystery. It’s pretty much a standard walking simulator in that you can explore areas at your leisure, hoping to piece together more of the puzzle or simply learn more about this world the characters inhabit. The catch, with the story being so obscure, is that each point of no return is telegraphed only by the player’s own understanding of the narrative, i.e. if you know what the main character is looking for you’ll know what will trigger the next segment and how to avoid it. If you don’t, prepare for some frustrating, “but I wasn’t finished!” moments. 

Points of interest are densely packed so you will cover a lot of ground in a short while despite the main character’s snail paced movement. There were times when it seemed the game was threatening to make me walk down endless corridors and winding staircases but these moments were always intercepted by jump cuts or montages which was, in turn, followed by my sigh of relief.  Perhaps Virginia uses jump cuts one too many times for it to be effective as a narrative device, as they became increasingly predictable to anticipate. However, like Firewatch, quality-of-life features that are embedded in a game’s storytelling techniques are always a welcome edition!

Virginia does have the dumbest QOL fail I’ve ever seen in a walking sim, though, in that it erases all discovered collectibles from previous chapters - as opposed to chapters going forward - if you use chapter select, which makes absolutely no sense.  Heavy Rain had this figured out in 2010 so there’s no excuse. A second playthrough is required for the platinum which provided me with a second chance to get them all anyway but the game’s ‘all or nothing’ approach to collectibles is still rather insulting.  Equally insulting is Variable State’s insistence in equating ambitious, career driven women with pure evil - an unpleasant view previously inflicted on the player in Last Stop (in which a single dad berates such a woman for being, “one of those mums who leaves the kids behind with the dad.”)

Whatcanisay? It's an indie walking sim. You know the drill. Pick Virginia up if you like these things.