Let’s get ready for Love And Thunder with Mighty Thor in Marvel’s Avengers
There's nothing wrong with playing, and enjoying, games that have been deemed "uncool"
Games Features Thor
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
In last week’s edition of this column, my esteemed colleague William Hughes wrote about the absolutely brilliant first-person shooter/parkour puzzle/romance game Neon White, detailing his comically futile attempts to match my effortlessly achieved high scores. The leaderboard system in Neon White is a little spotty, at least on the Switch version that I’ve been playing, but I still held a number of records over William the last time I checked.
So I think it’s fair to say that I won this feud that I didn’t know I was a part of, because I’m really good at Neon White without trying, and in honor of my victory I’m going to write about something that William would never allow (if he were fast enough in Neon White to stop me): the latest update to Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics’ unfairly maligned 2020 action game Marvel’s Avengers—a game that William does not like but that I do! Mwa ha ha!
Marvel’s Avengers was (and continues to be) a game dragged down by the business of video gaming more than anything that goes into actually playing it, as the moment-to-moment action of beating up generic robots and goons is reasonably fun (in a simple-ish and occasionally mindless way). Corporate influence forced the game to be the sort of thing you play forever, like a Destiny, but the gameplay isn’t really ever different enough to justify that, even with an increasingly large roster of Avengers to play as (and the very good story runs out too quickly).
But that increasingly large roster has continued to increase, first with the Kate Bishop version of Hawkeye and then the Clint Barton version of Hawkeye (as later seen in Disney+’s Hawkeye), eventually followed by a relatively expansive Black Panther update that added T’Challa as a playable hero and a whole Wakanda level and storyline. Some of those updates were more interesting than others (which is to say that Clint Barton is a snooze, just as he is in the MCU), and PlayStation owners can access the exclusive Spider-Man character.
This week, Crystal Dynamics released the latest (free!) new character, Jane Foster—a.k.a. The Mighty Thor—in a well-timed tie-in with the upcoming Thor: Love And Thunder … though the fact that you can buy a comics-accurate skin for her and not an MCU-accurate skin (not yet, at least) kind of makes the timing seem more like a coincidence than anything.
Still, Jane Foster’s Thor is really cool, and I can safely say—as one of the internet’s few Marvel’s Avengers defenders—she’s also pretty cool in the game. Granted, she’s a lot like what you’d call an “Echo Fighter” in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which is to say she plays a whole lot like the other Thor (like how the two Hawkeyes are very similar), but that’s not an especially big deal because the other Thor is easily one of the more fun characters in Marvel’s Avengers.
Jane Foster has a slightly bigger emphasis on Mjolnir-based attacks (a nod to the fact that her comics version was more in tune with the storm spirit that lives in the hammer than Thor Odinson is), and Marvel’s Avengers has done a lot of work in the last year or so softening the level grind and streamlining the (unnecessary and boring) equipment system. That means it’s easier to upgrade Mighty Thor’s abilities than it was for the original characters, and you can get to the fun stuff—like tossing out the hammer and having it ping around to different enemies, then catch it and immediately throw it again for a stronger attack—without having to do too much of the boring things.
Of course, those boring things are … most of the game. Shredding robots as the Thors is a ton of fun, but there isn’t a whole lot more to it. Mighty Thor doesn’t even seem to have a proper storyline like Black Panther and the Hawkeyes did, but that’s probably the price Marvel’s Avengers has to pay in order to get more characters without squeezing even more time and money out of Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix.
That’s fine with me, though. I paid for this game two years ago, I liked it just fine at the time, and if they’re going to give me new characters to play as for free, I’m going to do it. Nobody can stop me, no matter how tepid the internet’s response seems to be to everything related to Marvel’s Avengers (also, the very good Guardians Of The Galaxy game from last year really underlined this game’s problems by comparison). Plus, I’m so good at Neon White that I need something else to occupy my time.
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Apparently I missed last week’s WAYPTW thread, so I can combine what I’ve been up to. It’s still pretty short though.
First up, I’m back on my Star Wars Saturday bullshit streaming Star Wars: The Old Republic on my twitch channel (https://twitch.tv/lost_limey). This most recent session, I’ve been working my way through the Bounty Hunter class story. Most recently, I’ve been working through the Alderaan section of the story, meaning my quarry was the “Durasteel Duke,” who was already dead and instead his sister was posing as him. I took the actual Duke’s body as proof of my bounty contract. I’m now heading back to Nar Shaddaa to confront the overall antagonist of the first chapter of the story: Tarro Blood.My most recent Dragon Age Inquisition update was that I had closed the breach, evacuated Haven and founded the new Inquisition at Skyhold. I’ve done basically nothing to advance the main plot since then, but I have been doing so, so many of the various side quests. The overarching framework is that I’m trying to do Cassandra’s companion quest “Unfinished Business” since my Dalish Elf Inquisitor (who sadly, has finally found armor to cover his nipples) plans on romancing her.
To do that quest involves hunting down suspects at five different locations on the world. The first is in the Hinterlands, where I think I’ve done literally every side quest that doesn’t involve slaying a dragon, since both dragons I’ve gone up against have consistently kicked my party’s ass. (My party has usually been Varric, Cassandra, and Vivienne). So the first suspect was taken down quickly.
The second suspect was on the Western Approach. So, I unlocked that location at the War table, did most of the side quests there, including liberating Griffin Wing Keep (including the bridges and water supply) as well as tracking down and dealing with the source of the Darkspawn. I also judged Servis worthy of imprisonment. The second of Cassandra’s suspects was already taken down.
The third of Cassandra’s suspect was somewhere in the Exalted Plains, so that was the next location unlocked, and I’ve been slaying the undead there. I’ve also been doing a few of the side quests, but I’m currently being incredibly frustrated by an underground puzzle involving pillars and a rotating Elven archer statue, not helped by my party members not staying exactly where I put them…I think I mentioned that I have new HOTAS – the Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS One. Since I wanted to try it out, I fired up Elite Dangerous. Despite the game seeming a lot more buggy than last time I played it (most noticeably the game would frequently freeze when dropping out of Supercruise mode), I did a couple of long journeys, including finally taking Meta-Alloys to: So, I can theoretically start engineering my Frame Shift Drive, except I need a bunch of materials to do so. One thing I did notice, because Elite Dangerous has a control scheme for my HOTAS baked in, my Commander would be doing the same moves on his on-screen stick as I was doing on my real life stick. So I feel more connected to this guy than usual:
And just because, here’s a beauty shot of my Asp Explorer auto-docking:
That’s my adventures in digital gaming.Back in the tabletop world, I decided that it had been long enough, and so it was time to set my wallet on fire. Having not played Warhammer 40,000 since 5th Edition, I lapsed because my FLGS had the 9th Edition Core Book on discount: In addition to what’s pictured here, I also picked up the Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team Core Book & Compendium, a second box of T’au Empire Fire Warriors and a T’au Empire Crisis Battlesuit box.I’m still trying to understand how the rules of changed over the last decade so I can figure out how to build valid armies, though I’m mostly concentrating on just getting models that look cool for now. And because back in the day, I played four different armies, I have also ordered Codex Space Marines, and the Salamanders Codex Supplement. I’ll probably pick up Codices for Thousand Sons and Tyranids eventually, but I’m sticking with T’au miniatures for now.
All that in a week? You don’t have kids, do you?
I do but:A) He’s 17and B) He doesn’t live with me.Have the house to myself since lost_wifey died.
^ this awkward exchange is the equivalent of a schoolyard kid making a yo mama joke to someone with deceased parents.
Is it really that awkward? A question was asked and answered…
I’ve just started getting into Warhammer 40K lore and books. God I need to avoid the tabletop or I might really lose myself…I could really see myself disappearing for a long time to paint a big ass army.
I paid 20 bucks for the game a few days ago and have been having a blast playing through the story. I’m still on the main campaign and probably almost done, so I still have the other expansions/chapters to go through. Def worth the money at this point maybe even full price considering the time I’ve put in and how much extra content I have left.Also whats going on with Kinja? Is it just me or is there a glitch where you constantly get signed out every time you go to a new page? This is on firefox btw
It’s not happening on every page for me, but I have been logged out twice in as many days. And then I forgot how to log back in because I never actually log out on purpose.
I don’t get signed out, but I do have to tap on my avatar in the top right because it looks like it’s signed out. But this has been a constant for a while, so maybe that’s not what you mean.
Ok so now I signed into AV Club and I realized I have to sign into each site individually. I am only signed in on gizmodo and avclub now.. this is wierd but Kinja is kinja
I played Avengers pretty close to when it came out. The campaign was pretty damn good. The endgame was really bad though. I never picked up any of the expansions though. I think for $20 it’s well worth the price, especially if that came with the expansions.
What even is Kinja? People talk about signing in here I just type “avc” in my search bar and Im at the homepage. This seems like a very noob question but Ive just never understood what Kinja refers to. Or Disquis.
I feel like you probably could have just gone with “Let’s get ready to rumble” instead of taking the long way around. Yeah, there’s a new movie we get it.
New month, so I’ll be grinding away in Dragalia Lost still, since all the shop counts for the Battle Royale and Kaleidoscape have reset.Also doing experience grinding in Mario Kart Tour, as their recent Gold Kart/Glider Pipe gave me a ton of new goodies to help out.
For non-mobile games, I recently bought Great Ace Attorney, so I’ve been finishing up my replay of the Ace Attorney Trilogy on Switch. Currently on Case 3-2.
I too am diving into an unloved game since I got Biomutant deeply discounted on Stream. For $20 it’s a fun game. Reminds me of the TMNT RPG spin off “After the Bomb”. I’m also playing Inscryption, Which is a weird deck building Indy game that kinda feels like Hand of Fate without the action elements but with more spooky weird stuff.
Biomutant is maybe the weirdest “AAA” game I’ve ever played. One of these days I need to go back and do some kind of deep dive on it.
Inscryption is fantastic.
This weekend is for some Borderlands 2 with my sibling. I’ve gotten pretty sick of the Diablo-clone formula by myself, but co-op keeps it fresh. God knows when I’ll get to Titan Quest’s expansions.Solo gaming time will probably be dedicated to my ongoing Dark Souls 2 playthrough, in which I’m near the end of the main quest and chipping away at the DLC. It’s weird how Ivory King is the most climactic in its presentation, yet Old Iron King has much tougher encounters. Those dual-battleaxe guys can go fuck themselves.Upgrade materials are pretty wonky in this game – from practically the start I’ve had more Titanite Slabs than Chunks, while there aren’t enough Dragon Bones to upgrade more than a couple of boss weapons. It’s a shame, because there’s a lot of fun gear to mess around with. At least Twinkling Titanite drops in the game’s best zone.
I’m playing Streets of Rage 4. I’m at the final boss and keep dying. I enjoy these games but my precision with the character moves isn’t what it should be anymore!
I got the game for free when I upgraded my CPU a few years ago. I made it through the first chapter and never looked back. I think the fact that I don’t have any money involved has kept me from really trying to enjoy it.
The only thing I really knew about the Avengers game was that it went hard on Twitch ads and had some kind of bubblegum tie-in product that came with codes to claim costumes or whatever. Even after reading this article, I can’t begin to imagine how it plays, but I still remember those ads. They seem destined to be my lasting impression of Marvel’s Avengers. I’m never going to begrudge someone’s enjoyment of something I’m not interested in, though.After taking Final Fantasy 1 PR (which I loved) and Observation (which I have little to say about) out of my queue with back-to-back completions last weekend, I started messing around in the Spirit Island Steam app. I’ve been a fan of the board game, but it felt like certain spirits just weren’t viable to solo. It didn’t take me long to figure out why I’d had that error in judgment… I had one rule slightly wrong involving when to decide how to use slow powers. Essentially, I thought you had to aim your guns way before it was time to fire them, and that’s just not the case. I’d managed to win with one hand tied behind my back and thought, “Man, this game isn’t terribly balanced for slow spirits,” but I get it now, man. I get it. And now I’m excited to mess around with 2020’s gigantic expansion Jagged Earth all over again, because not only are the new spirits really fucking cool, but the game’s way less guess-y than I’d been playing it. I probably played 20 games this week, I’ll probably play 20 more over the long weekend.
I fully, 100% support anyone who finds value or entertainment in the non-story modes of the game. But it was definitely “fairly maligned”. The menu UI alone is a crime.
Wait… are you telling me that SONY is so obsessed with their ownership of Spider-Man that it goes as far as this game??? I didn’t realize Spider-Man was a PlayStation only exclusive. PlayStation being a Sony console *raises eyebrow*
When I read that I was like “you’ve gotta be kidding me”.
Also, “Echo Fighter” has been a Smash Bros. term since long before Ultimate. The term became relevant when Smash Bros. Melee came out with the introduction of Falco etc.
That was like a decade before Ultimate came out. I’ll agree that by the time Ultimate came out tho “Echo Fighters” were way more prominent.
I picked up Marvel’s Avengers on a good sale because I wanted something PS5 native for under $30…So far, I’m enjoying the story, but it’s easy to see why it gets flack…I like Kamala, but I can see why it might upset some people that an Avengers game made them have to slowly gather them one at a time, especially if they were expecting something more Ultimate Alliance.The control scheme is a little overcomplicated and not as responsive as it should be. “I DID hit X again to grab that branch/ledge! Why do I have to try 3 times before it registers?!”WAY too many extra rpg systems. Everything about gear is stupid, even the simplified version. Admittedly, I pretty much always hate crafting systems, but it makes even less sense in context. Sure, lemme upgrade Hulk’s “nanites” with the new ones I found in this chest… Oh, I found some spine upgrade, too? Great…WAY too mercenary. Marketplace full of pages and pages of ugly costumes and vanity plates and finishing move variants and…