I got LEGO Marvel Super Heroes for my Xbox 360 a couple of weeks ago because I love all the LEGO games. I jumped right into this one mainly because I wanted the Hulk to SMASH TINY LEGO PEOPLE!!! Never one to disappoint, the giant green Hulk is one of your first playable characters along with Iron Man. I found out right away that, although smashing is fun, you can’t just use Hulk all the way through. For some reason Hulk can’t use objects, he can just smash and throw them… I guess his fingers are too big?
Switching to Iron Man was cool, just like with the other games, the Y button on my controller lets me pass control from one character to another. This worked well later in the game when I had Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Spiderman and had to cycle through because I needed Hawkeye to shoot an arrow, Black Widow to do some acrobatics, but then I needed Spidey’s Spider-sense to uncover some secret pull bars or something.
The graphics were super and so much crisper than with many of the other games. The environments seemed more real and the lightning effects were sweet. One of the first bosses you have to fight is Sandman, and this fight is pretty tough. There are multiple stages, but the graphics of Sandman are just very detailed and cool. All the little LEGO pieces floating and smashing look really sweet. Gameplay was smooth and fun.
Overall this is a great game, very open for all ages. As with other types of LEGO games for the consoles, this is a fairly easy game, but, the complexity comes in all of the optional gameplay that is involved. There are secret bricks, gold bricks, red bricks, and even Deadpool bricks, as well as all sorts of other additional content that gives these games near infinite replayability. Not really, but they can be replayed a lot and you still may not find everything.
Another unique thing with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is that the characters actually talk. This is quite a change from almost all the other games, but makes for some interesting interaction. Of course, as usual, Spiderman will just not shut up.
There are a ton of unlockable characters, and I have not even begun to discover them all. I am really interested in finding all the Deadpool bricks to unlock that crazy merc with a mouth, but I am also concerned about finding him just to have him run off with all my hard earned studs.
This review is based on gameplay on the Xbox 360, but I understand the game mechanics are similar on the other systems. Smooth controls, awesome graphics and an interesting storyline of cosmic proportions. All around fun, I recommend you pick this game up if you are either a LEGO or Marvel fan.
