Lego Marvel Superheroes Game Announced

[The Joker1]

Brilliant demo, Have played it on PC and x-box. Best game in the world!!!

Also Here is alternate doc ock and dr-strange for you to enjoy. More to come...

[Marvelfan120]

The demo was downloadable at PSN and Xbox Live as well, as of today.

Downloaded it straight away and played it after dinner.

It is so incredibly cool!

Can't wait to play with all of the many, many characters

Regards,

Mitch

can't find it on x-box... how did you find it???

[Savage Oppress]

can't find it on x-box... how did you find it???

Forget about the demo, you only have to wait 6 more days until the full game.

[The Joker1]

Forget about the demo, you only have to wait 6 more days until the full game.

Not in the UK, Over 4 weeks for us...

Anyway i will treat everyone with another character, Mini playable galactus!!!!

Also comic-style iron man and pepper.

More to come.

[Vindicare]

It's the same core gameplay we've been playing for eight years: Enter level, swap between characters, destroy objects to get studs, hold a button to build jumping piles of pieces, find collectibles, get "True ____" status, rinse, repeat. As I said, it's another evolution of the same game - they've gotten bigger, with more shiny graphics and more shiny characters and bigger hub areas and whatever license LEGO is doing at the time, but it's still the same gameplay that they've been milking since 2005.

Now, I'm not saying that the massive wave of LEGO Star Wars clones aren't fun, they are. The problem is they're stale. There also isn't really any chance for emergent gameplay... The levels are a linear path carefully constructed by the designers, and even in the newer open world areas the gameplay still comes down to the same sort of lock-and-key "puzzles" you see in the main levels, but dotted throughout a larger environment. Indiana Jones 2 and Harry Potter had level builders, which looked like they were finally perhaps taking the series in a better direction, but TT seems to have dropped that in newer titles.

LEGO revolves around creativity, and earlier games reflected that by not only including lots of diversity in the assortment of games themselves, but included more open ended play and building in each individual game: LEGO Creator let you build your own town and then explore and interact with it as a minifigure either on foot or in a vehicle, the LEGO Racers games let you build and upgrade your own vehicles brick by brick and compete in them, etc. Today's technology is far beyond what it was when games like that were developed in the early late 90s and 2000s, and modern games like LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, TrackMania, and heck, even Minecraft are prime examples of what can be done now when it comes to creativity in games, and

. Yes, that's Blockland in the last link, and I've honestly had more fun with it than any TT game as of late - and it's only made by two people.

What you just described is basically every video game franchise in existence. Mario, Call of Duty, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, the list goes n forever. That's what TT does, they make LEGO games. Use the same basic engine, just switch up the parts.

[Archer]

Can someone explain how the Asgard DLC works? Can it be purchased? Or is it a prorder bonus somewhere?

[Ultron]

It's the same core gameplay we've been playing for eight years: Enter level, swap between characters, destroy objects to get studs, hold a button to build jumping piles of pieces, find collectibles, get "True ____" status, rinse, repeat. As I said, it's another evolution of the same game - they've gotten bigger, with more shiny graphics and more shiny characters and bigger hub areas and whatever license LEGO is doing at the time, but it's still the same gameplay that they've been milking since 2005.

Now, I'm not saying that the massive wave of LEGO Star Wars clones aren't fun, they are. The problem is they're stale. There also isn't really any chance for emergent gameplay... The levels are a linear path carefully constructed by the designers, and even in the newer open world areas the gameplay still comes down to the same sort of lock-and-key "puzzles" you see in the main levels, but dotted throughout a larger environment. Indiana Jones 2 and Harry Potter had level builders, which looked like they were finally perhaps taking the series in a better direction, but TT seems to have dropped that in newer titles.

LEGO revolves around creativity, and earlier games reflected that by not only including lots of diversity in the assortment of games themselves, but included more open ended play and building in each individual game: LEGO Creator let you build your own town and then explore and interact with it as a minifigure either on foot or in a vehicle, the LEGO Racers games let you build and upgrade your own vehicles brick by brick and compete in them, etc. Today's technology is far beyond what it was when games like that were developed in the early late 90s and 2000s, and modern games like LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, TrackMania, and heck, even Minecraft are prime examples of what can be done now when it comes to creativity in games, and

. Yes, that's Blockland in the last link, and I've honestly had more fun with it than any TT game as of late - and it's only made by two people.

Well you have to remember the lego games are made for kids, not adults. Kids like them and that's the really important part. The only thing they really do for older fans is make more obscure characters and put in easter eggs for true fans. I'm just excited for this game because marvel typically makes really awful video games and for once I'll be able to play as all my favorite characters in one actually good game. Same goes with harry potter and lotr. I'm not looking for them to change it up. It might be nice if they did, but I'm content with the lego games. I don't really play for the story, I play for the characters. As for the creator aspect to the games, that's not really what the games were ever really about. I used to have lego creator games when I was little but I got bored with them because I'd rather be building it in the flesh. If they do decide to make a creator kind of game again, I think it should be separate from the licensed games. If the formula is working, I don't think they really need to drastically change it. Little things here and there are nice.

-EDIT- I don't know why it keeps adding this picture to my reply when I wanted it to be a separate post, but whatever. Here's a picture for everyone.

Full Dr. Strange

Edited October 17, 2013 by Luna Lovegood

[The Joker1]

Just beat me to the Dr Strange picture, Looks pretty good in my opinion, And best of all he is in a level so will be one of our 24 level characters!!!!

I would also like to show off a few more guys-

Mr Killian Black panther And Red skull, Enjoy.

Edited October 17, 2013 by The Joker1

[Clone OPatra]

What you just described is basically every video game franchise in existence. Mario, Call of Duty, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, the list goes n forever. That's what TT does, they make LEGO games. Use the same basic engine, just switch up the parts.

And with those series, things do get better even if similarities remain. Why is Super Mario World so much more fun than Super Mario Bros? Because there are more levels, more different bad guys, more secrets to find and unlock, more graphics. And that's not even talking about the Wii takes on the Super Mario formulas.

I haven't played many of the LEGO games, but I have played the first two LSW, LSWIII, and the Harry Potter games. LSWIII is worlds beyond Lego Star Wars, and is a lot more fun. The graphics and gameplay have gotten so much better, and that really makes the experience more enjoyable. Lego Harry Potter also felt like a pretty different experience because the environments look so different. Sure, you can boil it down to the same basic elements, but as Legocrazy said, you can do that with everything. Every First Person Shooter game is the same, every side scroller is the same, etc. etc.

The big enjoyment with the LEGO games is seeing a formula that you basically already know applied to new universes with some new things that you haven't seen before. It looks like Marvel is delivering that in a big way with so many characters that do have some unique abilities and move around in new ways.

[The Joker1]

^Competely agree with all this, Lego may have kept a formula but they have vastly and immensely developed the overall presentation and workings of the game. Whilst the building blocks and jumping may stay the same the levels have vastly grown and the graphics and presentation are better than ever before.

The way i see it is this, If you want battle game get Halo, Modern warfare, Black ops etc, If you want a racing game get Forza or drift etc. But Lego have been bringing us a formula that we love for years now and I hope they continue to for years to come. So quite simply, If you don't like, Don't buy.

Anyway enough of my rant, Here are some pictures of the accumulated characters.

[The Joker1]

Edit- I know what im going to drive round New York...

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes — Ghost Rider by TooMuchDew, on Flickr

1000 posts!!!!! Just call me Count Joker .

Edited October 17, 2013 by The Joker1

[kibosh]

Did anyone else pre-order through Walmart? I ordered it for XBox back in August, but I've seen nothing about me getting the Iron Patriot exclusive. Curious if anyone else got a confirmation on him.

[Oky]

Man, what a great roster. And it doesn't even include the DLC characters. The only ones I would have liked to see in there are Wasp and Ultron, especially since we'll probably get an Ultron minifig in two years anyway, but other than that, I don't think we could have asked for more.

On the topic of Lego games in general, I'm fine with the way they are and don't mind if they keep making them. There is always something new in each game that keeps the series interesting and I have played every TT game so far except for POTC and Indy 2. However, I do wish they would have some more different games on the side. I loved the Lego Racers games and would love to see them return for instance. The vehicle minigames in the TT games just aren't doing it for me.

Did anyone else pre-order through Walmart? I ordered it for XBox back in August, but I've seen nothing about me getting the Iron Patriot exclusive.

Same here. Let's hope he'll be included in the package. Otherwise I'll be very disappointed.

[jamesster]

Well you have to remember the lego games are made for kids, not adults.

Of course, they always have been, including the non-TT games.

If the formula is working, I don't think they really need to drastically change it.

The way i see it is this, If you want battle game get Halo, Modern warfare, Black ops etc, If you want a racing game get Forza or drift etc. But Lego have been bringing us a formula that we love for years now and I hope they continue to for years to come. So quite simply, If you don't like, Don't buy.

Here's the thing - they (and as somebody noted, many other franchises) have happened upon formula for a game that sells well (in this case, simple gameplay with "puzzles" that are more akin to a paint by numbers kit, and a popular existing IP), and have decided to milk it for all its worth. Are they still selling well? It appears so. So would it be a good business idea to keep on milking them for years to come? It seems they've decided so; they've got a contract going up to 2016. But are you seriously content with going through the same motions year after year, after eight years and 15 or so games that all rely on the same mechanics?

I enjoyed the TT games at first, but as they've been pumped out more and more and gotten more cinematic their weaknesses have only become more and more apparent: They put you in an existing universe full of tens and hundreds of characters with detailed backstories, and put you through a linear story with levels that don't involve any freedom or emergent gameplay of any sort - there's a lock here, you put a key in it. The keys and locks have many different shapes and forms that at most provide different visual effects (the toxic waste lock can be opened by a character/key that's immune, the shiny silver LEGO lock can be opened by a character/key that has the ability to destroy it, etc). Nearly all games involve lock-and-key mechanics, of course, but the extent to which TT takes it is absurd.

And as that other guy here said, it's hardly a problem exclusive to LEGO games - while typing this out I was reminded of an article I once read on the subject of Zelda, and some comments on said article - it's not perfect; it's written in a somewhat overdramatic way, and sometimes repeats its points, but a lot of those points also apply to TT's LEGO games, and says what I'm trying to say here quite clearly (spoiler'd due to length):

Modern Zeldas do not offer worlds. They offer elaborate contraptions reskinned with a nature theme, a giant nest of interconnected locks. A lock is not only something opened with a silver key. A grapple point is a lock; a hookshot is the key. A cracked rock wall is a lock; a bomb is the key. That wondrous array of items you collect is little more than a building manager's jangly keyring.

Almost everything in Zelda has a discrete purpose, a tedious teleology. When it all snaps into place, some call this good design. I call it brittle, overdetermined, pale. It's the work of a singleminded god, a world bled of wonder.

Players are constantly reminded that they're shackled to a mechanistic land. There is no illusion of freedom because the gears that keep the player and Hyrule in lockstep are imminently legible. You read the landscape all too easily; you know what it's asking of you.

How can you truly explore if you know how everything works already? How can you ever be surprised if every ‘secret' is conspicuously marked as such?

I know there's something wrong with a game when it begins to feel like work. When it becomes predictable, rote, tedious. When I know what I'm supposed to do, but then I have to actually do it.

A game that relies on puzzles, and Zelda in particular, is sometimes considered a ‘thinking man's game'. Which is funny, because I haven't had to think about much of anything in Zelda for years. This embarrassing prejudice against facility with a controller certainly isn't doing Zelda any favors. We get instead a salad bar of limp riddles and the vague sensation that it's good for us (kid-tested, mother-approved). Where is the joy in movement, the miracle of motion onscreen? We mostly just fumble with our keyring and call it a day.

It's not that certain encounters or sequences in Ocarina or Twilight Princess aren't challenging (the silent realms are a Skyward Sword highlight). But they are separate, repeatable, often asking me to merely hone a skill or discover a weak point (a strategy, they call it) before getting whacked too many times. Failure occurs, but with little penalty. ... It's never a matter of if I'll succeed, only when.

Don't get me wrong: modern Zeldas are not simple, only simpleminded. Some of this comes from convention and repetition, both within and across games. The path through each is laid down with paternal care. One senses at every turn that the experience has been carefully crafted by someone who surely knows best. His guiding hand remains on the gameflow spigot so that it drips steadily; meanwhile, you won't be tempted to get ahead of yourself or go out of order. The first time you play Zelda, it's no surprise that this tasteful staggering of content and gentle guidance of the player comes off as masterful game design.

The game will do all the fretting for me. It won't let me fail. I don't even have to get good; I just have to get through. Zelda asks nothing, demands nothing, except that I play along.

The point of a hero's adventure (and Zelda is the hero's adventure in gaming) is not to make you feel better about yourself. The point is to grow, to overcome, to in some way actually become better. If a legendary quest has no substantial challenge, if it asks nothing of you except that you jump through the hoops it so carefully lays out for you, then the very legend is unworthy of being told, and retold. Death and punishment for failure are not outdated old-school notions, too demanding for the new eggshell generation. Nor are they too grim for the charm and wonder essential to Zelda's tone (Mario proves you can be both delightfully whimsical and [censored] hard). Meaningful difficulty, in which successes are owned and failures chastise rather than annoy, would more deeply engage the player, making her responsible, necessary, worthy of the legend. Not just the recipient of a gold star, the kind you get for showing up.

Zelda would be better if it had no story. Or more precisely, no plot to structure the adventure. The first Zeldas barely had any plot, and they were the better for it. With plot, sequence matters too much. The early Zeldas had situations, worlds and scenarios that framed the action, gaps to be filled in by the player, sequences to be broken. Optimal paths and shortcuts weren't a given; they had to be earned. Items were the most prominent plot devices, and even they were not unduly strict about order. You could be slow and steady or blast straight through with a little know-how. The basic rules of the gameworld were what bound you, not some artificial necessity imposed for the sake of plot. You could even play through the entire first Zelda up to Ganon without ever getting a sword.

It needs architecture, not level design with themed wallpaper, and environments with their own ecosystems (which were doing just fine before you showed up). Every location can't be plagued with false crises only you can solve, grist for the storymill.

Some Zelda critics complain about padding and filler, especially in Skyward Sword. But Zelda's plots have long been game-length filler, filling in for a failed, unbelievable world. Its clockwork vistas do not evoke stories, so it must construct plots to tell them. The game mechanics of early Zeldas provided plot enough, the kind that is boring to tell (then this, then this) but thrilling to play. They required no narrative scaffolding to be justified; they justified themselves. And strangely, the iconic simplicity of early Hyrules fired the imagination the way a good map does, opening up story possibilities rather than narrowing them down to just one. Story flowed from world instead of world from story.

There's nothing like your first time, I know. For players who came to Zelda later than me, I'm aware my criticism is treading on sacred ground. But unless Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword was your first, the rest of the Zelda faithful must at least recognize the limits of the formula and how little the core experience ever changes. For me, being a Zelda fan means wanting each new game to be the best possible Zelda, to further its promise as a videogame.

This was a really good article, but unfortunately it will be obliterated by people who have a different image of gaming. Growing up in the early days of the NES, part of a game was about the challenge in beating it. That entire "convention" of gameplay was all but dead, until revived by Demon's Souls.

Challenge has been replaced with hand-holding, because somewhere along the line the earth shifted and people no longer wanted games they couldn't beat, or had to spend time to get better at. They wanted games that were easy to learn - easy to master. The modern convention in gaming is to make everything so accessible even a neophyte could reach the pinnacle of the difficulty of the game.

Sadly, people simply don't want to be challenged in games. They want to be tricked into thinking they're clever. The same way TV shows drop hints to the solution to a mystery, so that you can feel like you solved the crime before the hero detective comes to the ultimate conclusion.

A great read, but I feel myself, and Tevis may be anachronisms in todays gaming landscape. Difficulty has shifted from requiring patience and planning to being instant repetition from frequent checkpoints and savestates. Ensuring that even if you do fail, you only have 1 or 2 seconds to get back and try again, virtually eviscerating any death penalty.

It makes me sad, really.

So why am I making such a fuss over TT's LEGO games specifically? Because LEGO is nearly the exact opposite of what TT is doing. LEGO is about open ended play, discovery, and imagination, creating your own stories and locations, not holding the hand of a guide who shows you the fabulously specific adventures of whatever characters they decided to license. LEGO, altogether, is the perfect match for a fantastic, unique, and original sandbox adventure game, as well as other genres like real-time strategy and racing, and yet they don't take hold of the opportunity these days because the licensed titles are still providing milk.

"But jamesster, these games are for kids, they need to hold your hand or kids won't play them!"

Excuse me, but my favorite childhood games (and LEGO games) were the ones that actually provided challenge, an option of failure. Actual secrets and tactics to be discovered and deduced, not told to me. See also: Mario. I got bored very quickly with games similar to what TT is currently making, and instead spent my time on games like LEGO Rock Raiders, LEGOLAND, and LEGO Alpha Team. I drew maps of Rock Raiders levels on graph paper, planning large bases, and kept track of the upgraded minifigures I had named. Those games weren't perfect, but they sure did something right if not only I got so much out of them, but so many other people did too, to the point where fans are now modding the games and making new content to expand and improve them even further, even with the help of some of the original developers. But these days LEGO is almost exclusively interested in linear licensed titles that fall into the pitfalls listed above, with only a small handfull of games outside of the formula slipping through occasionally.

So yeah, that's why I wasn't impressed by the Marvel demo.

Edited October 17, 2013 by jamesster

[Vindicare]

Did anyone else pre-order through Walmart? I ordered it for XBox back in August, but I've seen nothing about me getting the Iron Patriot exclusive. Curious if anyone else got a confirmation on him.

Me neither. I ordered it back in May, but never got an email confirmation. I emailed them asking if my order had gone through, they said it had. Keeping my fingers crossed when the game shows up in a few weeks, Iron Patriot will be with it.

[Ultron]

Here are some pictures of the accumulated characters.

Is that supposed to be ultron above taskmaster? I know there is a version of ultron that is black where he kind of has an orange glowing head but that one has like 6 eyes and this one doesn't.. And I'm kinda disappointed they used the minifigure version for the mandarin. That ones awful..except I think that one to the right of it is supposed mandarin also? And is that the statue of liberty or some superhero? I'm not familiar with her if she is one..

[wesker]

Anyway enough of my rant, Here are some pictures of the accumulated characters.

*snip*

There seems to be a few characters missing such as Polaris, Black Cat, Lady Deathstrike and alternate versions of Cyclops and Elektra.

[Marvelfan120]

There seems to be a few characters missing such as Polaris, Black Cat, Lady Deathstrike and alternate versions of Cyclops and Elektra.

As far as I can tell there's no white tiger either :(

[Im a brickmaster.]

As I said elsewhere I did a quick count and poster only has 146 characters on it. So is there more is this it?! I really hope not! We need more!

Edited October 18, 2013 by Im a brickmaster.

[Ultron]

Will we get more DLC besides the 2 already announced? We need ultron, vision, scarlet witch, quicksilver, and wasp. We have freakin squirrel girl but we can't get these guys? Sorry I post about Ultron a lot..He's just my favorite and I want to see him as a lego and also play as him and destroy everyone :(

Edited October 18, 2013 by Luna Lovegood

[The Joker1]

There are still a few characters to go, Im still wanting ultron too. Also I could swear wasp was shown somwhere, I will have a look...

[The Legonater]

Is Rogue on there at all? I don't see her.

[The Joker1]

Im beginning to get suspicious of this list, there are many doubles, some important and already announced characters seem to be missing and the graphics are below what we should see these days. Is it possible this could be a early design list or a practice and not the final list?

[Ultron]

Im beginning to get suspicious of this list, there are many doubles, some important and already announced characters seem to be missing and the graphics are below what we should see these days. Is it possible this could be a early design list or a practice and not the final list?

I'm hoping..Yeah I thought I heard them say somewhere that there wouldn't be like 50 ironman suit variations yet there are a lot of them on here..And is wasp possibly the second girl? It's hard to tell with just her head.

[The Joker1]

Had a look on the brickipedia page (Really useful BTW) and that claimes that girl is wasp, No proof except that though.