As I picked up the PS4 controller and put on the headphones, I felt a certain sense of reverence and awe entering Marvel's Avengers in an exclusive hands-on demo at Gamestart Asia 2019.

After all, this game represented the intersection of my fandoms — Marvel, gaming, geek culture — and I was quite honoured to be (quite literally) one of the first people in Asia to play it. 

Looking past the bias of my inner fanboy, I have to admit that it was kinda hard to fully inhabit the characters and immerse myself in the narrative because the demo was lacking dialogue.

And I mean literally none at all. The Avengers could be arguing about the broken capitalism system in the 21st century for all I know because none of their voices played out despite the game's sound effects being perfectly audible. But more on that later.

It isn't dissimilar from the hands-on demo paraded in past conventions (sans Kamala Khan, who was only revealed recently) — a linear tutorial level that picks up right after the attack on A-Day by a group of soldiers led by Taskmaster. 

I got a chance to play with five main Avengers — Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow — during the 20-minute session. Disney Interactive can take all my money right now because this was easily one of the best combat experiences I've had.

In general, combat was intuitive, responsive, and pretty user-friendly. The controls were easy enough to pick up (tutorial prompts notwithstanding) and pretty soon I was juggling enemies in the air as Thor, instinctively mashing buttons in sequence to create a combo.

Specifically, each Avenger had such a distinctive playstyle that they felt unique (from each other and to the game itself) but developer Crystal Dynamics also made sure to include familiar moves from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Thor's attacks, for example, alternate between sending enemies flying with Mjolnir throws, battering them with melee strikes, and slamming the ground to unleash an explosive burst of lightning — all of which you've seen in the movies. Though by right, each of the soldiers I smacked around with the magical Asgardian hammer should have been pulped into puree. 

Another interesting Easter egg that the studio included was allowing Hulk to pick up enemies and use them as an improvised bat to smack things with — an act which harkens back to the not-so-jolly green giant going to town on Loki in the first Avengers movie.

The characters also felt quite balanced because as much as Thor is an Asgardian god, you never feel like he's an overpowered one-man army that overshadows the others.

The odd one out, ironically, was Iron Man. He felt a little weaker, but I might chalk that up to a preference in combat style because his repulsor blasts seemed a little clunkier and slower compared to the attacks by, say, Captain America or Black Widow.

On that note, I was very impressed with how different those two were even though they're both martial characters.

Apart from iconic MCU moves that were faithfully replicated, Cap's swift and agile brawling attacks were distinguishable from Black Widow's flurry of jabs, roundhouse kicks, and backflips that were executed with the grace and finesse of an Olympic gymnast.

Even tiny details like the impact of each blow did not escape the scrutiny of Crystal Dynamics as it was very clear that Captain America packed more of a punch (pun intended) than Black Widow, although he wasn't dishing them out quite as fast as the latter. His shield tosses came in handy as ranged attacks though, and they're as satisfying as I imagined it would be. 

At this point, Captain America is a frontrunner for me if we could choose our characters. Or, uh, if he somehow managed to survive that big helicarrier explosion. 

All that being said, the only downside to the demo was the jarring lack of dialogue and it was incredibly awkward to watch cutscenes which were not voiced. Good ol' Cap could be telling Black Widow about what's going on aboard the helicarrier, but nothing came out of his visibly moving lips. 

I was told the voices weren't included because the game is still a work-in-progress. It is, however, quite mystifying that the official 18-minute gameplay video that was released months ago was fully voiced but somehow that didn't make it in the actual demo. 

It really would have been nice to listen to the talented voice actors — Laura Bailey (Black Widow), Travis Willingham (Thor), Troy Baker (Bruce Banner/Hulk), Nolan North (Iron Man) and Jeff Schine (Captain America) — and their interpretation of these iconic characters. But really, that shouldn't be much of an issue when the game releases fully voice-acted in May 2020.

bryanlim@asiaone.com

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