Lockdown 2020: West Coast Avengers: Assemble

Super!

Internet has been dumping on this game past couple days so very interested to see what this looks like. Also bought this game for my lil nephew as a bday gift and I hope I didn't get hosed.

The campaign for this game is great.

Their issues were very legit, though I was surprised at how even the more minor inconveniences had them reacting like someone had rear ended their car. Maybe just a function of being 'on' on stream and also having the issues come up one after another after another.

Stuff like Ben not getting the loot and the gear getting stuck on Jeff's screen are wild. I think the multiplayer compounds the issues in a buggy game, because it's 4x the chance for something to go wrong.

The game definitely needed more time in the oven. A lot more. I wonder how it would have been without the pandemic. Not that polish is the only issue, mission design stuff like 'stand in the zone 15 times in a row' aren't that great even without any glitches.

Some of the stuff that was giving them issues is stuff that the campaign tutorializes, but there's no way all of them were ever going to finish the campaign in time to do a timely video on it. On some level the game lets you go straight to the multiplayer so that's on them a bit. Though it's like skipping the tutorial in another game, just without being told that what they skipped was the tutorial.

And it's not all tutorial. Stuff like the machine gun thing with Ben & Black Widow. The exact same thing happened to me. The tooltip isn't clear that you need to switch using the d-pad, it's not really explained. It sounds like it just makes your existing guns better, when really it's a different use-case entirely.

I have played way too much of this game, story was ok but at this point I've spent much more time in the post-campaign stuff and I think I hate it.

Also here's my tip for anyone playing this game - in the option there's a "multi-tap" option or something that is related to when you have to mash square. Change it to "tap" and for every square mashing prompt, it changes so you just have to press it once. It's much quicker!

For such a big game this feels so half baked.

A shame. There was so much hype around this game, but it seems to be a real stinker. I think Arkham Knights won't have this problem.

It feels like sometime they are commentating on a different game.

This is really difficult to watch, and doesn't show the game off well, bugs aside. The multiplayer is clearly meant to be played after you finish the game and have a good grip on it. The game tutorialized every ability and thing in the game sometimes twice. The first level they played was meant for people 10 levels higher than Jan, and he had the highest level. But whatever.

I love this game, I wasn't interested initially but i'm very impressed with what I've seen thus far.

Constantly taking on missions that are Power 20+ recommended. Check. Average Power of the GB Team: 7. Double Check.

Sometimes I really question if the UI is that hard to comprehend or the game does a shit job of explaining what piece of information is the Important Info Piece out of the Slurry of Information pipeline that is understanding a new game.

Judging by the comments this vid is exactly what I was expecting

Everyone on this site has been doing nothing but dumping on this game for the last month, why even do a video if you're just gonna be unnecessarily angry the whole time. Its not fun to watch.

Especially considering there's no Quick Look of the more than competent single player campaign on the site yet. This is barely representative of what anyone would be doing day one in the game, although i understand they can't all play a 10 ish hour campaign in a day and a half, it takes like an hour or two to get to a point where the game opens up.

Best game I've played so far this year the single player campaign is such a joy. The combat is a ton of fun and I'm only like level 10 and the fact it's getting even better has me excited for this game. Definitely worth the 80 bucks.

I mean, they admitted in the video that they were underleveled for the quests they were taking on soooooooooooo... :x

You can argue that a better video would be of one of them playing the campaign and the other three watching, and it would be a valid point, but given that they acknowledge other people saying the campaign is good it makes me hope they're saving that for an eventual Quick Look.

Already looked this up, but if Commander Hill sounds familiar, she just might be voiced by your favorite Commander.

GB, I'm gonna have to disagree with you guys on this one. I think this game is pretty great.

On brand lol

Ben was kinda mister Crumblepants this time.

I don't understand how so many comments misinterpret the criticism in the video?

From one stating the crew aren't aware they're going into a higher level mission (when Jan literally mentions it before accepting) to others stating that they've misrepresented the game by not showing the singleplayer (which was commented on many times). Should the games devs/marketing not share blame for their presentations of a multiplayer experience?

Sure, the game looks fine, most of the crew (Jeff aside) reacted as though they thought it were fine (for how broken it was).

I get that there's always going to be a group who find the mundane to be exceptional and that there are others who'll shit on something the first chance they get but let's not lose sight. Ben was thrown out of the game without explination in every mission. Enemies warped due to bugs. Framerate got so low at some point it looked like single digits. Inventory space isn't sufficient to carry what you obtain in a single mission. Environments were literally duplicated (they played 3-4 levels and came across duplicated levels).

While the campaign might be decent, the muliplayer certainly seems like it could do with a lot of work. (That area where the framerate died a thousand deaths especially).

Everyone is welcome to their opinion but I'm not so sure many would have such an unnecessarily high opinion of this if it weren't for its branding.

This wasn't a review of the game. It was people playing it and giving their opinions. Meanwhile those criticising the criticism seem little more thand defensive.

@julmajuuhan: Scratch that, both Jeff and Ben were very crumbly today.

I liked Ben's rant about the game not allowing you to "die" followed up by him saying, "I'm dead again."

this game is painfully uninteresting to watch

edit: just to clarify, i enjoyed the stream and the crew’s contributions just god hell damn this game is a snooze

I'm probably 20 hours into the campaign and i've had zero game breaking bugs or lag. I haven't played any Multiplayer yet but hopefully they address those issues soon.

@kunakai: while I largely agree with you and think you make a lot of great points - before this devolves into another “comments are being shitty again no wonder they don’t like interacting with the community” I do think the conditions for presenting something can drastically impact the tone, regardless of the inherent quality of the game. This was very much a situation of “hey we wanted to show off this new bike, but we didn’t have time to put on both wheels so we tried riding it around anyway and kept falling over.” It is absolutely understandable that it’s a time commitment to get everyone up to speed, and maybe this game doesn’t even warrant the effort, but going in unprepared isn’t really doing it any favors either.

This game is far more broken than I could've ever imagined.

@spiketail: I would have loved if Black Widow was voiced by Hale instead of Maria Hill which always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to screentime.

I'm sorry but Ben doesn't do it for me his jokes or constant negativity.

Bugs aside, it looks kinda fun to me? Hard to tell how it feels, of course. I dunno, I see colored loot and skill trees and I get weak.

@humanity: I'm not so sure their spending more time preparing would have given a better impression of the game though? It's not as though they're missing mechanics or anything. The game is literally broken in places. Conditions could have been better but if we were to imagine a scenario wherein everyone had played through the campaign would it have changed the outcome (difficulty aside)?

I kind of suspect there would be more disappointment and criticisms, personally.

Heroes standing in thin air what is this dbz

Honestly this looks like something that might be better off being played 6 months from now on the new consoles (I assume they are bringing it over).

I thought the beta was fine and made me curious for the full game, but the performance wasn’t great and doesn’t look much better here.

@kunakai: I’m sure we can both agree that it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

I support Jeff's hair.

While I do think the crew's criticisms are valid, I will say that it's a bit weird to have this be the site's first big showcase of the game. As others have said, the multiplayer is not going to be most people's entry point, nor is it something everyone is even going to engage with.

I think the Bombers should have held off on the multiplayer shenanigans, and did a Quick Look first with a more measured look at the game. Not that that would change their opinions (that's not the point), but as it is, the only site content of the game is them dumping on the multiplayer, and it comes across as being a little disingenuous.

Just echoing the rest. If you're coming to this for an actual look at the game, this isn't great. The game pretty much tells you not to jump into the multiplayer up front. And for as much as they've been pushing the multiplayer, grind, Destiny-like elements of the game and surrounding MTX crap long-term, this isn't Destiny where they're basically shoving you into it as the only thing you can do.

If you're a fan of the movies/comics, the actual campaign is quite fun and well put together, on par with a good Marvel movie mixed with a fun brawler. Especially the centering of the Ms. Marvel origin story. That combined with the new storylines, settings, and portrayals of the characters helps set it apart from the movies in a way that is surprisingly refreshing compared to what I was expecting.

I realize there aren't many big Marvel fans on the staff so it'll probably get lost, but if that is what you were looking for and disappointed by the demos/coverage they'd done of the game so far, there's a much better campaign core that they hid for reasons unknown.

this was not a fun watch

This game looks...dull.

this game doesn't look fun at all....

Without even watching i already know this is just 2 hours of complaining and shitting on the game. I'll pass.

Why even make this video? We already know you don't like the game.

I don't come to GB for buying advice, but because I just like to watch them play games, good or bad, so I enjoyed this.

That being said, the game lets you pop into multiplayer at this level, so it seems fair enough to show what that's like?

@dvorak: Feels dumb for multiplayer to require you go through the SP first.

It’s like how with Call of Duty where tons of folks don’t even look at the single player. People just want to play with their friends not wade through a 15hr campaign mode before they can do that.

@tomac: there's plenty of other influencers that will uncritically praise it - great to have some diversity. After watching this video, there's a lot of gameplay bugs that needs to be ironed out.

I had zero plans to buy this game. But my friend unexpectedly enjoyed the beta, and I do like the MCU movies, so I went and bought it to play with him. And I've been having a very enjoyable time. There are absolutely issues with the game, in a number of areas. But running up to enemies and punching them in the face as a superhero alongside your friends is a fun time. My main complaint is that the entire game isn't co-op. Having the MP parts take place after the SP-only campaign is an incredibly weird decision. Especially considering that most of the SP campaign follows the exact same structure as the MP missions. I don't get it.

I'm actually really enjoying this game. I got it because I had to know (even bought Anthem - sure do regret that one). It has minor bugs for sure but I'm finding the combat varied enough and the story is way better than I expected. I'm about 10 hours in (just unlocked all the characters) and around 40% done the main story so it seems long. There's also quite a few side quest-lines. Do I wish it was better? Absolutely but I don't regret buying it at all.

@chrjz: That was such a weird criticism. Destiny has respawn built into the lore, in fact 2’s campaign was about Guardians freaking out once they become mortal. Canonically having your characters not die seems like a convenient plot device for this genre of game, and fits with comic themes where heroes are rarely ever killed off.

I like to think that there is a happy medium between the folks on Youtube who are losing their shit and in tears over how rad this game is, as they unironically sport their t-shirt with the Marvel logo enblazened upon it, and the Giant Bomb guys who act like they'd rather be doing literally anything else. Is this just what modern video game coverage is , now, playing to the camera and/or your sponsors?

The beta wasn't great. I didn't hate it, but what I saw felt more like untapped potential than something that I need to play any time soon. Watching it played here and thinking about my time with it more, I think that I'm coming around and will wind up buying it after all. It does look (and generally was) fun, and I'm kind of into games with the "carrot on a stick" treadmills.

Silly question: Can Cap use his shield to block in this game? I honestly can't tell if they made it purely a weapon or if Jan just isn't blocking.

Didn't come here to criticize but I just saw Cap's shitty toss off salute emoji while typing and it pisses me off.

@tomac: This is exactly why I've stopped watching at of new game coverage recently.

@heghmohqib: He does, though I think he’s designed more to parry and counter rather than just full on blocking