Welcome to this One-Shot piece, in which I want to outline why Marvel’s Avengers seemed to present you with a tutorial that didn’t feel like another mundane or mandatory start to a videogame. Instead, it felt like I was advancing the narrative, and being prepped for what was to come.
You could argue the latter half of that sentence in the intro is the basic definition of a tutorial- a section of the game in which you’re given the outline and instructions on how to perform functions that will be the foundation moving forward. However, I want to note how the Marvel’s Avengers veils this fairly successfully, because from the get-go things are presented like a big, blockbuster movie.
It won’t come as a surprise to anybody who’s accustomed to videogames that Marvel’s Avengers features a tutorial section, but that isn’t to say it can’t be made fun.
Initially, you control Kamala Khan as she wanders around the A-Day celebrations, starry-eyed and optimistic. This isn’t the start of the tutorial, per se, but introduces you to the world within the game, and from the off lets you know Kamala is going to be a big part of the narrative. However, it doesn’t take long until the celebrations go amiss, and it’s up to the Avengers to put a stop to all the shenanigans- this is where I felt the real tutorial started.
Over the next hour or so (including the tutorial set after A-Day, which we’ll get to) you’re given brief control over each of the main Avengers that you’ll at some point be going on to play as later on. You’ll get a little tease of how it feels to smash things as Hulk, shoot repulsor beams as Iron Man, launch a shield or hammer as Captain America or Thor, and experience just what it’s like to unload a hail of bullets as Black Widow. If you don’t come away feeling aligned with at least one of these heroes, you’re probably not going to get along with the game.
If, however, this brief section of fighting is enough to whet your appetite, then expect to look forward to a pretty decent narrative to follow. Whilst you aren’t given access to all the heroes abilities during this tutorial – later, optional training scenarios can bring you up to speed if you want to master a hero – the way in which you hop between each one in a brief, whirlwind tour of kicks and punches is brilliant.
I didn’t feel like I was necessarily performing a tutorial because, whilst I knew that there was going to be a time jump following A-Day, the pace of this opening section feels a little like the extended scene in Avengers, where we track the various heroes across New York as they fight the Chitauri invasion. In this case, I’m fighting foolish mercenaries instead of aliens, but I was pumped at the thought of reassembling this team so I could dish out justice as a well-oiled machine once again.
There is the five-year time jump that puts you back in the shoes of Kamala (who now has her Inhuman powers) as she attempts to find some of the lost heroes and convince them to reassemble and defeat AIM. Again, this is a tutorial really, and sees you fleeing the city in order to begin your quest. Whilst doing so, you’ll learn just how useful it can be to have stretchy limbs and the ability to grow VERY big.
By the time you’re relatively scott-free and playing through what I consider the first ‘proper’ mission of the game, you’ve had some experience with every hero available for the main story at the time of release. At this point I realised how the game had tricked me too, sneaky, sneaky.
Essentially, picture the tutorial sort of like the opening scene of the film. That’s not me going down the ‘games as cinema’ route, but simply comparing how the beginning of the film is meant to draw you in and set up what’s to come. In that respect, the tutorial of Marvel’s Avengers does too. It’s a cracking opening, and I wanted to show it some appreciation. Many games fall flat with tutorials, this does not.
I’ve written this One-Shot because Marvel’s Avengers has received a lot of negativity over time and I wanted to defend it. The game isn’t perfect, but nothing is. I’ve put MANY hours into it, and at the end of the day I can honestly say I’ve had fun. I just wanted to praise the game for taking a fairly mandatory part of videogames (the tutorial) and making it entertaining. Kudos.
Dualshocks and Daydreams 