#all the bugs in my area except for like. black widows are safe for my cat to eat btw

[hurglewurm]

having a cat is so fun. this is my best friend she's so small. she's very soft. she ate a centipede today

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #111

UPDATE 111: Set Skitter on Fire

Last time Calvert had done the betrayal. Using the technology he has access to in his new position and thanks to the stuff his new parahuman villain pals made for him, he teleported Skitter into a trap where he’ll now shoot her. Oh this is going to be a tough one to get out of. Let’s see how she’ll do it!

So, the very last line last update was that Calvert shot. She doesn’t even get to move out of the way before the bullet hits her. Is the costume bulletproof? I once heard that the silk, if tensed properly, could resist bullets, but I imagine that’d require some rather specific tuning and positions. Also more than one layer of thread. There’s a chance her costume can be bulletproof, but...

Getting hit, the smallest part of me could only think costume can’t stop a bullet after all.  Except it wasn’t even a complete thought.  Just a momentary disappointment as I felt the impact of the bullet passing through my chest to my back.

Golly! If I wasn’t aware there are like fifteen arcs more and by now it’s unlikely Skitter will die in the middle of it all to pass the baton to someone else, I’d actually be freaking out. What is it she’s feeling, if not a bullet? The force of the impact? I also have heard bulletproof vests don’t protect you that well, it only protects against the bullet itself. The impact can break your ribs and leave you bruised like you don’t know.

The last thing Skitter needs right now is a few broken ribs, that’s for sure.

Skitter falls, and all of her bugs start flittering around, distracting everyone. Even Calvert is forced to aim away, protecting his face from the bugs, knowing some of them must be covered with capsaicin. Doesn’t seem like Skitter managed to sting anyone, but she’s not hit by any further bullets, so that’s good.

When he spoke, his voice was raised to be heard despite the muffling effect, “Out of the room.  Fill it with bullets… no.  Scratch that.”

He’s coming up with counter-counter-plans before I even have a strategy in mind.

“…Set her on fire.  Her costume is bulletproof, and I want this done.  I need to attend to other matters.”

Naturally he’s using counter-counter-counter-counter-counter plans. Maybe he’s even using his power right now, using one plan in this timeline and a different plan in another. It’s possible the ‘fill it with bullets’ plan is for the other timeline. You know, that makes things even worse! It means Skitter has to escape alive in two different timelines, or else she’s screwed because Coil will get rid of the timeline she survives in! As if things weren’t difficult enough, haha

You know, I know it should be kind of common sense, but it kind of blows my mind bugs have senses of smell and taste.

Calvert leaves the place, possibly going to deal with how he’ll explain to the Undersiders Skitter was teleported to who knows where, and two of his soldiers advance to fulfill his orders and burn everything. Skitter finds a crushed bullet on the armor on her chest, showing it was the armor what saved her, not the tensile strength of her costume. Now she has to deal with two men here about to blaze everything with Molotov cocktails. Her immediate idea is to use her pepper spray and try to light one of them on fire.

It wasn’t the brightest move, trying to stop someone from lighting a fuse by setting them on fire, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky.

Look, if it works, then it wasn’t a stupid move. No move that works is stupid, that’s my life philosophy. It has gotten me in so much trouble in the past, but when it works, it works!

Merely setting one on fire seems to have bought her some time, because she got time to tie the other soldier’s hand to the Molotov, making sure he wouldn’t be able to just throw it with no problem at all. Calvert, who apparently stood around in the other room instead of leaving like he said he would – just go already, man, dontcha trust your mercenaries? – takes the Molotov cocktail and doesn’t light it on fire. He tosses it into the room, breaking and spreading the incendiary contents around.

Ah, so that was his idea! He knew Skitter was doing something to stop the bottle to be thrown adequately, so instead he spread gasoline around and used the burning soldier as the lighter. In other words: Skitter pretty much delayed the cocktail from being lit, she didn’t save herself that well. On the other hand, she didn’t get two flaming cocktails shattering all over her, so it must have been for the better.

You know, while I was skimming the next few paragraphs, I realized Skitter must be hearing through her bugs, she has quite some detail about everything that’s happening in the other room, even though there’s a fire here right now and fires aren’t really a silent thing when you’re close to them. Also, I just remembered she’s supposed to be temporarily blind. Absolutely nothing of what’s going on in the story hints she has any sort of eyesight problems. It’s amazing how handicaps and health problems are forgotten in life or death situations when it’s fiction, eh? Not that I can complain, it increases the odds she’ll get out of this...relatively unharmed.

The situation is tough: there’s containment foam over here, cornering her onto one side of the room. Beyond the containment foam there’s fire with accelerant in it, meaning if she steps on it, she’ll get fire on herself and that’s a death sentence. The door is getting barricaded, so it’s pointless to even think about going over the containment foam and the gasoline, and I imagine there are no other ways out. I bet the soldiers will set whatever place this is on fire from the outside, just in case, so...her only hope would be to extinguish that fire, getting enough time to try to undo the barricade on the other side of the door? She’s in trouble, then. Last I checked, she’s not carrying anything for extinguishing fires.

Well, she does have something on her side now: she subconsciously called all bugs in the area to her. That has to be useful for something, she’s been able to use her bugs in creative manners before. I doubt the fire can be gone by using the bugs themselves, but perhaps they can do something about the fire? Somehow?

The situation outside is rough. This is an abandoned neighborhood; the area was prepared so there wouldn’t be eyewitnesses. There’s also a legion of soldiers outside, with spotlights towards the house and all kinds of weapons and containment foam. Escaping the perimeter seems impossible. Hmmmm...did Calvert make everyone drive everything here? Maybe, once Skitter escapes the room, she’ll find something related to teleporting and manages to use it to teleport away.

Oh, there are windows. They’re boarded up, and from what Skitter can feel with her fingers – what a time to remember she’s kind of blind right now, Mr. Wildbow – they even have uncommon screws keeping everything intact. This means they’re boarded on the inside, no? Instead of the outside? That may have been a mistake on Calvert’s part, because the boards are on Skitter’s side. That’s just giving a chance for...something. No idea what, but it’s something.

This would be a perfect time for a second trigger event.  Hadn’t Lisa said that my mind-power link was enhanced whenever I felt trapped?  I doubted I’d ever feel more trapped than I did right this moment.  I couldn’t see just how far the fire reached, because I was blind, and the heat of the fire was killing the bugs I needed for sensing my surroundings.  I had only a minute or two before the room became an oven and killed off the rest, leaving me blind and roasting to death.

Heck, maybe her bursts of listening and seeing through her bugs are her second trigger event on the verge of happening. It’d make sense, that her power would intensify so much she’d effectively be able to use her bugs as an extension of her senses. I’ll be surprised if Worm ends without she getting a second trigger event, by the way.

Skitter manages to find black widow spiders in the area and stings Calvert with them. Say, is North America filled with black widows or what? I swear Skitter finds them around all the time. The thought such poisonous spiders must be around you all the time must be terrifying.

Getting bit with these spiders only serve to annoy Calvert, who orders them to burn everything – order I’m sure he’d have given anyway. What Skitter did pretty much hinted Calvert she’s still feeling well enough to fight back. Many Molotov cocktails crash against the house Skitter is trapped in, the fire’s only going to get more intense from now on. Calvert, satisfied, gets into the car.

Calvert glanced over his shoulder, then confidently strode over to a car and took a seat in the back.  He didn’t have the driver take him away.  No, he’d be more interested in watching, in verifying that things went according to plan.

Didn’t you have other matters to attend somewhere else?! Geez!

I considered waiting for the fire to weaken the floorboards before leaping over the foam and plunging down to the lower level, then dismissed that idea.  I wouldn’t last that long, for one thing, and there was too much chance of me being injured.

Thankfully she rejected that idea. The floorboards won’t weaken for no reason; they’ll weaken because there’s fire. This maybe could work if it wasn’t because there’s accelerant. It’s just too much of a risk, getting gasoline on you and being set on fire, no? Still, this means she’s not on a ground floor. Even if she escapes through the window, she’ll need some way to get safely outside – and unnoticed, too. I remember it was mentioned there were lights pointed at this place. Escaping this room is going to be merely the start of a troublesome ordeal.

It’s a tad puzzling Calvert took into account the possibility Skitter was carrying a screwdriver, but didn’t account for the possibility she might have a gun. Personally I’d have thought it was more likely someone would carry a weapon than a hardware tool. I don’t remember if it was ever mentioned she had a distaste for guns or something, but if she did and Calvert found that out, then it’d explain why he didn’t consider she’d have a gun, I guess.

Skitter uses the gun to weaken the boards’ hold onto the windows. Turns out Calvert boarded up both in the inside and the outside, so that solves the problem I had mentioned before! Nice! Skitter, not having expected the strong recoil, drops the gun and therefore wastes some time. Hmmm...say, the soldiers must be far away enough to not hear the gunshots, no?

The gunfire had attracted attention.

Nevermind, they weren’t. I must have overestimated the noise of fire and underestimated the intensity of a gunshot.

This caused the soldiers to use their ammo against the house, a flurry of bullets breaking through the walls and floor. Say, that means the intensity of the bullets must be diminished because of the obstacles, right? She may be safe. One of the bullets does hit her on the back, and that hurts, but she’s not dying from a gunshot. She is running out of time, though. The place is getting worse and worse.

Aha, finally something goes well for her! Skitter had managed to send cockroaches onto the vehicles that are aiming their headlights at the house, turning them off. Is it a preparation for an escape, perhaps?

It was! Skitter gathers as many of the bugs as she got, and uses them to form decoys. One goes through the window, getting shot immediately and slumping over. Then comes another, and another, until Skitter can’t handle anymore the heat inside the room, forcing her to go outside already before she faints. As expected, she’s shot when she’s on the windowsill and she falls down to the ground, in what I hope was an identical move to the rest of the swarm decoys. Hm...I wonder if she’ll have enough strength to make a few decoys more to make them fall from the window, as a distraction.

She does have enough strength to move her decoys like they’re truly getting gunned down and injured, just to stand up again. Given her costume is bulletproof – as far as Calvert and his soldiers know – they can’t afford not to shoot anything that moves, so it really is just matter of time before the real Skitter is shot again. Could she do something with bugs to disable the machine guns? At least to stop the endless barrage?

One of the decoys arrives at the fence surrounding the perimeter, and since Skitter had done a well enough job making it look like it could be her, they keep shooting at it, until someone got the idea of throwing a Molotov cocktail on it, obliterating the decoy. Hm, this settles it, they’ll do the same to any other decoy that gets to that area. If she’ll get to the fence, she’ll have to think of a way to make sure she won’t be set on fire.

If Thomas Calvert was using his power to guide his men, to give them an advantage and give them directions that would help narrow down the decoys, then I’d inevitably face the same fate as the decoy had after I got to the fence.

But he wasn’t giving directions. He was in the truck, watching.  No radios were sounding with instructions, not yet.  He had to protect his perimeter, keep me from getting to freedom… but he was in a reactive position, not an offensive one where he could command an attack and then make it so it never happened if the attack went awry.  No, I’d weathered that initial attack.

He’s not giving instructions...perhaps he did use his power earlier? And he can’t use it again because it’d meant putting himself at disadvantage, in case this timeline is the one where Skitter escapes again? Calvert is not forced to use no more than his considerable cleverness and craftiness! Haaaah...that’s still a big threat.

Are the soldiers starting to deal with the approaching decoys by throwing Molotov cocktails at them? Then it’s only matter of time before one hits Skitter, this can’t be good. To try to stop that from happening, she decides she’ll need a distraction to sow some discord into the enemy lines. Her distraction is to use her swarm to talk to the soldiers’ ears, saying creepy stuff to unnerve them. She’s going to need to do that to everyone here if she wants to distract them enough to run away, I’d say! Good thing there are plenty of bugs here.

Calvert’s voice sounded over a dozen radios in the area, “She’s playing mind tricks.  She’s still near the house, and she’s never killed or tortured before.

Oh, I see Calvert isn’t aware Skitter freaking took Lung’s eyes out. I’m pretty certain that has to count under the word ‘torture’! Yeah, I’m not getting over that little incident. Hah! Either way, even if he was aware, I’m sure he wouldn’t tell his troops Skitter may actually do some pretty messed up stuff. Why give validation to Skitter’s creepy threats?

Maintain the perimeter and do not use grenades.”

Again, with the refusal on the subject of grenades.  A reminder, even, this time.  Was this a point where he’d split the timelines, bombarded the house with grenades in one reality and stuck to the guns in another?

It’s not a bad theory. In which case, in the other timeline Skitter will have to survive grenades in close quarters. Being trapped in one end of the room, with nowhere to go, with a couple grenades thrown at you...how would she pull that off, really? Or had that gone catastrophically bad for him, even if he managed to kill Skitter? Hm, I wonder...

Then there was the possibility that this tied into his alibi, that he didn’t want the Undersiders or even the Travelers to know he’d gone after one of them, and the use of several grenades would be too easily traced back to ‘Coil’.  He would stick to an over the top arson, maybe hide the police reports and suppress the media.  If I was in a territory owned by the Travelers, maybe they’d accept a price for keeping this quiet from the Undersiders.

...I don’t know...I find it hard to believe that Calvert, with all his power and everything, wouldn’t be able to hide a few grenade blasts inside a house. He could burn the house away and get rid of the remains, and it’d be like there was an arson all along. No, I’m more inclined to think that something went wrong with using grenades against Skitter.

Thinking about all this leads to Skitter remembering how she escaped from the hospital bed after the Endbringer attack. Oh...I don’t remember at all how she escaped. Using her bugs, Skitter checks the soldiers’ equipment, searching for stuff she could use, until she finds the cords and bandoleers for the grenades. Ah, there’s an idea: force the soldiers to use the stuff Calvert told them not to use no matter what!

Using her spiders, she manages to trick a soldier to throw grenades, having loosened the pins. Hmmm...let’s hope none of the grenades falls near the house! Thankfully, thinking ahead, Skitter also put the ring of the grenade string onto the fence, making it swing back and explode there, destroying some of the fence and forcing other soldiers to back off. Nice! Skitter is managing to make some progress here! Calvert must be so annoyed right now.

Some other soldier realizes what Skitter is doing and panics, shouting about how the pins are being pulled. Hah! Great, that’ll be of help! Everybody starts retreating, giving Skitter more leeway to advance. Since the headlights aren’t working, someone starts firing flairs to illuminate the area. Skitter will have to hurry before one of the flares gets too close to where she is.

The psychological pressure she’s mounting is pretty good. She’s appealing to the sense of ‘ew gross’ that’s hardcoded in our psyches, and I’m sure it’s especially effective when it’s talking about gross stuff happening to you. That’s just terribly unnerving. In the meantime, Calvert keeps insisting them to not throw the grenades, but when the other option is to hold grenades and wait for them to explode on you, can you really obey that order?

Skitter had been almost out when she made a little too much noise, alerting one of the soldiers. Hurrying to act, she runs to pull anything she can get her hands on. It’s not a grenade – luckily for Skitter, really – and it’s not a flashbang. Still, what she did get will call so much attention to the area: it’s a smoke grenade. Everybody’s going to look at the sudden burst of smoke, won’t they? Especially if the soldier starts alerting everyone Skitter is there!

Scavenging used silk from previous attacks, my bugs arranged to pull more pins for smoke canisters.

Oh, nevermind. The entire area is going to be covered in smoke at this rate. Skitter is doing a fantastic job against a squadron of trained mercenaries, it’s impressive. Having fun watching the show, Calvert? The soldiers can’t even shoot around due to the risk of hitting an ally through the smoke!

I sensed Calvert’s truck pulling away.

Calvert could use his power to prune away possibilities that didn’t work for him, but only if he was aware of me, aware of my movements and how I was mounting my attack.

His retreat left me wondering if he’d deemed this situation unsalvageable.  Had he deemed this a loss?

Sucks to be him! I wonder if, in the timeline grenades were being used, something like this happened. I find it unlikely, but...who knows!

Knowing Calvert is leaving, Skitter wonders what his plan will be now. Shall he look for leverage somewhere else?

My dad.  The others.

I suddenly felt the urge to get away, and get away quickly.

If it’s for leverage I think it’s more likely he’ll go for Dad Hebert. Calvert is ruthless like that, I’m sure he’d play dirty and target Dad Hebert.

Escaping now is somewhat easier. The soldiers seem to be unaware she’s so close to the fence, because they’re still focusing on the house, throwing the smoke canisters in that direction so Skitter wouldn’t be able to use them against the troops. Skitter manages to overcome the fences and goes to the trucks, managing to obtain the keys through some subterfuge and getting onto the driver’s seat.

It sure is a tad nightmarish filling the enemy’s mouth with bugs and letting them choke for a while is starting to be one of Skitter’s moves. I wonder how much longer it’ll be before anyone facing Skitter will make sure to have some protection over their mouth and noses? Knowing Mr. Wildbow, it shouldn’t be much longer, haha

All in all, that was a pretty daring escape. I liked pretty much all of it! The only thing that kind of bothers me is that, well...Skitter sure can’t be blind right now. I mean, she’s driving a vehicle. Even in desperate situations as this one, this just wouldn’t end well. Luckily for Skitter, if she still is blind, she has the author’s favor, so she won’t crash three hundred meters away from the burned house due to the sorry state of the roads and what not.

Skitter has no communication right now, so she won’t be able to alert the rest of the Undersiders Calvert is a traitorous snake. She has to think her next move now: which weak point of hers will Calvert strike?

I was struck by an ugly connection between two thoughts.  Calvert had mentioned he had other matters to attend to, and if Chariot’s teleportation device mimicked Trickster’s power, they’d had to swap something or somebody in. If he’d replaced me with a body double, he would want to stay in contact with her and help ensure things went her way with the other Undersiders.

That’s a good point, yeah. He’d need someone ready to pretend to be Skitter, right away. If there’s a trained body double with the rest of the Undersiders right now, then they’re in danger. Now that his plan to get rid of Skitter is starting to fall apart, he’s going to have to take action, and since the Undersiders are turning into a liability if they ever hear Calvert’s betrayal, it may be safer to get rid of them altogether, no? It’s not like he needs them anymore. Heck, he may even twist it as the PRT being especially effective, and delay the Travelers’ departure for as long as it’s needed to keep the public story going according to his plans.

On the other hand, if Calvert was looking for a way to get leverage over me, my dad was one very vulnerable target that he was aware of.

Frankly, it’s matter of time before a villain hurts Dad Hebert to make Taylor suffer. I’m not expecting him to survive this story. Maybe Coil will be the one to do it.

It would have to be the Undersiders and Dinah.  I hated to admit it, but if my dad was attacked and I had the Undersiders there by my side, they could only help.  If the opposite were true, my dad would hamper me.

So, all in all, what I’m getting here is that she’d have to get in contact with the Undersiders one way or another, no? If she can get in touch with Tattletale everything should go okay. I hope so, at least. Last I heard, Tattletale and Regent were going to do stuff for Calvert, so they’re...not in the safest of situations right now, really.

I’d seen how involved Calvert’s maneuver had been at the debate.  He had a grand plan, and it wasn’t necessarily the one he’d shared with us earlier.  I was now a glitch in his system, threatening to unravel everything he’d put together.

My opinion is that he’s proven to be too inflexible when it’s about Dinah. Does he not have a strong enough structure in his plans for them to continue ahead safely even without Dinah? Is Dinah the big cornerstone, somehow? He really should have prepared things to be able to continue without Dinah and acquiesce to Skitter, if only to have her at bay so she wouldn’t wreck his plans. In exchange, he’d have someone skillful working for him. I don’t doubt sooner or later he’d get tired of listening to Skitter, buuuuut by then he would have a way to squash her, no?

So yeah, I believe the unraveling of his plans is his fault.

No option but jump ahead, face Coil’s plans, and try to succeed without casualties or injuries. But that will be for next time!

Next time: in two updates

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s Avengers Beta Doesn’t Deliver Superhero Spectacle, But There’s Hope

https://ift.tt/30sxkpP

There was a moment while playing the Marvel’s Avengers early access beta on the PlayStation 4 when I had to ask myself whether this slice of the game was the best way to showcase what was supposed to be a major spectacle for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Following two of the biggest movies of all time, Marvel’s Avengers should feel like a victory lap for Square Enix and a grand return to video games for the superhero team. Instead, the beta showcases a low-key affair that never quite feels all that fresh or unique.

While the combat, traversal, and all of the game’s other mechanics generally work just fine, the title’s dependence on long-established trends and design concepts, as well as a very dull group of baddies, render Marvel’s Avengers sort of ordinary. The game’s arcade-y co-op gameplay feels like an over-the-shoulder upgrade of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, which is undoubtedly a major inspiration here, while the loot shooter elements don’t really add anything new to that particular genre, either.

It’s important to note that these are my impressions after only playing the game’s beta build, a small portion of a much larger whole. This is in no way a final verdict on Marvel’s Avengers.

Before we jump in, you can check out some gameplay footage from the beta below:

I spent three days with the beta, playing through the “A-Day” intro mission that Square Enix has previewed plenty of times before as well as several main story missions (called Hero Missions in the game), a handful of short Drop Zone and War Zone missions, an Iconic mission focusing on the Hulk, and three HARM Room Challenges best described as the game’s take on a horde mode. While the beta was a varied sampling of the activities that Marvel’s Avengers has to offer, it was also a brief one that I wouldn’t consider a full view of the final product, and I definitely left the beta with the sense that there was way more to see.

The beta opens with the heavily-directed A-Day tutorial mission that familiarizes you with the different heroes at your disposal. You wreck terrorists on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge with Thor and his mighty hammer while zipping through the skies to lend air support as Iron Man. The Hulk joins the fight on the bridge, too, smashing and stomping his way through gun-toting enemies and tanks. The tutorial gives players only the briefest of moments with Captain America and his trusty shield before switching to Black Widow for a QTE-heavy boss fight with Taskmaster.

The A-Day sequence is fast-paced and exciting, full of Marvel’s signature funny quips and heroic moments to be sure. But while this opening story mission shows how Earth’s Mightiest Heroes can work perfectly in tandem during an emergency, it isn’t really indicative of the rest of the missions in the beta, which feature combat more akin to a brawler or beat em up than the choreographed, more linear fights of the intro.

A time jump after the intro sequence sees the Avengers disband after failing to save San Francisco from the terrorist attack. We reunite with Bruce Banner and Kamala sometime later on a mission to reassemble the superhero team. The beta keeps things largely out of spoiler territory, so I didn’t get to see how the duo first met or what set them on their new mission. But from what I did see, it’s clear that the young Kamala, who is destined to become the superhero Ms. Marvel, is the heart of this story.

It’s her desire to learn more about her powers as well as the heroes she grew up admiring that drive the main plot forward. She brings an energy to the team that’s a very nice contrast to the much more defeated Banner, who is living in exile on the Chimera years after A-Day. We get hints that he’s not really interested in being the Hulk or an Avenger anymore, but Kamala convinces him that reuniting the team is the only way to save the world from the game’s main enemy faction, Advanced Idea Mechanics (aka AIM).

The Hero Missions that follow hit familiar story beats, as Bruce and Kamala first go on a mission to recover an old piece of Stark tech vital to finding Iron Man and then make contact with what remains of SHIELD, now led by Maria Hill. The beta stops short of actually reassembling the team, but along the way, we watch as Kamala interacts with pieces of Avengers history, from finding Cap’s original shield in a silo to walking around the team’s old HQ on the Chimera. It’s nice to be able to experience this story from the point-of-view of a fan who feels as much wonder for these characters as we did when we read our first Avengers comic book or watched the first movie, even if the beta’s somewhat unsurprising and safe missions don’t quite inspire wonder themselves.

The big issue with the Hero Missions and War Zone/Drop Zone side quests is that AIM’s massive army of jet pack-wearing soldiers, evil scientists, and robots aren’t all that much fun to fight or learn about. While some of the robots boast cool, bug-like designs (one class even looks like a smaller version of an X-Men Sentinel), they’re basically just punching bags and bullet sponges that don’t require much strategy to take down.

Running from room to room taking out AIM agents and machines starts to feel repetitive really quickly, and it doesn’t help that the environments sometimes feel really drab — big steel buildings with plenty of glass and high-tech lab equipment to destroy. There were even times when I felt like War Zone missions were recycling the same environment, simply remixing the order of rooms and hallways you traverse. Fortunately, these environments are almost fully destructible, which is a nice touch, especially when you’re playing as someone as chaotic as the raging Hulk. But overall, the level design showcased in the beta felt a little uninspired.

Once you unlock the War Table, you’re pretty much free to embark on missions in any order you choose and with whichever character you want, except when it comes to Iconic missions, which require you to play as a specific hero. The beta featured a Hulk-centric Iconic mission that saw the Jade Giant smash into an AIM facility to destroy the group’s gamma ray research. There’s a bit more storytelling involved with Iconic missions as well as opposed to other War Zone and short Drop Zone activities, which feel a bit less remarkable.

While there are a variety of different War Zone and Drop Zone missions to choose from, the ones in the beta mostly come down to fast sprints from point A to B that require you to destroy AIM research, defeat a robotic mini-boss, gather intel, or hold down a specific position. They rarely feel like unique experiences that could only belong in a Marvel game and are generally unexciting. And although some War Zone missions tend to offer up multiple stages and objectives, usually broken up by an elevator ride into an AIM facility or underground bunker, Drop Zone missions are bewilderingly short. You can finish them within 10 minutes, which makes them feel like filler content most of the time, although it should be noted that the shorter length of these missions is by design.

The nice thing about Marvel’s Avengers is that it won’t force multiplayer on you. All of the missions mentioned above can be played solo with three AI characters at your side or with up to three other players. While I only spent a very limited time playing with others, matchmaking worked well, but the real test will come when Crystal Dynamics opens up the beta to a much bigger group of players throughout August. But if you want to play the game solo, you can do so no problem. I even found the companion AI to be nice substitutes for real players during big fights with AIM. It’s evident that the studio has put in a lot of time into making all of these heroes feel genuine regardless of whether they’re being controlled by a player or AI.

A high point of the beta was the HARM Room, a holographic training area where the Avengers can square off against hordes of AIM enemies. In this mode, which is set on the Chimera itself, the team must survive 10 waves of increasingly difficult baddies. Only three difficulty levels were available in the beta, but it was a nice taste of what the mode has to offer. Whereas fighting AIM grunts in War Zones and Drop Zones starts to feel a little redundant, taking them on in bigger numbers in an enclosed area can get pretty exhilarating, especially when you’re against a wall in later rounds with fewer chances to heal.

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By Matthew Byrd

As far as the combat itself goes, there’s a nice flow to the action, which feels pretty polished at this point, as you chain a mix of attacks with Black Widow, Kamala Khan, Iron Man, and Hulk. I particularly enjoyed playing as Black Widow, who uses a mix of batons, gravity-defying flips, kicks, and dual pistols to take down the game’s robotic enemies. She also has a cool grapple that she uses to swing to hard-to-reach platforms or hurl herself at enemies. Switching between her melee moves and third-person shooter gunplay is pretty smooth, too. Black Widow ultimately feels like the hero who benefits the most from Crystal Dynamics’ own experience with the action-adventure genre. At times, I even wished the studio had embarked on a Black Widow solo adventure instead of such a big superhero endeavor.

Unsurprisingly, learning how to play as each hero is the best part of the beta. While Captain America and Thor are notably absent beyond the tutorial, you get plenty of time with the other Avengers. For the most part, each character feels distinct. Black Widow performs as a close- to mid-range hero while Ms. Marvel is all about melee. Hulk not only brings devastating tank-like power to the battlefield and destruction to the game’s environments but also does quite a bit of platforming along the way (a strange choice to give Hulk so much of the platformer gameplay but it mostly works). With Iron Man, you unlock the ability to fly around and wreak havoc from above, although his melee attacks also feel satisfying and weighty.

Special abilities that work on a cooldown timer add a nice superheroic layer to each character. Iron Man can summon his Hulkbuster suit for when he needs to take on bigger enemies and Hulk can clap his hands together to create a soundwave that does incredible damage and staggers targets. Black Widow can activate a camo that effectively turns the entire team invisible for a short time while Ms. Marvel can embiggen. Each hero has three unique abilities that really complement them and their move set. It was a blast learning how to best implement each ability.

A skill tree and a gear upgrade system allow you to unlock new attacks for each hero as well as upgrade gear stats to make your character stronger. As you level up in the game, you get skill points to redeem in the skill tree while the game’s myriad resources can be used to upgrade different pieces of gear. There are quite a few resources to keep track of, mostly found inside giant crates during missions, but I found that you could mostly ignore which resources upgraded each piece of gear. Compared to loot shooters, collecting resources never feels as grind-y or frustrating as it does in, say, the Destiny games.

You can also find different pieces of gear on the field, such as better gauntlets for Black Widow or better armor for Ms. Marvel, that offer perks (buffs) such as a damage boost, health boost, or elemental effects. Some pieces of gear even have two perks that you can unlock by upgrading them. As far as I could tell from the beta, gear serves to boost your character’s stats further but doesn’t offer any cool cosmetic effects, making loot feel a little less satisfying as a whole than in other loot-based games. Instead, cosmetic changes to your character will come from unlocking skins through gameplay or buying them with real money.

While microtransactions weren’t turned on during the beta, Crystal Dynamics did provide in-game currency so that I could shop for some skins, emotes, and themed nameplates for when you want to rep your favorite hero while in the matchmaking lobby. Skins include a Joe Fixit costume for Hulk, a casual winter-themed outfit for Kamala, a very cool black and red suit for Black Widow, and MCU-inspired suits for each hero. There were only a few skins to try for each character but trailers and gameplay videos have already promised way more costumes to choose from.

Some Marvel fans might perk up at the thought of being able to play Marvel’s Avengers as Joe Fixit and I guarantee there’s plenty more deep-cut comic book goodness where that came from. Credit must be given to Crystal Dynamics for just how much Marvel history it managed to pack into just this short beta. From breaking news from Marvel’s number one reporter, Phil Sheldon, to references to Dum Dum Dugan, easter eggs to be found on the Golden Gate Bridge, and classic real-life comics that make up the game’s collectibles, it’s clear Crystal Dynamics has done its research and has a real love for this universe. There are Avengers memorabilia scattered pretty much everywhere in the Hero Missions and there are even one or two villainous cameos I won’t spoil here.

While AIM facilities feel a bit dull as you run around their familiar hallways, the world as a whole feels lived in. The level design in the beta might falter but the world-building in Marvel’s Avengers is on point. It’s just a shame that the gameplay itself never comes together like the world and lore Crystal Dynamics is building around it.

I return back to my earlier question about whether the content specifically chosen for this beta was the best way to showcase a game as big as Marvel’s Avengers. Did Crystal Dynamics play it too safe for the sake of preserving story elements and other surprises? Will War Zone missions have more to offer than the repetitive gameplay shown here? Crystal Dynamics has stressed that these missions could last anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. It would’ve been nice to see a mission that’s somewhere in the middle, just to get a better look at the scope of the game. For now, missions and levels feel too minuscule for a team as big as the Avengers.

Will AIM be the only bad guys in the full game? Hopefully not. There are hints in the beta that other supervillains may be on the move and there’s even a brief boss fight with a villain that’s appeared in an MCU movie. With all of Marvel history at the team’s disposal, it’s hard to believe AIM was the best choice here over the countless other evil organizations, factions, and races created by the House of Ideas. Hopefully, the full game will offer a bit more variety on the bad guy front.

Ultimately, it’s important to remember that this is only a beta and what does work in Marvel’s Avengers works well. There’s hope in the game’s world-building, character design, and the combat system. And don’t forget that Marvel’s Avengers is a live service title designed to change and improve over time. It’s positioned as a platform that will receive content updates for years to come. Like many online games before it, it’s possible Marvel’s Avengers will face a rocky launch this fall, but if the history of this particular game format is any indication, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix will have plenty of time to right the Chimera.

Marvel’s Avengers is out on Sept. 4 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia. It’s coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year.

If you’re interested in participating in the beta, here is the schedule of when you can do so:

August 7-9 – PS4 pre-order customers can join the closed beta

August 14-16 – All PS4 owners can join the open beta, and PC and Xbox One pre-order customers can play the closed beta

August 21-23 – Open beta across all platforms

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