Amidst all the mayhem that occurred at E3 last week a lot of games went under the radar, either to those in attendance or those sitting at home keeping tabs on coverage. I wouldn’t say there were any complete hidden gems at E3 this year, at least for properties that are completely new, but one game that did go under the radar in a surprising way was Ubisoft’s The Avengers: Battle for Earth.
Revealed during Ubisoft’s E3 conference through a nice pre-rendered trailer, actual footage of the game wasn’t shown but surprisingly the game and its genre was discovered as I and Corey lingered in the Microsoft booth. A Kinect only adventure, gamers will have to stand up and use their fists to assume their favorite hero or villain and lay the smack down as the first major HD Avengers game is a brawler.
When one thinks of a game based on The Avengers I think a 1 vs. 1 fighting game is the last thing that would be thought of but alas Ubisoft opted to go in such a direction. Looking at the game at E3 I was impressed with the art style as it really did capture the classic 1960s Marvel look without going in a faux cell-shaded direction or something that looked too flat and without character. Even the combat itself look interesting as I saw Thor take to the sky to deliver punches to Wolverine before hitting the ground to continue the battle. With that said the game is a Kinect brawler and we all know how those turn out in the end; not good by any means.
Opting not to totally embarrass myself at E3 I didn’t play Avengers: Battle for Earth as I did want to maintain an ounce of dignity. So maybe I’m not the best judge per say, and I definitely won’t pass final judgment without playing the game, but a Kinect based brawler is likely to be exhausting and dare I say overly repetitive no matter how good the game may be. Looking at two chaps play the game I was impressed with how movement control is represented on the screen as small indicators towards the bottom of the screen showed which movements to make to perform a punch or a special attack. But to be honest there didn’t look to be much in the way of immediate combat depth and I doubt the game will be something that fighting game enthusiasts will be impressed by.
It’s nice to see Ubisoft doing something new with a superhero property, but compared to Injustice from WB Games and NetherRealm, I think The Avengers may be the odd man out in the superhero fighting game genre since gamers likely won’t flock to a Kinect based title. But maybe I’ll be wrong in the end and Avengers: Battle for Earth will become a surprise mega hit since anything that says Avengers is guaranteed to catch a few eyes based on how successful the film was.
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