POSTED 8/11/12


MARVEL AVENGERS: BATTLE FOR EARTH

Ubisoft
Xbox 360/Kinect

Amphibious wunderkind Kermit once declared that it’s not easy being green. But if you’re of verdant hue and built like a nucular-fuelled brick shithouse it’s not necessarily particularly hard, either. HULK SMASH!

That’s just one reason why this marvellous bit of Marvel fluff’s decent, transient fun... Get Bruce Banner’s alter ego typhooned into an ultra-tizzy and actually yell “HULK SMASH!” at your Kinect and, well, Hulk smashes. Squeeeeeeeeeeee!

Each character here – name a popular, or even not so popular, Marvel one and they’re likely on the guest list - has their own shoutable catchphrase, allowing the super-flying fun smackdown on your hapless opponent, which could be a Marvel goodie or a Skrull-simulated goodiebaddie. Those who know the ‘Secret Invasion’ storyline will get what we mean. Erm, hopefully.

Even if you’ve NFI what we’re on about, this Kinectified first-person beat ’em up is decent transient fun. But we’ve already said that. It’s basically last year’s PowerUp Heroes tweaked, and with Marvel paint slip-slop-slapped all over, meaning you fight by standing up and, well, fighting. Jump and duck to avoid hits, and make all manner of contortions (or just emulate us dancing – forget button-mashing, it’s body-mashing!), many akin to the hero you’re inhabiting, to delete your opponent. Chain combos, let loose those special moves – it’s decent fun. Transiently.

Yes, it becomes repetitive, but most'll plough through the single player challenges before novelty erodes, while fighting against others in the same room has more longevity potential. Kinectimafication’s pretty solid – we found most moves we intended actually happened, although you need to be on your toeses to head-off that split second’s lag

Little Marvel fans will dig this more than a desert-bound Digging-est Dog (do NOT subject children to that you-must-conform-to-be-accepted hokum, BTW). Many big Marvel fans will be just as keen – just don’t post any pics webwards of you playing in Lycra, pretty-please?

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