I got into Marvel Avengers PC Beta.
I'm some 2 hours into this, according to Steam. There was No NDA or anything to sign.
So, I'm going to dive into this now. My thoughts.
Graphics.
The game looks phenomenal. Seriously, the graphics are outstanding. Running this at 1080p at mostly High settings, it looks great. With tons of action, explosions, special effects, shadows, and whatnot everywhere - this is literally one of the most detailed and action-packed games I've seen on any screen, with this kind of fidelity.
Performance...Or Lack Thereof.
And...it pretty much ends there (on the graphics). Performance is not good, on the technical side. I'm running on my EVGA SC15 gaming laptop at i7 7700HQ; 6GB GTX 1060; 16 GB DDR4 RAM; W10 x64. I was literally bouncing b/t 30fps and 60fps like crazy, no matter what. Could change resolution (900p), graphics settings - eh, wasn't worth it; didn't look as good and certainly didn't perform much better either. Might as well have most stuff cranked-up, where I had it before. So, to try and solve this - I literally had to use NVidia Inspector and (at a more driver level) straight-up cap the game's FPS there; I chose 35fps. That solved some problems w/ the roller coaster performance.
Didn't solve everything, though. I still get slow-downs, stutters for a few moments, or whatever. I don't know if this is an issue w/ NVidia not issuing a newer driver that the game needs (and was built-on); or if Crystal and Nixxes (Nixxes often do PC ports for Square...and they are listed in the credits when you boot the game) just can't get performance down here; or what - but, this game's a mess. And it's seriously getting in the way of the fun & the action. I also don't know if the online-service part and servers are the problem - but, who knows. It ain't running well b/c it just ain't smooth at all times, IMHO - and a fast-paced game like this with lots of action, explosions, and special effect needs this.
Even with reduced framerates or whatever - I wish they could at least get this going at 30fps with no hitches; that would've been acceptable. Sure, I'd always prefer 60fps - but, it don't look like this game's anywhere near that on even now mid-ranged cards like the GTX 1060 with 6GB of VRAM. And this game has no problem with eating up regular RAM and a GPU's VRAM; it's literally often eating 5GB+ of VRAM area & around 11GB of regular RAM. On numerous occassions, I've had my laptop spiking into 90 degrees Celsius turf and have had freezes and the game was stuck (so I had to close to desktop) and/or the game crashed literally to the desktop. Not good.
Combat.
So, how's the combat? It's fine, IMHO. Playing mostly with a Xbox for Windows USB-wired controller here. So, you had weak, strong, and special attacks basically. It mostly feels...like an action-packed brawler with also other elements, TBH - and it does a decent job at this. Each character, has a few of their own special attacks, which are on certain buttons or combos of buttons you use at once; or special holds of said button.
And they (the Avengers) all seem to play very differently. For example, Iron Man can shoot laser beams; Black Widow has regular guns & can go invisible; Hulk can pick-up pieces of the ground and toss them; Captain American can block with his shield and even toss it as a weapon. Hulk can literally wall-jump really fast and powerfully; Iron Man can fly; Black Widow is really acrobatic; etc etc. Controls feel fine and everything looks great, flashy, and boom-bastic as can be on-screen.
Sound.
Though, sound quality can vary - some sound great and some sound like these attacks should sound like they should have more "oomph" to them. Voice-acting is stellar, as it all sounds great; not that the writing or story seems to be anything special, but the actors seem to be in full blown Avengers mode. It feels like they didn't spare
Gameplay.
So, gameplay often can feel like...it's very linear & old-school. And sure, that's fine and all. We have tons of games out there already doing the open-world thing. But, at times, I do wonder...is this too much on rails, at times? Especially in the opening Tutorial Mission - there are lots of cut-scenes, interrupting game-play.
At times, the game literally is doing Quick-Time Events - often in cut-scenes; or telling you when to use a certain move or skill when you're in actual game-play. Now, it could be with its telling you what move to do when you're in actual gameplay at times b/c this was in mostly the game's tutorial level (the San Francisco Bridge Mission) and is still just teaching you the ropes. Tutorials normally give you an idea of things, but often aren't always a good representation of the entire game. I'll know more, hopefully...if this is true in other missions later on too; and/or whenever this game comes out and I decide to fully pick it up.
Story & Presentation.
A-Day happened, as they call it; it's a thing. After the first mission and your showdown with Taskmaster, things go wrong, Avengers' HQ gets wrecked, Banner was experimenting with stuff on there we find out, HQ explodes, and now people in general all over are developing superpowers since this all got into the air. Avengers get outlawed from being a group and are banned from being a group...and everything's gone to Hell. Of course, they're now on their own, still going to try to figure things out. AIM, a corporation, has gotten more powerful and is (supposedly) trying to find a cure. Not sure, I totally believe that one on AIM.
The game is often presented with cut-scenes in-game when they occur (which can have QTE's attached to them); and it seems like after missions we get this screen-shots and/or comic book-like panels they explain and summarize what happened, what's now going on, and whatnot. All of these, for a game that is a Live Service, really feels like this makes sense so the players can likely get to the action quicker or just skip the cut-scenes and panels. It might not be the best way to tell a story in-depth to the player, but...it does make sense to do this for a Live Service game that is mostly played online with other players.
Closing Thoughts, For Now.
So, I wish I could be enjoying this game more than I actually do. A lot of the elements, they feel like they're there or nearly there. The game feels fun, action's fun, controls feel solid, game looks absolutely amazing graphically - but there's too much stuff holding it back right now.
Performance issues, possible server issues, and the game early on feeling like it's too much on-rails is holding it back from being better than it should be. I'm hoping this is just how the Beta is and that when the full game comes out that it's either re-worked and/or the rest of the game isn't so heavy on cut-scenes; QTE's; and very linear & on-rails stuff.
First and foremost here - they need to get the performance issues down, since this game needs more optimization on performance and stability, more so than anything else. This is a Beta, so...hopefully whether it's on Crystal and Nixxes' end (i.e. bad optimization); NVidia's end (i.e. they haven't issued newer drivers the game needs, when those should've been released on their end); or a combo of both - they all can get on the same page to get these technical issues down & fixed soon, namely before the game releases to the public for purchasing.
So, there we go; my thoughts on the Beta so far.
And now, back to (playing) the Beta.
