The Avengers: Battle For Earth demo thrusts us into a pre-historic stage with dinosaurs, planets and ruins. Even though the graphics seem bland and outdated, the world moves and interacts with fluid and vivid animation. After raising your arm at the start menu, the demo immediately thrusts you into battle as Hulk and The Mighty Thor go up against skrull-ified Captain America and Magneto. Giving you a short move tutorial, the game is extremely easy to pick up and play. It is tailored to your movements, but can sometimes be unresponsive, however it doesn’t entirely disrupt the flow of the match.
Every character has about six basic moves that each deal different damage and can flow into combos or super moves if done right, allowing the player to dish out as many punches as possible during these Ultra/Super moves. After a certain amount of attacks, your character will build up enough momentum to execute an Ultra attack, which can be trigged by simply jumping. You’ll have a limited timeframe to scream the character’s battle cry for Ultra Damage Boost, and then you are free to dish out as many punches as you can. This is one of my favorite parts of the game, but the demo in it’s entirely is really enjoyable. It’s not just some crap put together in five minutes, it actually feels like a game made by comic fans for comic fans. I will say this though – fighting game purists will hate this game with a burning passion until the day they die. I can’t stress that enough; this isn’t a deep fighting game with complex move chains and other-worldly characters. It’s a simple beat-em’ up with Marvel characters based off of Brian Michael Bendis’ Secret Invasion story arc, which is exactly how it should be treated.
A Kinect fighting game with really exciting gameplay pretty much solidifies a buy for me, as Ubisoft have created an exceptional Marvel fighter that’s perfect for family gaming nights or one comic book fan’s guilty pleasure.
Graphics: 4/10
Gameplay: 6.5/10
Audio: 7/10
Presentation (Menus, etc): 6/10
Overall: 7.5/10
Verdict: Buy, and I suggest a pre-order since it may go fast.