Ever since special attack Gaming has become mainstream and it seems like every company wants a piece of the hero shooter pie. This is how we became NetEase Games Marvel Rivalsthe latest real-time hero shooter bell ringer Developer.
I was recently invited to participate in the game’s closed beta, which ran from July 23rd to August 5th. opponent It was a Disney executive who went around asking why the company didn’t have its own version of the physical incarnation. special attack. (I will be referring to this game often, fair warning). However, the turning point here is opponent It’s a lot of fun if you don’t mind that it rips off other, better games in the genre.
what is Marvel Rivals
Image source: NetEase Games
Let’s start with the basics. Marvel Rivals is a 6-vesus-6 third-person multiplayer hero shooter with Born to fight or huge. Like other games in the genre, players can choose from more than 20 Marvel Comics characters divided into three categories: Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist. The Vanguard is your classic tank – powerful enough to soak up and deal a lot of damage. This is one of the smaller groups in the game and includes Hulk, Thor, Venom, Groot, Penny Parker, and surprisingly Doctor Strange and Magneto.
Duelists are attack characters focused on combat and mobility. You’ll find the most playable characters in this group – the most common I’ve seen in games are Black Panther, Iron Man, Sorcerer, Punisher, Spider-Man, and Storm.
Finally, we have Strategists, who are classic support characters who can provide health and buffs to teammates, as well as debuffs to opponents. During the closed alpha test, there were only four support characters: Loki, Luna Snow, Mantis, and Rocket Raccoon. But through this closed beta, Warlock Adam and Shark Jeff were added to the roster.
Image source: NetEase Games
Once you’ve chosen your team of heroes and villains, you’ll lead these carefully designed and colorful characters and compete in three game modes: Convoy, Fusion, and Domination. These patterns are related to special attack to the tee, minus the dominance ripped from call of Duty and battlefield. Convoy lets you defend or attack the target as it follows a set path to the end.
Convergence is a best-of-three, King of the Hill style battle in which both sides compete for control of a single point that changes position. Then again, I don’t have much to say about Dominion because I can never find enough people to play it, but allegedly Teams face off to control multiple points on the map.
Popular stories that can be mixed and matched
play marvel rival
Image source: NetEase Games
I think a lot of the fun I had playing the beta was how polished it was. It helps that NetEase has a template to draw from, as Rivals is an unabashed blend of all the games that came before it. Even the maps feel like Strike Force, a game I haven’t played in over six years. So imagine I had a sense of déjà vu as I loaded up Rivals and immediately felt like I’d somehow downloaded the wrong game.
However, the game gets into trouble when it comes to hero kits. The weapons and abilities in the game are poorly matched to the characters and unappealing. Magneto, for example, is a tanking class with telepathic shields and mind-control rocks, which doesn’t feel consistent with his character and is boring to play. Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk, but once transformed, his abilities are limited to crushing and firing gamma rays.
Some characters really fit into their hero sets. Iron Man makes sense as a duel/assault type hero with rockets and ion beams, Punisher has his gun, and Spider-Man has his swing and punch. But Doctor Strange as a shield character feels both unfaithful to his character and boring in terms of gameplay.
The inconsistent hero kit seems like a compromise for multiplayer balance, but it comes at the expense of fun and character fidelity. NetEase is clearly walking a tightrope between making the game appealing to new players while still staying true to the characters they put into the sandbox. It can be fun at times, but it doesn’t make for a fun gaming experience.
Image source: NetEase Games
A prominent feature is marvel rival is the ability to work as a team, and certain combinations of characters produce in-game benefits. For example, Rocket Raccoon and the Punisher get “Ammo Overload” together, giving the Punisher unlimited ammo and a faster rate of fire from the Rocket Attack buff.
However, some teams lack consistency. Black Panther and Sorcerer, who rarely interacted in the comics, gained the portal travel powers Doctor Strange already had. Magneto and Scarlet Witch have a logical team-up as mutant father-daughter and Guardians of the Galaxy characters. However, pairings like Thor/Storm (lightning powers) or Namor/Luna Snow/Jeff the Shark (water powers) are only barely logical.
So currently, I’ve been playing for about 10 hours. marvel rivalI can say that while it has beautiful gameplay and interesting team mechanics, its hero suite and character balance tend to ruin the fun and authenticity.
At the time of writing, the beta has ended, and if you like a good hero shooter that you can pick up and play without having to overthink the right way to play, I’d say check it out. NetEase has yet to announce an official release date for the game, but rumors suggest it will be released sometime next year.
