What Marvel games dowe want to see?
PC Gamer tells Square Enix how to do its job
Samuel: Hero shooters, then, Phil. Or indeed any competitive game with a wide range of wild and wacky character designs. Clearly this is one of the biggest genres on the planet, and some of these characters resonate deeply. Overwatch’s Tracer, for example, is one of the most strikingly different, original, and iconic hero characters I’ve seen in the last few years. But for every hit, there are a few misses. Take Winston, for example. He’s a (presumably articulate) gorilla wearing glasses. What the hell?
Phil: Whoa there, Sam. Let’s not condemn an entire genre based on one erudite ape. I agree that the slapdash design of hero shooters can make for a disjointed aesthetic—and there are worse offenders than Overwatch. But surely it’s also a nice departure from the bland militarism of the CoDs and the Battlefields. Remember Battlefield 1’ s medic? What a memorable character he was!
Samuel: I don’t disagree with you on that—there are many multiplayer games where the only option is to play a guy who looks exactly like me, or three others who look quite a lot like me. The intention to make a diverse cast is a positive one, and no doubt partly responsible for Overwatch’s success. But let’s look at its influence. Paladins has a guy called Grover, who is literally a tree carrying an axe. I’m just saying, maybe the remit is too broad. Maybe it allows for too many naff-looking creatures and non-committal spins on boring archetypes (McCree, Torbjörn). Doesn’t Agents of Mayhem suffer from similarly dull-looking nobodies?
Phil: It does! Arguably, though, that’s the problem. Agents is going for a Saturday morning cartoon action hero kind of thing, but it feels too restrained. Volition would probably be better off with a talking gorilla. Even the Thundercats had whatever the hell Snarf was. Which reminds me. I hate to do this, Samuel, but I’m breaking out the C-word. You like comics (no judgement, I watch wrestling). Are the X-Men more coherent than the average hero shooter? They may not have a gorilla, but they do have a furry intellectual blue guy. And doesn’t Guardians of the Galaxy have literally a tree?
Samuel: You’ve used the X-Men against me, Phil! And yeah, the Guardians of the Galaxy are basically five characters from one of these games. In fairness, I believe there’s room for one talking tree, but not two. Superhero comics are bad a lot of the time, and yet again I apologize on their behalf, and it’s likely that Winston was influenced by Beast. But there is a certain logic to the way mutation works in X-Men—what’s the explanation for these characters? It just seems like you could stuff anything into a hero shooter and have it work. Here is a piece of gammon, wearing a trilby, that doesn’t play by the rules and carries an ion laser. I can just picture social media up in arms, claiming that the gammon’s ion laser is OP. This month’s back page largely illustrates this point.
Phil: You just know the gammon would have a Tumblr page full of fan art shipping it with an anthropomorphic lady stoat. I admit, hero shooters might lean a little too far into the random hodge-podge, but that’s partly because the good ones are able to convey a character’s abilities through their design. Winston, for instance, can do a big leap (because he’s a gorilla), and has shielding technology (because he wears glasses). I think that’s why I’m prepared to defend Overwatch’s characters. I’ve played it enough that I know what they’re about. I haven’t played Battleborn, though, so it looks like complete nonsense. It’s got a sexy robot, a birdman, and literally a mushroom. What the hell, Gearbox?
Samuel: I’m not questioning Winston’s abilities in combat, merely the fact that he is a (presumably articulate) gorilla in glasses. Perhaps those games need to start with function first before character design, and that ends up defining a lot of what those characters end up being. And yes, Overwatch is not the biggest offender—its competitors almost certainly are. Battleborn is still in shrinkwrap on my shelf. Fancy playing the mushroom, while I take on the role of Ernest, a giant chicken seemingly in kevlar who throws egg bombs?
The discussion is over, but could it defeat an angry gorilla? Let us know @pcgamer