Dear videogame companies: more of this, please.
Seriously. This works very, very well.
I grew up with a Sega. Maximum Carnage and Captain America and the Avengers were my jam back then, and Marvel Cosmic Invasion feels like somebody remembered that superhero games are allowed to just be fun. They don’t all need to cost $200 million, take six years to make, and feature a crafting system nobody asked for.
And from the looks of it, this game didn’t cost a boatload of money to make. Good. Keep doing that.
Now give me 100 levels and 50 characters.
I’m serious. Go nuts. You already gave me Cosmic Ghost Rider instead of just regular Ghost Rider, so clearly we’re willing to dig through the Marvel toybox here. Keep digging.
One of the best things about this kind of game is that you don’t have to “modernize” anybody either. Beetle can just show up looking like Beetle. Shirt, tights, ridiculous comic-book costume and all. Nobody questions it.
You don’t have to do the Spider-Man: Homecoming thing where Shocker vaguely looks like Shocker because somebody threw some yellow paint on him and gave him a jacket. Here you can just make the characters look like the comics intended and say, “Yep. That’s him.”
Beautiful.
The story is about as complicated as it needs to be. Annihilus is trying to conquer the galaxy. The heroes would prefer that he didn’t. So you travel through different locations, beat up waves of enemies, fight bosses, and continue until everybody gets the message.
You pick two characters at the beginning of each level and go to work.
Simple.
Fun.
Done.
If I absolutely had to complain about something, I wouldn’t mind a few more attack combinations. Maybe give us a light and strong attack system or let holding the attack button change certain moves. Just something to add another layer to the combat.
But that’s me digging around the couch cushions looking for criticism because I feel obligated to find some.
I loved Marvel Cosmic Invasion, but more importantly, I think this should become an entire direction for superhero games.
Make a Guardians of the Galaxy version. Make a Wakanda game. Make an X-Men one. Fantastic Four. Midnight Sons. Street-level Marvel characters. Whatever.
You don’t need every superhero game to reinvent gaming.
Sometimes I just want 50 Marvel characters, a ridiculous number of levels, comic-accurate costumes, and permission to punch everything moving across the screen.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion struck gold.
Now please don’t do the videogame industry thing where you find gold, celebrate for five minutes, and then immediately start digging somewhere else.
World War Joe 