Captain America: Civil
War (CW) performed well at box office and pleased fans and critics
alike. It actually put the latest Big Event Marvel Movie, Avengers:
Age of Ultron (AOU) to shame… but one thing you might not have
noticed is that CW actually makes AOU a better movie. Granted this
would mean watching films over again and out of chronological order,
but as a Marvel fan that was probably going to happen anyway, wasn’t
it?
The major conflict in
CW is between Iron Man and Captain America, the breakdown of their
relation provided an emotional core to the film (“He’s my
friend…”) but seeing this play out adds context to the events of
Age Of Ultron. Civil War also puts more weight into these friends’ feelings, as
overall I think it handles characterisation much better. If you take
all this with you when you watch AOU again, you start to notice the bond between
Cap and Tony more and you dread what’s coming. It also means that
anytime in the film that they disagree you get a flash of that future
as AOU borrows the emotion of CW.
People had problems
with Black Widow in AOU, big problems. Personally, I felt I understood
her and how she would have at least believed she had feelings for
Banner… I did think we had moved past damsels in distress though. In
CW, Natasha seems to to be back on form and she has a clear bond with both teams, illustrated by callbacks to her appearances in Iron Man 2, Captain
America: Winter Soldier and Avengers. This bond allows her to see the
argument from both sides and apart from Tony she’s the only sign
that Iron Man’s team has a conscience/doubt about what they are doing.
Bearing this in mind AOU becomes a transformative phase for Black
Widow as she struggles with the monstrous things she has done in the
past and looks for a reason to fight going forward. I could even go
as far as to say her relationship with Banner was just a reflection
of, or a metaphor for, how she sees herself, the Hulk leaving at the
end of Age of Ultron becomes a new start for Nat.
Civil War lends a
personal cost to the events in Sokovia, the fact that it in part
prompted the accords shows how serious the situation was… yet there
didn’t seem much time spent on this in AOU, you kind of assume that
everyone survived and an already, mostly ruined down town disappears
off the map but the world is saved, so no problem… seeing the
future lets you see it in an all new light. It would have been a
powerful moment to see the Avengers fail at saving even one person,
the events of Civil War try to make up for this.
Having an extra film -full of content means we get to see more of the characters, naturally, but CW is also
filled with little in-character touches (like the ones we saw in Avengers) and I
wish we’d seen more in AOU. An extra two and a half hours of
time with our heroes does mean we know them better and care for them more than we
did before Age of Ultron, taking that with us means we see more
rounded and familiar characters in the film (AOU) than we did the first
time. On a similar note, these little touches also add to our picture
of the team dynamic for the previous film.
I’m deducting points
for this next one: Even through all the trauma and guilt that
Scarlet Witch faced in Civil War, she didn’t seem to be thinking
of her brother… it hasn’t been that long and there’s no sign of
how she feels about losing him. Maybe she knows something we done and maybe we can pretend he’s still
alive based on this “evidence”.
Watching Civil War you
get more of a look at Tony Stark's character, and you see some themes
that might not have been obvious before. CW highlights Tony's
attachment to the team, and how much they mean to him, it's even
clearer that he thinks of them as family... all of a sudden the
vision of dead Avengers that Stark sees in AOU becomes more powerful
and you can see how it could have made him panic and act
irrationally.
Civil War also gives us a look at Tony's family, and
he admits that he is still trying to cope with their loss, bearing
this in mind and looking at other MCU films you can see that Tony has
attempted to fill that void by becoming dependent on several
different things, always replacing one with something new. In the
first Iron Man movie he uses women, until his feelings for Pepper, a near death experience and
discovering his weapons are sold to terrorists put things into
perspective, then in Iron Man 2 he turns to alcohol rather than
facing the problem. Iron Man 3 and things are slipping as he's
dealing with his insignificance in the vastness of the universe. He
focuses on his suits until he realises that isn't the answer and
blows them up, he still calls himself Iron Man, maybe playing hero
adds to his self worth and having Pepper seems like enough. Then AOU
happens, he's terrified of losing his “family” and blames
himself, and no matter what he has to be the one to put things
right... this family bond is clearer after viewing CW. After
abandoning Pepper to go play hero and nearly causing the end of the
world in Age of Ultron, Civil War sees Tony with nothing left, except from that family and now
he'll do anything to keep it together, even blindly agreeing to the
Sokovia Accords and refusing to recognise that Cap is on a different mission. Once you know how much Stark depends on the Avengers, AOU
makes more sense... an already fragile man sees that he is going to
cause the end of the one thing that keeps him going... he might try
anything to protect it.
There you have it,
just like the Avengers themselves the movies are all stronger when
they stand together.
Think of anything I've
missed? Maybe you disagree? Let me know in the comments, and for more Marvel Content, including our Civil War Debate, check out the Marvel label/tag and our other blog posts!
The first mode you’ll be able to play is this new story mode, songs are separated into clouds and it’s your job to help Miku and Co sing well enough to restore the cloud and unlock the next one. On your first run through there’ll be regular breaks for visual novel style conversations, I like that they’re bringing more focus on the characters and while there’s some funny or cute moments it is a little underwhelming, I’d have preferred full blown cutscenes similar to the intro movie for each game. I was worried that splitting the songs into clouds to be unlocked in any order might cause problems for new players with massive difficulty spikes, although helpfully playing through once on easy is enough to unlock every cloud, every song (almost) and progress to the next phase of the story, no difficulty spikes in sight. Once you have restored each cloud you’re then free to pick which song, difficulty or challenge you want to do, and you’ll also have the songs unlocked in the more traditional free play mode.
Story also has a few bells and whistles over freeplay so it might be worth sticking around. For instance, equipping accessories will boost your score multiplier, if they match the theme of the cloud, making it easier to pass challenges and recharge the cloud. You can also equip new costumes called modules that add to this multiplier but also have special bonuses, such as extra points for long combos or a greater chance of a rare loot drop... Yes I said loot drop, story mode is the only mode where you have a chance of unlocking new modules (appropriately during chance time) and if you score high enough you’ll receive random accessories or gifts for your idols. I think this is a great addition, it removes the early grind for points of previous games, no more exiting the game to the shop menu, purchasing and going back into the game and with the attached bonuses there’s more reason to switch up gear and try new things. These small instant rewards are something we see more of in modern games, and that’s because they’re so effective at encouraging prolonged play... as if I wasn‘t addicted to these games already! One issue I have had with this customisation though is that during story songs the game wont automatically set the correct performer so at one point I had Miku playing all the male parts... rather confusing. There is a little symbol to match up while picking your module though so the game doesn't leave you completely clueless.
The problem trying to tie the TV shows to the movies extends further… you can see it in
the game… Agent Coulson gives you some hints while exploring and
there’s a bunch of Agents of SHIELD references. A retired Agent
Carter also gives you a good number of missions where she remembers a
time when she had that very fine hat, complete with references to her
TV show. Some of these are subtle inside jokes, but others could
leave players wondering “Are we supposed to know who/what that
is?”. This highlights just how much backstory the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) already has,
yet so much of it is inaccessible to the movies. People already
complain that a slight ex machina plot-hole in Age of Ultron was
filled by an episode of Agents of SHIELD.
You’ll also see
characters from each of Marvel’s current Disney XD cartoons, it
seems to be the reason for including characters such as Red Hulk and A-Bomb,
(one or two Guardians of The Galaxy characters also make an
appearance but these are comic book versions, not from the film or
cartoon) and a few others that seem like slightly odd inclusions even
considering the vast comic book history of the Avengers. There are
versions of Nova, Luke Cage and Iron Fist with at least one of them
seemingly based on the Ultimate Spider-Man version, White Tiger also
makes an appearance and even shares a voice actor with her animated
counterpart which makes it even stranger that there’s still no
Spider-Man, just his team. (UPDATE: A free add on has been
released featuring the webbed wonder, it's awesome but then they cant just
add DLC to the movies)
The Spider-man problem
extends to the movies. Now there is a deal with Sony to bring
Spider-man into the MCU but this emphasises the accessibility
problem, adding an extra layer of movies for fans to follow and it
still remains to be seen how cordoned off the Sony properties will
be. There's also the chance that the Sony led films don’t hold up to
the appeal and quality of the Marvel Studios movies, alienating more
fans from a considerable slice of the shared universe. It’s great
to see Spidey amongst other Marvel characters but it’s still to be
seen if this partnership will be smooth sailing or not.
Each tribe had its own
theme, this included the terrain of the level, the look and sound of
the lemmings and the super catchy background music. It helped to keep
the game fresh, plus if you got stumped on a level you could switch
to another tribe and see how far you could get with them.
The thing I really miss
though is all the other lemming abilities, being able to laser
through ceilings, fire bows and arrows, run, leap and pole vault over
obstacles, pouring glue, filler and sand everywhere was always fun
too. I'm not sure I ever got the hang of the likes of Super Lem and
the hang-glider but being able to blow lemmings and environmental
objects around with the fan tool added an extra level to the
gameplay. There were also more dynamic hazards. A Westie dog in the
highland levels and one of the space levels featured a Walker (last seen in my retro review in issue
9 of Niche: Treat Your Geek) , both attacked your lemmings as they walked past.
This brings me on to
another feature sadly absent from recent iterations, sandbox levels!
With so many new skills to master and the fan mechanic to get to
grips with the game provides practice areas with no goal to reach,
each level allowed you to pick whichever skills you want and then go
test them out, you could perfect the timing of your pole vaulters or
just see how many dumb ways to die you could find.
Hey, do you like
procedural crime dramas? Maybe some of those paranormal myth busting
programmes? What if somebody combined the two?
