While it’s definitely true that Marvel Heroes doesn’t have the graphical fidelity of a DII Resurrected or Path of Exile 2, I still think that it looks quite good in places. Especially the various set pieces scattered across the story campaign, like this rune pattern created by the Bifrost for example, look pretty awesome.
Speaking of the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge connecting Himinbjorg and Odin’s palace looks great, too, and also grants a nice view of Asgard’s lower levels.
I really like how the game manages to convey a sense of height despite being essentially two-dimensional. When you’re running across rooftops it really feels like you could fall down at any moment if not careful.
They also did a good job with getting the locations to look right. The scene above is supposed to take place in New York City, and I actually would have guessed that if I hadn’t known.
This, on the other hand, is Madripoor, which would be located in south east asia if it was a real place. I’ve not yet been to Singapore myself, but I’ve absolutely seen places in Vietnam and Hong Kong that strongly resemble this.
This was taken somewhere in Asgard, I believe, and I just find it pretty. It’s also uncharacteristically tranquil for a game that usually has more action and mayhem going on than basically any other I’ve played.
The bulk of the action in Marvel Heroes takes place outdoors, but I like the few interior sets we get to see a lot. They’re all quite detailed and, shall we say, tastefully decorated.
Of course once the action starts they get absolutely shredded to pieces within seconds. I do appreciate having the ability to destroy a game’s environment (anyone else looking forward to Battlefield 6, by the way? Oh, look, Naithin does!), but here it’s almost a pity to wreck these beautiful places.
Almost.
This cold room gave me lots of Predator 2 vibes, but unfortunately (or fortunately…) there weren’t any invisible, discus-throwing aliens around.
In hindsight, the screenshot I used when talking about loot explosions in my first impressions piece (after a nine-year hiatus we can call them “first” impressions, no?) was much too tame of an example. So here’s a better one, taken in Castle Doom’s throne room right after whupping the good Doctor’s ass. I still get a kick out of gobbling up those XP bubbles.
The wanton destruction wasn’t on me this time, in case you’re wondering. What can I say, that’s what you get for messing around with the fabric of the multiverse.
So, yeah, doesn’t look too shabby, now does it?
Nevertheless this will probably be my last post about Marvel Heroes for a while. Not because I don’t enjoy it anymore, but a) I’ll be on vacation starting tomorrow, and b) the other day I finally caved and bought a game I’d been very intrigued about for quite a while, and so far I’m really liking it.
Another week, another character for me to play in Marvel Heroes – this time around it’s Moon Knight’s turn. Once again I was inspired to try out someone new by seeing him do his thing in the live-action adaptation made by Marvel Studios.
I couldn’t tell you whether it’s actually any good as an adaptation because I know nothing about the comics, but the show in and of itself is absolutely brilliant in my opinion.
It’s very much carried by Oscar Isaac, who plays the character(s) to perfection. The way he switches from Marc Spector to Steven Grant or vice versa in a heartbeat, completely changing his accent and speech melody, as well as his whole demeanor and body language, is nothing short of amazing. Sometimes you can see the transition in his eyes alone! I liked him as an actor before, but this performance easily made him one of my favourites.
As I’m a big fan of ancient egyptian mythology, Moon Knight’s adventures also get bonus points from me for their themes and setting. In any case, I can strongly recommend watching the show if you haven’t yet.
“Oh, the idiot’s in control…” “I heard that!” *angrily shakes his fist*
So what about the ARPG’s take on Khonshu’s avatar?
I think he’s really fun. Unlike some other heroes he isn’t more or less locked into either melee or ranged combat, as he’s got various abilities of both flavors at his disposal. He can even morph some of them into one or the other via his talents and traits, which are unlocked from level 32 onward.
When fighting up close he uses weapons like truncheons, nunchucks and a bo staff, while depending on his signature crescent blades for ranged combat. Strangely, some skills have him shoot those blades out of a pair of pistols. I don’t know how that’s supposed to work, but I assume that it’s canon.
“Did he just throw the gun??” Well, not exactly…
His unique resource is called Khonshu’s Favor. It starts out empty, and some abilities build it up over time. Once at 100% he can use either of two spenders (or both at the same time if specced for it), which completely depletes all favor and gives him big buffs for quite a while.
What’s great about this is that most of his skills need no resources whatsoever, so you can basically use everything off cooldown, and spam those that don’t have one endlessly.
His signature ability is a barrage of very quick attacks with a big finisher at the end. This one, too, can be switched between melee and ranged, and while the former does more damage I prefer the latter as it’s much easier (and also safer) to use. You can “weave” it around a bit if you’re quick, but in essence it’s a single-target skill, which is quite unusual for a signature. The upside is that it literally melts bosses…well, not literally, but…you know what I mean…and that’s a trade-off I’m very willing to make.
His Ultimate, however, is by no means lacking in room clearing capability, as it peppers a pretty large area with gunfire and rockets for 20 seconds straight. You can still move and attack with your other skills in the meantime, too. Great stuff.
Call in the Batwing…err…I mean, the “Moon Copter”
I gotta say, I really appreciate how unique every hero I’ve tried up to now plays and feels. I believe they doubled down on this when they released the BUE (Biggest Update Ever) in January ’17, and while that patch was met with a ton of criticism by the playerbase as well, I think they did a good job in this regard at the very least.
I also really like how much control I have over each character’s specific playstyle. The aforementioned traits – it’s basically a talent tree that lets you choose one out of three options every few levels – offer more substantial alterations to a hero’s kit than most games do. Said switching between melee and ranged capabilities, or giving an attack a huge damage boost and additional DoT in exchange for a longer cooldown are just a few examples.
Granted, I’ve only scratched the surface so far, what with 58 more heroes waiting to be played. But, again, the ones I have given a shot are really unique and fun, and Moon Knight is no exception.
“What are we wearing??” “She said I needed a suit.” “Yeah, the ceremonial armor from Khonshu’s temple, not psycho Colonel Sanders!”
Basically the only thing that he’s lacking is a high-quality costume based on his signature armor from the show – which is no surprise of course, as the game was shut down five years before that even came out. Fortunately the one I’m wearing on all screenshots seen in this post, based on Steven Grant’s version of MK (known as “Mr. Knight”, I believe), comes pretty close to the one Oscar Isaac wears when Steven’s in charge, so that’s at least something.
Anyway, that’s enough for today. Now please go and visit Project T.A.H.I.T.I., so you too can play this awesome game again (or for the first time). The more the merrier!
Well, hello there. It’s Introduce Yourself Week in Blaugustland, so: hi! I’m Mailvaltar, and I like, from time to time, to rant about stuff other people do or say that annoys me. This is such a time. Don’t say you’ve not been warned.
*Takes a deep breath*
No matter the game or genre, but especially regarding MMOs or “live service games”, players often talk about this or that being free, and I can’t help but wonder if they actually think that to be true.
I mean, nothing really ever is, is it?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about powering up your PC costing electricity and stuff like that (although it obviously does). I’m pedantic, but not that pedantic.
But still, in my opinion rewards you only get if you do something, even if it’s just logging in, aren’t free.
It’s lying! Even the top row isn’t “free”, it just doesn’t cost any real money
The idea for this post came to me when I recently watched someone review other players’ Zenless Zone Zero accounts (yep, that’s a thing in gacha game circles). Several times during the video the host says that this character or that weapon should totally be leveled up to the maximum because “it’s a free power upgrade”.
If you’ve played any gacha game before I don’t need to tell you this, but in case you haven’t: the resources to level stuff up are far from being free!
Now, I know what they mean by saying that. To farm for things in this type of game you need stamina (in ZZZ it’s called battery charge), which replenishes on its own over time. So, technically speaking, given enough time you have a virtually unlimited amount at your disposal, which of course cannot be said about gacha currency, hence the distinction.
However, in reality there’s quite a bunch of caveats to calling those upgrade mats “free”.
I sure as hell didn’t get all this just because I’m such a nice guy
For one, your stamina pool always has a cap. Usually it’s 24 hours worth of recharge, sometimes even less, which means that you have to spend it very regularly in order to use as much as the game is willing to hand out to you.
More importantly though, to spend stamina you actually have to, you know, do stuff. I mean, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?
Now, granted, in ZZZ I can burn six hours’ worth of battery in about ten seconds if I’m in a hurry (or actually need and want just the most basic of materials), but even that can become a chore if done each and every day. Hell, spending my stamina in Genshin Impact became such a burden after a while that I had to quit playing altogether for a long time. But to my point, even if stuff like this does only take a couple of minutes each day – that’s still not fricking free!
Even adopting a cute cat was a lot of work, believe you me
But what about rewards I get just for logging in – those are surely freebies, aren’t they?
Well, here’s the thing. The idea behind all of this, whether it’s “only” farming a bunch of stages for a couple of minutes or even “just” logging in, is that at least some players will not immediately log out again. Since I’m already here, they might say to themselves, maybe I’ll also take a quick peek at the new event, or whatever. And before they know it they’ve spent an hour or more in the game. And time, seemingly contrary to some people’s opinion, is neither free nor without value.
Sometimes the incentive to log in can be so big that it might lead to stuff happening that you didn’t actually want to happen at all. Here’s an example. A couple of weeks ago an email informed me about ZZZ celebrating its first anniversary by gifting everyone an S-rank character and weapon of their choosing from the standard pool.
I wasn’t going to play that game anymore (I even said so not too long ago), but this? Well, guess what…I re-installed and patched up the ~70 GB client, claimed the “free” stuff and then thought to myself, well, now I kinda want to try them out, and let’s have a look at what’s new in the game, too, and…sure enough I went and played the game for many hours over the following couple of weeks.
They sure know how to tug those heartstrings
As long as I’m having fun that’s not actually a bad thing though, is it?
Not really, no. Playing the story chapters I’d missed, visiting new areas and doing some events really was quite fun. However, considering that I’d much rather play Marvel Heroes right now, the fact that they’ve managed to pull me back in, and that I now feel almost obligated – again – to at least log in and spend some battery every day (and tend to my video store, and hang out with my agents, and…see what I mean?) does bug me quite a bit.
And, yeah, that’s completely on me, I do realize that. Nobody forces me to do anything. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who’s susceptible to these practices though – which is exactly why they exist in the first place of course. That’s why we should stop pretending (or actually believing) that it’s all completely harmless, and that game developers give so much stuff away solely out of the kindness of their hearts.
That all being said, I’m not here to tell you that you shouldn’t enjoy collecting login rewards, spending your stamina or whatever. If those things make you happy and don’t lure you into spending your time on gameplay you don’t actually fancy doing, more power to you.
But please, let’s stop calling stuff free when it actually isn’t.
My Marvel movie watching binge is still in full swing. Having concluded the Avengers timeline…Thanos timeline…whatever you wanna call it, I’m now revisiting the few good flicks operating outside of that. Ok, if you also count the X-Men franchise it’s actually more than a few, but I’ve watched those too recently to go back to them yet again.
So I’m mostly talking about stand-alone entries now. For example, I still quite enjoy Punisher: War Zone (rest in peace, Ray Stevenson), and just the other day I had an absolute blast with 2018’s Venom once again.
Since I’d just hit level cap with the Punisher in Marvel Heroes I thought, well, what better time to give everyone’s favourite symbiote a spin. Boy, what a great decision that was.
WE are Venom!
Like many heroes (or villains…depending on who you ask, I guess) he has his own mechanics and special resource to go along with it. Actually he has two resources to manage, because some of his abilities consume his own hitpoints, and also deal more damage the less he has left. To make permanently running around on low health feasible he’s a pretty tanky dude, and I’m looking forward to how this feels at higher levels.
His unique resource is called Ichor, and it looks the part. Yuck. Thankfully it starts at full when you enter a level, unlike, say, Scarlet Witch’s Chaos Energy, which has to be built up first (I don’t know her full kit though, so take this with a grain of salt).
Consequently you can go all-in right from the start, spending Ichor as well as hitpoints galore. As long as you weave in abilities that recharge at least one or the other, depending on what you need, you should be good.
Have a nice life
Most importantly, it plays well, and also looks and feels really great. It’s hard to get good screenshots of it, because his powers move so damn fast and twitchy (as they should), but I hope it comes across at least somewhat on the ones I’m showing here.
So many snacks, so little time
Having played a new (to me) hero for a couple of hours now has also highlighted some more aspects of the game where the developers went the extra mile to make each of them unique and fun.
For example, every character has a basic movement ability right from the start. It’s basically a short dash, meant to get out of harm’s way quickly. The Punisher does a forward roll, Captain America lunges with his shield held in front of him, Venom shoots a tendril of ichor and then pulls himself after it. Some are too lazy to move on their own and just teleport.
It gets really crazy at level 10 though, when everyone gets their “travel power”. These aren’t for combat (they even have a short cast-time), but they’re a godsend for traversing the huge maps quickly. And I mean quickly. I really wish every ARPG had something like this, because not only takes it the sting out of any backtracking you might have to do, it’s also fun as hell!
Cap and the Punisher just sprint really fast, Blade, Wolverine and Ghost Rider…well, ride their motorbikes, while Iron Man, Wanda and others fricking fly (Ant-Man rides a flying ant of course)! It’s not just for show either. While they can’t go over higher obstacles like freight containers or buildings, getting to another floor level or from rooftop to rooftop without taking the stairs or bridges is no problem. And as for Venom, well…
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Holy macarony, how awesome is that? I assume Spidey and Carnage do something similar. Mechanically it’s the same as flying, so bonus points for that.
Of course each hero also has their own lore-appropriate ultimate ability. Iron Man activates the House Party Protocol, the Punisher calls in an armored and armed-to-the-teeth van that would make B.A. Baracus blush, and Cap…take a guess…AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!
They’re really powerful, too. To balance that they have a whopping 10 minute cooldown to begin with, but you can shave that down to 7 or so (I think) by upgrading it.
Hell yeah, THAT’S what I’m talking about
Another cute tidbit is how heroes automatically talk to each other when they meet in the hub areas. When I’m standing around with the Punisher and an Iron Man walks by, my guy says “You should stick to making the hardware, Stark, not using it!”, for example.
Sure, stuff like that can get repetitive after a while, but I usually can’t help but chuckle at the amount of snark these guys have for one another. I wonder whether this is where the Overwatch devs took their inspiration from, because those heroes do it in quite a similar fashion.
Now you’ll have to excuse me though, those bad guys aren’t gonna bite off their heads themselves…
I’ve recently felt the urge to re-watch my favourite Marvel flicks once more. As it turns out they really knew how to make fricking awesome movies during the first ten years or so – in my opinion, obviously – and I’ve now binged on over a dozen of them in less than three weeks.
In addition to just enjoying the experience, seeing Cap, Iron Man et al. in action also made me reminisce about a great game that actually let us play all those characters and was really fun while it lasted – Marvel Heroes.
As a fan of both the movies and the ARPG genre I obviously had to check it out back in the day, and while it wasn’t quite as good as Diablo II or Path of Exile I still liked it a lot. They totally nailed the feel of playing those iconic heroes, which is arguably the most important thing to get right for a game with a license like this.
Before I knew it I was investigating the possibility of playing the game in 2025, and lo and behold, there’s actually a number of fan projects in various states of completion and with different server concepts to choose from.
About two hours later (because I first had to procure the right version of the original game client) I’d created an account for Project T.A.H.I.T.I. and started to punch and shoot my way through Hydra’s henchmen once again.
By now I’ve played the Punisher up to level 57, Iron Man to 26 and Cap to 20, and I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t just nostalgia that drew me back to the game – it still holds up really well. Sure, the graphics aren’t that great, and it doesn’t feel as polished and smooth as the aforementioned kings of the genre either, but, again, being able to play these iconic characters totally makes up for that.
Insert obligatory CLANG sound effect
As far as I can tell this is the game just as it was right before its shutdown in 2017, but with a few important distinctions.
Most notably, all heroes are unlocked from the get-go. I haven’t counted, but if memory serves it’s 63 of them, and you can play each and every one to level cap if you so desire without paying a dime. As a matter of fact it’s currently not possible to spend any money period, not even donations are a thing. I don’t know whether that’s going to change once they release the 1.0 version, I guess we’ll see.
Speaking of which, the game is currently in alpha, with the launch slated for “early 2026”, and while they’re saying that there won’t be regular wipes until then, there will be one wipe prior to 1.0 going live.
Due to this, since I’m not one of those ARPG players who basically live for starting over from scratch every few months, I’m probably not going all-in quite yet, but for the time being I’ll continue to play. It’s just that much fun!
Like I said, the heroes feeling absolutely great to play is a big contributor to that. They achieved this by various means. For one, they got the animations and sounds right, especially for the main characters from the movies. Cap’s awesome flying reverse kick (or whatever it’s supposed to be called) from his fight against Batroc looks basically the same in game, and you can almost feel the impact when it hits. Many ability names are winks and nods to the films as well, like Cap’s sprint “On your left” or Iron Man’s 360-degree laser attack “One-Off”.
But wait, there’s more. Many a hero’s kit was specifically designed to fit what they do mechanically. To use the Punisher, my main in 2015 and probably again now, as an example: instead of having a mana/energy gauge and abilities with individual cooldowns he has an ammo system, and his big hitters can only be used a certain amount of times per reload cycle.
Consequently playing him revolves around using his basic MG stafing attack (at my current level it’s a fricking minigun!), which consumes a certain amount of ammo per second, and weaving in his various grenades, rockets, shotguns and whathaveyou until you have, optimally, used up all the things and also expended at least 75% of the ammo. Then you can hit his quick reload with a reduced cooldown, rinse and repeat. I really like this playstyle because it gives me a lot of agency, and aside from his signature-ability I basically never have to wait out any cooldowns.
If this doesn’t sound fun to you, well, there are 62 other heroes to check out, many of whom play very differently.
Instead of energy or ammo the Hulk has a rage meter that starts out empty and has to be filled up before he can smash, Blade needs to keep his bloodthirst in check, and Deadpool…well, he doesn’t need to manage anything. He just kicks ass, and where his ammo gauge should be you just see his logo, which, if you hover over it, says “Awesome 100/100”. Raise this stat (as you would energy), and all of his damage increases, just because. How cool is that?
There’s much variety on offer here, is what I’m saying, so any ARPG connoisseur should find something to enjoy.
Just as important for an ARPG is the loot, and boy, I’d totally forgotten how good the game feels in this regard. It’s quite addicting, really. Now, granted, there’s a lot of crap lying around, too, but after a short while I was already back in the groove of what to pick up and what to hoover in (to automatically be fed to your pet for additional stat bonuses).
There’s also a lot to work towards long-term. For example, each character has a Relic slot. These drop semi-rarely and give pretty minor stat buffs at first glance…until you realize that you can stack up to 1,000 of the same type on top of each other. One thousand! Which means that even at low levels you’ll find stuff that will basically be of use to you until the end of time, which I think is very good game design.
My favourite thing are the XP bubbles (the green ones seen above). It feels so damn satisfying to see them pop out of chests or enemies, then to walk over them and watch the XP rolling in. Sure, some players may find this annoying and unnecessary, but I prefer this over XP just getting added to my total whenever an enemy dies. I don’t know, seeing these bubbles drop and then collecting them somehow makes the whole thing feel more tangible and rewarding to me. Also, it makes the already impressive loot explosions even more ridiculous.
Speaking of loot, a handful of little treasure rooms are spread out over each of the bigger areas. In there you just have to kill two or three groups of enemies to spawn yet another loot chest. I like these a lot because it’s a quick and easy way to grab even more stuff and XP, and more importantly, as their entrances don’t always lie directly on the path to your next main objective, they reward exploration and let me see parts of the map that I’d otherwise miss.
By now I’ve also started to do Terminals and One-Shots again, which are the game’s version of instanced dungeons and…well…bigger dungeons with a bit of story. It’s all quite addicting, really, but in a good way. Just like an ARPG should be.
Long story short, yeah, Marvel Heroes is still a great game, and as far as I’m concerned Project T.A.H.I.T.I. is, in fact, a magical place. I’m here to stay!
Mailvaltar 