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MARVEL GAMES PANEL (Thursday – Hall H) You know SDCC infamous’ Hall H is getting desperate when they move Marvel Games into the cavernous area. Especially when Marvel Games’ hard-hitting news is some DLC content, a champion competition, updated (OK, fine.. better) information on Marvel’s Avengers and a jersey announcement for Team Liquid. I kid you not.
MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: THE BLACK ORDER
We begin our panel with moderator and Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller who brought on Marvel Games’ creative director Mark Sumerak. With the game soon launching, I mean, like, tonight, there was not much news to share besides some DLC content and a never before shown playable character.
For the first time ever, Loki will be a playable character in the game. During the panel they showed his mix of powers from his Frost Giant-themed ice powers mixed with his trickster illusions.
Also announced was the roster for the first DLC with Marvel Knights: Moon Knight, Blade, Moebious, and The Punisher. The last announcdment was that Cyclops and Colossus will be free downloads on August 30th. So we’re off to a fine, albeit safe start. Time to go pick up my pre-order among the Comic-Con chaos.
MARVEL CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS
Mobile games! Yay! … Starting after this convention ends and leading up to NYCC, Contest of Champions will be running Summoner Showdown. This huge event will lead up to the top 9 survivors and highest champions flown to NYC (during the convention) to battle it out at Marvel’s home office, with a fully paid for trip to the Big Apple. Alright, alright. Maybe someone in the audience cares. Someone.
IRON MAN VR
Although Virtual Reality is hard to tease to an audience of thousands in the first place, not much was shown on this future PlayStation VR exclusive. But, I was able to get some hands-on experience with it at the Marvel booth on the Comic-Con floor. For the panel, Miller brought out the Creative Director and Camouflaj’s Ryan Payton for the game.
Payton would delve into his initial pitch and how Marvel gave him two goals with the game: to create realistic, flying as Iron Man and free-form gameplay that would allow the players to go anywhere in an open world. Within two weeks Payton met those two concepts in spades and sold Marvel on the game. While I don’t necessarily “VR” at home, I definitely understand the excitement of Iron Man VR for those nerds who do.
MARVEL’S AVENGERS
Here we go. To start off the final portion of this truly epic, once-in–lifetime Marvel Games panel, Shaun Escaye from Crystal Dynamics was introduced to the Hall H stage alongside the full VO cast from the game. The main news? Those face mod.. No, I kid; I kid. Read Moody’s E3 rant if that’s what you’re here for.
For Comic-Con, we get the news that Marvel’s Avengers will allow us to assemble online with buddies to form the Avengers, and our superheros will have full customization. Now this is easily the best part. Crystal Dynamics actually showed off glimpses of the different costumes available at launch, with promises of DLC for years to come.
To give you a hint of what duds players can sport, the panel revealed glimpses of Hulk’s Joe Fixer and Planet Hulk garb, Thor’s full viking wardrobe, and Cap having a ton of classic looks to choose from. This followed some very solid, extended footage not seen at E3. Who’d a thought the Marvel’s Avengers portion of the panel would help raise my expectations for the release and somewhat save an otherwise meh Hall H experience? 2.5/5 Comic Con Exclusives.
-Lance Paul