Hi guys, and welcome to Game Box; a new series where I look at some of the games I’ve been playing recently since I finally have a console again. First up, I’m coming to be talking about the recent Open Beta for Gazillion Entertainment’s Marvel Heroes Omega.

Marvel Heroes Omega assembles one of the largest gatherings of iconic Super Heroes, Super Villains, and locations from the Marvel Universe in gaming history for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac.

Set in the iconic Marvel Universe, Marvel Heroes Omega combines the core game-play style of Action RPGs and MMOs with the expansive library of heroes from the Marvel Universe. In the game, players can collect and play as their favorite Marvel Super Heroes (including Iron Man, Thor, Wolverine, Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and many others).

Team up with friends and try to stop Doctor Doom from devastating the world with the power of the Cosmic Cube in a story written by Marvel comic super-scribe Brian Michael Bendis.

From moment one, you’re given a gorgeous introduction sequence featuring some pretty good 3D models and 2D animated sections retelling the origins of the more famous Marvel Heroes. A fair few of the cut scenes in-game follow a more motion comic style and while the blend of styles is a little jarring at first, I give the creators credit for trying something different.

The tutorial drops you in the middle of a mission with Captain America and allows you the time to figure out your buttons before setting you against Ultron and his minions. Each of your attacks is assigned to one of the four face buttons and you can bring up a secondary menu by holding L2. It’s an intuitive system to help console players easily access their full range of abilities that’s a staple of MMOs on consoles.

Throughout the tutorial, you’re given the ability to play as Cap, Black Widow and Hulk before they allow you to access the launch roster of heroes. It’s a right Who’s Who of MCU characters alongside more established characters. You get all the ones you know and then you get the likes of Wiccan, Squirrel Girl and Angela, which is cool. Given this is a Free-To-Play game, you’re given the opportunity to try before you buy any of these characters before Level 10 when you have to pick your starter character.

I eventually chose She-Hulk and upon entering the game proper, I noticed a cute quirk this game has. Depending on the characters in the vicinity, there are unique snippets of dialogue from both your character and those of other players. This gives the world a little more connectivity and hearing Shulkie interact with Gambit in the moments in the mission worlds or at the HQ is pretty fun. The voice cast for this game is exhaustive too, bringing in all the voices you’d associate with these characters from various animated shows as well as bringing in actors such as Clark Gregg and Keith David, voicing Agent Coulson and Nick Fury, respectively.

Being a FTP game, more heroes are unlocked through Founder’s Packs of various price points, by using Eternity Splinters or by accumulating the specfic in-game currency to buy them or unlock additional costumes. You can get an additional hero for nothing though, by downloading Daredevil for free and the additional Man Without Fear costume for free if you are a PS Plus member.

You can customise your heroes with character-specific loot drops for defeating enemies and augment their abilities through levelling or attaching Medallions from defeated super villains.

Given the amount of FTP MMO games on consoles at the moment, you could be forgiven for thinking this is just another but the game plays like the X-Men Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games, taking an isometric view of the action but adds the MMO component and the whole package feels a little like that Avengers Alliance game for its breadth of characters and customisation potential.

If you’re looking for a quick and fun MMO to get into or are jonesing for a Marvel game that isn’t on mobile (that’s me) then I recommend giving this game a shot. Marvel Heroes Omega is currently available for Open Beta on Playstation 4 and will be officially released on June 4 2017. For more details and updates, head over to the official website and be sure to follow the game’s Twitter.

The Mass Effect franchise holds a special place in my heart. It was the first X-Box 360 game I bought for the fledgling system back in 2008 and I bought the subsequent sequels on release day. I played Mass Effect 2 at least 8 times through (clocking in at an average of 40 hours per play through) and even played Mass Effect 3 a few times through; rounding out a trilogy that, overall, I will remember fondly. But now, after nearly ten years, it feels like we’ve come full circle.

Mass Effect: Andromeda released in the UK on the 23rd of March and after having spent roughly 33 hours exploring, fighting, and conversing my way through the brave new world that Bioware Montreal has created; I’m feeling less enthused and more indoctrinated.

Despite the early reviews and videos showing some very questionable facial animations and a rather plagiaristic plot line, I was excited for the newest instalment of Mass Effect and eagerly spent my money to pick it up day and date. The early hours showcased a lot of the bizarre facial expressions that I had come to expect and I pushed on and begin to enjoy myself.

The combat flowed nicely enough, the dialogue was engaging and this new universe was full of potential and wonder. And then it set in. The creeping realisation that, despite paying for a Bioware game, I was actually playing an Ubisoft game in Shepard’s clothing.

Unlocking towers to further story and unlock segments of the map? Check. Waves upon waves of palette-swapped enemies with little distinction between them? Check. Character’s faces melting off or outright disappearing from conversations? BIG CHECK. Turns out I’ve been playing Assassin’s Creed this entire time!

I cannot fathom what the Quality Assurance for this game must have been like but I can only assume the producers ignored any and all reports given to them because I have never played a game with so much polish and this many bugs, glitches and frame drops.

It’s a gorgeous game, there’s no denying that. The new Frostbite engine makes each of the playable worlds (a sadly small number) look uniquely stunning and is a large, expansive sandbox for Ryder and company to run around in but holy crap do the graphics start to become a problem when you get in close.

For one thing, did no one on the team pay attention to the dialogue sections of The Witcher III? Or even Mass Effect 2 and 3? Because the level of interaction is sub-Mass Effect 1, with characters standing stock-still, staring wall-eyed at each other like everyone is being held at gunpoint! No character emotes with their bodies, expresses an emotion besides mild befuddlement and don’t even get me started on Ryder’s head swivelling 180° to face the other way. Or characters will be embedded up to their shoulders in the floor. Or ten feet in the air. None of these issues should ever have made it past testing and the entire product is lesser for it.

Your new squad members, while an eclectic bunch of weirdoes, outcasts, and criminals, can be sadly mired in the trappings of the previous games vis-à-vis their gameplay roles. That said, it’s genuinely cool to enter a room on the Tempest and see your crew talking to each other, either about missions, politics or even race relations. Special mention goes to new Andromeda alien crew member Jaal (beautifully voiced by Nyasha Hatendi) and his place amongst the team. We’ve seen, and partnered, with so many aliens in the past that it’s refreshing to see a character taking the outsider’s perspective.

Now, it’s not all negative, as my love of Jaal shows, and a lot of the good in this game can be found in it’s gameplay. Eschewing cover shooting for a more run-and-gun style, battles can shift quickly and often, giving some of the more monotonous encounters some new ways to surprise you.

The Nomad is also a huge improvement on previous games’ exploration mechanics, leaning towards ME1’s Mako like it’s copying it’s homework; which isn’t a bad thing. Bombing around planets in the Nomad gives the adventurous feeling I was looking for and the multiple in-car conversations between squad-mates make it worth the trip rather than fast travelling.

I wish that flying between systems and planets was a little less loading screen intensive or was worth it most of the time (I’ve encountered three systems with little-to-nothing in terms of reason to be there) but once you’re there, it’s pretty fun, with multiple missions and tasks to be accomplished.

There’s a good game here. Yes, it’s taking a lot of cues from the original trilogy’s story and executing it with less style and the dialogue, character models and faces can be jankier than an Eastern European indie game but between fun gunplay, vehicle sections that are an absolute blast and crew members that can give you a genuine chuckle in between missions, I think there’s potential here.

As of time of writing, I’m nowhere near finished but if this is going to spin out into an all new trilogy then, in the spirit of the original Mass Effect and this wild new frontier, I can only hope that the hardships now lead to a better future.

75915 Pteranodon Capture is the entry level set for the brand new LEGO Jurassic World line and my excitement level is super high right now because, as everyone knows, the only thing better than LEGO and dinosaurs are LEGO DINOSAURS! Let’s sink our teeth into our first look at this new range!

Oh my, this box is tasty. The scaly design in a fetching blue with red accents just makes is a lovely design choice that tickles my fancy in just the right way. I also love the doofy LEGO T-Rex in the corner. Even the reverse depicts the action features of the set with no muss or fuss, as well as detailing what other dinos are available!

Included are two baggies with 174 pieces all together, instructions and stickers. There’s also a little box that contains the two halves of the Pteranodon head, which presumably would protect the printing.

The set includes two minifigures and one dinosaur. On the minifigure front, we have Simon Masrani and an ACU security guard. The ACU is quite generic, with a single panicked expression but the detail on his uniform is really nice and you even get a flak jacket with ACU printed on it and he is armed with a tranq gun. Simon Masrani looks like a dirtbag and that sells his character way before I even read up on the character and found out he’s the unscrupulous owner of Jurassic World who cares more about profit than safety. See? Dirtbag. To sell his character so well with no prior knowledge of the movie shows that the designers really do a great job anthropomorphising these minifigs.

The Pteranodon is made up of five parts and is the same mould as used in the Dino theme from 2012. It looks amazing and it’s proportions make it quite the intimidating creature when scaled with a minifigure. The head portions and wings are made of a sturdy yet malleable rubber for safety reasons while the main body is made with regular plastic. It looks majestic and even a little menacing.

The first 34 steps consist of the core skeleton of the helicopter. It uses many elements that I didn’t think would be used in the finished vehicle. The tail section especially does things that I wouldn’t expect, forming a much more cohesive profile than the pieces would suggest. I wouldn’t expect a standard wheel axle or an upside down sharp piece to make this look good but it does! There’s a single green piece that doesn’t really make sense to me but I’m sure there’s a reason for its inclusion.

In the rest of the build, there’s some more interesting pieces as the action features are introduced. The fold-out gunner platform is a simple hinged door but the folding gun emplacement, using the new stud shooters for extra firepower (and they include extra studs!). The net launcher is interesting purely because the bulk of it is made from a jet turbine. I’d have never thought to use the piece in this manner but it looks pretty slick! I’m also impressed with the rotor blades, looking the sleekest and uniform of any rotor blades I’ve seen on a LEGO helicopter.

Jurassic One is ready to go! The finished vehicle is a bulky little workhouse but it’s such a cohesive little chunk that I can’t help but adore it. I’ve neglected to mention it until now but that blue is so vibrant and I love it! The rotor blades and action features add a ton of playability to this set and I can imagine all the fun a new generation of Jurassic Park fans will have with this new range.

75915 Pteranodon Capture retails for £19.99 and I can endorse picking this set up because of the price point but some people may want to save up for one of the larger sets that includes the main heroes of the film. Keep an eye on the tree-line because we’re not quite done with Jurassic World yet so I’ll catch you guys next time for another Mint in Box!

LEGO Minifigures Code Redemption: lego.com/minifigures

The Marvel Super Heroes line debuted in 2012 and much like the Batman/DC line before it, it proved to be a smash hit with kids and adults alike, spawning dozens of sets and even a video game, which is where today’s review comes in.

76016 Spider-Helicopter Rescue is inspired by the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes video game, or to be more accurate, one of the many vehicles within the game. There are two sets in the current Marvel line up that feature Spider-Man with vehicles from the game, the other being 76014 Spider-Trike vs. Electro. Both of these sets also fall under the “Ultimate Spider-Man” subline so it’s drawing inspiration from both the video game and the TV show of the same name.

The box includes three bags of parts, two instruction booklets, a decal sheet and a comic, detailing the adventure and features of the three Ultimate Spider-Man LEGO sets. It’s a fun little extra that I really liked! But on to the minifigures!

This set features Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson, Power Man and Ultimate Green Goblin. The latter three are exclusive to this set and ol’ Goblin is our very first Big ‘Fig! I initially wanted to review either this set or the Hulk Lab Smash set just so I had an excuse to cover this kind of minifigure. He’s almost twice the size of standard minifigs and can even hold minifigures in their hands! Mary Jane has a pretty sweet Spidey-Heart torso piece, as well as a double-sided face, and I’m always happy to see Luke Cage (Power Man) get more publicity. If there’s one weakness, it’s Spider-Man. There’s nothing inherently wrong with his design, it’s a problem that LEGO has in general with tampographing white over red plastic. It’s comes off as a rather faint pink and is a problem I’ve encountered before in the Minifigure Collection (looking at you, Series 8 Santa). A nice little quartet, despite a minor flaw.

The first bag of parts is used to build up the Goblin Glider and since we’re dealing with with a Big ‘Fig, this is much more robust and heavy duty than you’d expect. They do a great job of making the glider look aerodynamic, despite it having to fly a pretty heavy dude around. It’s even labelled as Oscorp tech so I guess Norma Osborn isn’t being subtle as this Goblin! It’s surprisingly heavy once complete and Goblin is riding on top. My tamashii stand was buckling under it’s weight until I tightened up the joints! It also includes flick missiles on the wing arms.

The second bag consists of constructing the cockpits and the weapon pods. This is the bulk of the helicopter build but uses smaller parts instead of the larger pieces we’ll see later on. I was surprised to see that Spider-Man’s cockpit has no real floor, just two studs to stand on to allow for the web swinging delpoyment gimmick. The weapons pods are almost identical apart from the interior mechanisms.

The third, and final, bag consist of the largest pieces and the main components for the rotors and tail fins. These are pretty big parts, much larger than anything I’ve handled before (Careful now) but really give the vehicle it’s shape. The rotor spins especially well once completed and added to the top of the build. The cockpit’s windshields are also added in this section and their curves really help this bird look it was built for speed. The Spider-Copter was definitely too large and heavy for my stand so I had to resort to posing it on a box.

Overall, the set is brilliant. It’s an engaging, fun to build set that can be done in around an hour-hour and a half and has a lot of built-in play features. The Spider-Copter’s weapons work pretty well and the webbing net launches much further than even the flick missiles. The web swing delployment isn’t really necessary but I can see why they added it. This is the first LEGO Super Heroes set I’ve reviewed and I had a lot of fun doing it. I hope to do more in the future. 76016 Spider-Helicopter Rescue retails for around £44.99 and is worth every penny in my eyes.