Marvel Contest of Champions

There’s a contest taking place in which you might want to take part. It’s the contest to decide Earth’s future: winner takes all and the losers will become part of the Collector’s ever growing collection of fighters. On one side, there’s Kang the Emperor; on the other, there’s the Summoner – you. And the entire process is being overseen by The Collector, conducted against the will of the champions forced to fight against you.

The Collector has an impressive line-up under his control. He starts out by lending you Thor to practice with; apparently he’s fussy about damaging his toys though, as once you are through the initial tutorial, you’re stuck with Spider Man. Spider-Man is no slouch in battle, but he’s no Thor either. it doesn’t really matter though, as you can collect more champions and increase their power as you go. Wolverine, for example, was added quickly to the Summoner’s champions list to bulk up the team, and more can be added as you go along, found inside crystals you collect as you complete challenges.

Winning battles and completing quests increases your XP, which raises the Summoner level, and earns you gold and ISO-8, which can be used to upgrade individual fighters.

Ranking up means your special abilities, such as regeneration, will also become more powerful.

Combat is reasonably simple. You can block and attack, with some special moves too. To unleash those special moves, you need to build up enough power by successfully landing attacks ranging from light – a tap on the right of the screen – to heavy, by tapping and holding. A swipe in either direction allows you to dodge attacks or dash towards your enemy.

Quests are initially easy and completed with relatively little effort at the start, but get progressively harder as you go. It can get a bit monotonous after a while though - attack, block, special move, repeat - so playing in small chunks is probably the only way to beat that particular challenge.

You can also opt for the versus battles, which pit you against other online players.

You’ll also need a persistent internet connection to play, regardless of whether you are efollowing the quest or battling human player, so forget it if you want to use this anywhere that the wifi or mobile signal isn’t strong. This can get particularly frustrating at times, with the game stuck in a loading loop that keeps informing you it can’t log in, over and over again.

An interesting diversion for Marvel fans that could be improved with a few tweaks.