MARVEL Cosmic Invasion - Cyclops & The Thing Review

MARVEL Cosmic Invasion was released on the 1st of December; we are now at the end of May, and the first DLC with two new playable characters, Cyclops from X-Men and The Thing from Fantastic Four, is now available to add to the roster of playable heroes, bringing the total up to 17.

The first character we meet is fan favourite Scott Summers, who is the leader of the X-Men and has the mutant ability to fire blasts of kinetic energy from his eyes. To contain this, he wears special ruby quartz lenses until he is ready to battle.

For his basic attack, he uses punches combined with little plasma blasts from his eyes that work great as a ranged attack to hit foes at a distance. Cyclops’ bigger attack is the Optic Blast, which can be charged by holding the button down to fire off a beam that can also be shot upwards to hit aerial enemies. When combined with a jump, the shots maintain Cyclops in the air with a Hover Blast.

Cyclops’ dodge move is one of the most useful ones in MARVEL Cosmic Invasion, as he slides away from danger while he is firing off an energy blast at the same time to hit any foes he passes, so it feels very useful. Energy Rush is his special move, requiring focus that blasts a beam across the stage to take out anything that touches it. This is a powerful attack dealing a lot of damage, and it looks super cool as you move it around the screen.

The next character is The Thing, this stony hero from The Fantastic Four is incredibly strong. Besides his regular punch, Ben Grimm uses his super strength to take out the insectoids. Whether it be a grab where he nabs the enemy and throws them into the ground or when it's combined with a charged punch, it creates the Hammer Slam. When The Thing has enough focus, his special move is the Spinning Lariat, where he spins so fast he becomes a tornado that you control to smash into enemies.

The one move I really enjoyed is his vertical attack. When The Thing jumps and attacks, he rolls into a ball like he is doing a cannonball into a pool and bounces around, crashing into everything and anyone around him. He doesn't bounce very high, so you can get over enemies carrying shields, but if you get behind them and hold down the punch, it's clobbering time!

Both characters look like they belong in the roster with all the other Marvel heroes, with their design being crisp and vibrant. Both have great voice acting with lines like Cyclops’ “Get out of my sight!” before blasting them and the iconic “Don’t they know what time it is? It’s clobbering time!” from The Thing. These quips are great and give the characters a lot of personality!

Each of the new heroes comes with seven different skins you can equip them with to change their appearance. Of course, the ‘90s X-Men costume is my favourite for Cyclops; that cartoon is so good! Then for The Thing, the coolest-looking one is where he looks like he is made of rock and magma.

I had a lot of fun playing with these new characters, especially The Thing, which really surprised me! I think this is a great DLC pack that Marvel fans will enjoy, especially with the multiple skins included for each character. The one disappointing part about this DLC pack is that there are no new stages based on these characters. I also expected that the new heroes would be snuck into the opening cut scene, but they weren't.