2014 is the Year of DS. Why? Because I said so! The important thing is that I'm blogging.

There have been three DS games released in North America this year so far. Today we'll look at the first and probably least terrible of these releases: Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril.

Was that released this year? Yes, the DS version was. While the console and other portable versions were released last year, the DS version was delayed to February and immediately dumped into the bargain bin. And then I bought it. But hey, I like the Lego games, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes in particular. I should enjoy this, if the port is in fact any good.

It's not a direct port of the console versions. It's more like the sort of ports we got during the Game Boy Advance era. It follows the story of the console versions, but the levels are shorter and there's no overworld. The levels are viewed from an isometric perspective, but also rendered in 3D which is an unusual choice. There are fewer playable characters. Oh, and you can't jump.

You can't jump.

Some characters can fly, but no characters can jump. You can try to jump. Press the B button and your character dodges. Yeah, that's useful occasionally. But how am I going to cross this short gap? You fly there, that's how. Swipe up on the touch screen and your character will start hovering above the ground and you can cross gaps and reach higher areas and stuff, but it's error prone. Too often my character would fail to respond and I'd get beaten up by enemies as I tried unsuccessfully to get airborne.

And then I die. Unlike other Lego games, you don't immediately respawn with less studs (currency) when you die. You just die, and you have to restart the level over. It's a good thing the levels are short.

Actually, each of the console levels is split into three levels in this version, which is part of why they're so short. There's a world equivalent to a level in the real game, and then three levels in that world. You play through each world, watch the story cutscenes at the beginning and end, and then you reach the next world. Except when you don't.

Since there's no overworld, it would be too easy to blast through all the levels and beat the game in a single sitting. So developer TT Fusion decided to lock worlds behind gold bricks. You earn gold bricks for completing a level's challenges, of which there are five per level. These are tasks like collecting enough studs, finding the level's minikit, or moving the object that is Stan Lee is currently trapped under. By the time you go into the final level, you will have more than half of all the gold bricks in the game. You have no choice. This means replaying levels several times with different characters and trying to beat levels within the time limit.

At the beginning and end of each level are the same cutscenes from the console versions. It appears that the developers used a mobile phone camera to record these scenes from a TV running the console version of the game. They are not of good quality, and there are times when it's not clear what's going on. Aside from character grunts and Stan Lee's "Excelsior!", these are the only voiced parts in the game. But even with the volume turned up all the way, the voices are not very loud. But at least the story is there.

I give it, I dunno, three stars? Not a great game, not terrible. I do still want to play the console version, which I suspect is much more enjoyable. I'm also considering playing all DS games that end up releasing this year, because my pain might make for decent entertainment. Later, duders.