Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

I was really reluctant to try out this one, since most of the acclaim was coming from its story and Marvel writing is somethng that I hugely dislike. Well the lack of quality AAA single player experiences meant that one day I was going to give it a shot and Im really glad I did. Guardians of the Galaxy offers a very fun romp as you go from planet to planet trying to save the galaxy with your cast of miscasts.

They really did a good job at characterizing the main cast, supporting characters and antagonists. Each of the main cast has clear motives, characters arcs and unique personalities. The banter between characters is really enjoyable to witness, even if at first I got a bit annoyed with the repetition of jokes (yea, the tree will only say "i am groot). After the game I watched the 2014 movie, and I got to say that the voice actors and writers did a much better job with this game. One of the few games, and even less AAA games, of the past years that has some genuinely funny moments.

Visually the game is a stunner, using the unreal engine to great excellence. It has realistic visuals, but isnt afraid at showing bombastic setpieces and cartoonish animations. Sonically its also very solid, with a cool 1980's pop metal soundtrack.

Gameplay is perhaps the weaker link here, but still solid enough. It presents itself as a third person shooter with locked in aim, at the same time with the ability of issueing orders to your team mates. At times it almost feels like a real time tactical game, since different abilities can synergize well. In reality its just gets too stupidly chaotic, particularly as the number of enemies increase in the latter half of the campaign. Its a mess of a system, even more because the UI is poor and it makes it needlessly hard to issue orders while still doing you part in the fights. Fortunatly the game never really expects more than basic competency out of the player, and the lack of orders issue only means that fights tend to draw out longer it frustrating battles of attrition. I feel like there was also a bit too much repetition of the same encounter in the same looking arenas towards the latter half of the game, making it feel a bit like a slog.

There are some very light RPG elements, just there for you to explore the levels for collectible upgrade points, but there is no builds to look into. Feels like a missed opportunity, but at the same time Im not sure that adding more complexity into a so-so combat system would be a good idea.

Overall this is a surprisingly great AAA action adventure title. It avoids most of the filler associated with AAA games, and focuses on an entertaining story, solid core gameplay and well paced campaign.

This game feels like a really long Guardian’s Of The Galaxy movie at around 17 hours. There’s combat and light puzzles, but you are often just listening to dialogue and casually walking around. The visuals are very impressive and extremely colourful, so I often stopped to take in the sights. You are also encouraged to slow down to listen to the dialogue as you can miss extra banter from both the main cast and the other NPCs in some environments like the city. There’s not many moments of silence, as the team are constantly sparking up new conversations. The word “flark” is used as a swear word, and Rocket uses it way too much. The other Guardians can also use it in stressful situations. It gets old fast, and feels forced.

I’ve never read the comic books, but have seen the films and have a mixed opinion on them. You don’t have to have seen the films though. Although it has a similar aesthetic, and the characters are roughly similar; the characters are original takes. It looks like the film, the characters act like the films, but they aren't quite the same as the film. Star Lord doesn't look like Chris Pratt, although the other characters might have stronger likenesses.

It's not a cover shooter like Mass Effect, but the team-based space adventure with lots of narrative feels like Mass Effect at times. When you aren’t down on a planet, you can walk around your ship and talk to your crew.

The game features an 80’s soundtrack but it's cliché and you could pick up a random 80's compilation and it's probably got most of these songs on it including: Blondie, Motley Crue, A-Ha, Wham, Rick Astley, Joan Jett, Europe, KISS, Pat Benatar.

The game features flexible difficulty options. There's presets but you can tweak each option.

You play solely as Star-Lord, the leader of the Guardians. As Star-Lord, he can shoot his dual pistols, dodge and hover. You can shoot your pistols until your heat metre fills up and then time the gauge in the green to offload the heat for a burst shot. There’s a melee attack for a close attack, and can be chained with the dash attack. As the story progresses, you have some limited elemental ammo ( lightning, ice, fire, and wind) which is used when enemies are weak to it, or to solve puzzles outside combat. Star-Lord is weak which encourages team play. You are more like the leader, rather than an overpowered character.

The other Guardian’s are AI controlled, although their special abilities are only triggered on your command. It mainly comes down to just choosing a random one once the cool-down expires. Early on, each Guardian will only have 1 move, but 2 can be unlocked by spending your points when you level up, and the final one is unlocked at a certain story point (so 4 in total).

Drax uses brute force, whilst Gamora is a nimble warrior. Rocket uses explosives and often jumps on Groot’s back. Groot is a support character and uses vines to entangle enemies.

Enemies generally come in three varieties. So there’s weaker enemies you can quickly take down, medium ones which can be shielded, then stronger ones which can have shields, more evasive manoeuvres and multiple health bars. There’s some larger, screen-filling boss fights where you have to lock-on to weak spots.

When enemies are staggered, and you are close, you can trigger a finishing move involving multiple Guardians. There are also a few environmental items that you can order teammates to use, so Drax tosses heavy objects, Gamora cuts down suspended boxes, Rocket blows up electrical panels, and Groot grows foliage.

The exploration is mostly just running around and listening to the banter of the Guardians. This is a very linear game with small side paths that lead to components for upgrades or extra skins. There’s basic platforming, and Star-Lord can activate his rocket boosts for a double jump. There’s some recurring navigation like slowly moving across a thin ledge, squeezing through small cracks and sliding on your bum to reach a lower level. I’d imagine one or more of these are just ways to hide loading, but just like a lot of games it grows old fast. I suppose if it’s a choice of loading screen or a cliché, then I’d take the cliché.

The light puzzles are just a case of observing, then matching the correct teammate's ability with the right obstacle. Gamora can slice things open and help you climb certain vertical walls, Drax can punch through walls and move heavy objects, Groot can create bridges and raise certain platforms, and Rocket can hack panels or fit through small holes.

Star-Lord has a scanning visor which turns the screen red and highlights interesting objects. The yellow ones are what you need to interact with, but there’s other blue objects you can scan just to see what they are. It’s kinda like Metroid Prime in that regard where you don’t need to scan them but you might do just out of interest. If you are supposed to find something to interact with, your team will drop hints, or berate you for taking the time. They can come across as impatient, but it can be helpful. There’s a few situations where enemies are constantly spawning in whilst you are supposed to be doing something, so sometimes pointing you in the right direction is a useful thing. Crafting items aren't really hidden when you have a notification and a scanning visor to find them.

There’s a few Quick-time events that are annoying when failing them requires a long loading screen to try again. The other gameplay mechanic is flying your ship but it often is on-rails with limited movement. There is couple of dog-fights with free movement which were more engaging.

The game does contain a few bugs that can stop you progressing but these were always fixed by loading from the last checkpoint: Characters disappear, characters stop moving, one boss battle was in slow motion. When games have this option in the menu, I suspect the developers were aware of the problems but weren’t confident in actually fixing the bugs.

The story did have some good moments with the relationships within the team. They are from different backgrounds and have different motivations, and the rivalry between Drax and Gomora is an interesting dynamic, but they warm to each other over time. Drax doesn't understand sarcasm and figures of speech, so there's loads of jokes based on that. Rocket is good friends with Groot, but Rocket’s attitude can cause problems with the team. As the leader, Star-Lord is trying to keep the team together.

I wouldn’t say the story is great overall since it kinda relies on comic book cliches. I’m sure I have seen the whole “kidnapped child is a vessel for some great energy, and now the world is in danger”. There’s a few flashback sequences early on (Star-Lord’s childhood living with his mum.) which slow down the pace.

So I’d say the game really focuses on the presentation of visuals and audio, and although it does have some gameplay to try and introduce some variety, it’s probably not enough. The combat never really gets interesting, and starts to feel a bit tedious in the final hours.

I think if you are a fan of Guardians Of The Galaxy, or you are fine with the limited gameplay, then there’s plenty to enjoy here.

I really enjoyed this! The story was engaging and I thought the characterization was done well. One thing that blew me away was the sheer amount of different dialogue there was. These aspects carried the game and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with any positive feelings towards superheros and definitely towards the Guardians.

However, this game does have quite a few minor issues. I dealt with quite a few graphical bugs as well as progression issues. I had a couple instances where the game froze or I was unable to progress and needed to redo an encounter. The gameplay also got repetitive near the end and lost its lustre. Gameplay wise, the game definitely needed a bit more variety.

Also, from a story standpoint the game definitely felt a chapter too long. But, I still thing this game has a lot of heart and some great story moments. Definitely worth a playthrough and a buy (especially if its on sale or gamepass or anything like that).

The gameplay can get a bit repetitive and boring but the music will keep you coming back for more, that and the fact the characters are adapted pretty well, not so repulsive with some backstory sections that makes you actually give a shit. The whole thing is definitely a wild ride but not one that will blow you away in awe. It turned out okay I guess. (6/10)

I’m not familiar with the Guardians of the comic books, but the plot and dialogues are pretty good, particularly in the way it’s all built around the interaction between characters. There’s a lot of dialogue and character-building to accompany you along both battle and exploration sequences. While the movies didn’t offer much variety location-wise, this game allows us to travel to different planets with vastly different atmospheres, sometimes giving us the option to explore the areas for extra loot. Combat got slightly more immediate and rewarding than in “Marvel’s Avengers” thanks to the addition of elemental attacks and more meaningful use of the non-playable characters’ actions in the team. However, things can get a little tiresome for players looking for action due to the abnormous amount of dialogues and cutscenes in between.

The Guardians films are my favorites of the MCU and it isn't really that close, so I was very happy to find that the story and presentation of this game, set in a different continuity, taps into the same humourous yet heartwarming energy of the Gunn films while giving us just enough tweaks to make it its own beast. This universe's Peter Quill has his major character dilemma flipped from looking up to potential father figures to the idea that he may be a father himself, a clever inversion of Volume 2's best quality that lends well to a story that checks a lot of expected boxes but is very solid in execution. The expected in-fighting within the Guardians manifests just differently enough and with wildly different solutions leading to fresh emotional outcomes for the series, and the quality of the script is high enough to elevate it above many games as well. As a Marvel fan, it's also good to see some characters that have been neglected within the canon, especially the one teased at the end of Volume 2. It feels a bit too close to the movies to be considered a truly great story, as its best ideas are too obvious in inspiration, but it more than carries the rest of the game, which has its ups and downs.

For a AAA game, it's refreshing to have gameplay this consistent and nailed down within a setting as creative, bright and beautiful, alongside characters as vibrant and likeable. Especially from Square Enix, who have been known to muddy the waters with extra baggage in their games. So I don't want to be too harsh on the gameplay, which is always at least a little fun because of intuitive and fluid controls and excellent feedback, with a fair balance between solo skill and team-based strategy, though certainly not to the same level as FF7R. But the combat never really rises above okay, it gets old about seven hours in, and there's still half the game to go, and in terms of mechanics, Guardians simply has nothing else to offer. The art design lends itself to some great setpieces, but those are fleeting moments in a sea of overly linear level design, half-baked RPG mechanics, basic as hell puzzles, and simply nothing else of note besides the great presentation and story. Even then, technical hiccups often distracted me from the experience. About the only noteworthy part of the game design are the "choose your karma" dialogue selections, which are surprisingly nuanced and long-lasting.

It's an easy recommendation for Guardians fans, effectively transplanting the appeal of those films on a substantial level while offering a fresh take on the setting, but for traditional game fans, it's just an above-average action game with some cool team mechanics, but all wasted on a setting better suited for a Mass Effect or Rise of the Argonauts, something with linear levels but non-linear world structure to put all the worldbuilding and RPG mechanics to use.