Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
RRP $ 60.00
"Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy has some rough edges, but its solo team play mechanics fit the dysfunctional superhero family perfectly."
advantages
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Effective decisions
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Intelligent team management
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Deep story
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Well developed characters
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Great use of 80s tunes
disadvantage
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Weak star-lord fight
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Jokes galore
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Lots of bugs at startup
Iron Man has armor. Thor has a magic hammer. The Guardians of the Galaxy have a huge ego.
In their first video game adventure, the aptly titled Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the arrogance of the underdog superhero team comes into its own. They joke their way through the fight as if every fight is a company softball game. They argue over who is better at killing sentient gelatin cubes. The focus is on Star-Lord, who is given the most difficult task a manager can face: team management.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a clever superhero game that abandons the genre's expectations in favor of gameplay mechanics that better fit its strange roster. "Solo team play" is a well executed riff on Mass Effect that works both in and out of combat. An unpolished, bug-riddled package is dragging the team down, but Guardians fans will be amazed at how many details the game is in its story.
Manage egos
On paper, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a tough sell. A Guardians game where you can only play as the Star-Lord while giving commands to seemingly funnier heroes like Rocket Raccoon and Groot? The fact that this is a single player game with no co-op sounds like a misstep at first glance. Fortunately, Eidos-Montréal made the right call here – and it's an inspired one at that. This is not a game about replicating Hollywood power fantasies, but rather showing how difficult it can be to manage oversized personalities.
The game successfully borrows ideas from the titles of Mass Effect and Telltale to develop intelligent team management mechanics. For example, crew conversations are filled with dialog trees that make effective decisions across the board. In one sequence, Star-Lord Rocket has to buy enough time to hack a system by distracting a villain with annoying questions. If I can do this successfully (I'm an expert at being annoying), I actually see later that it changes the mission and makes me feel like a successful team leader.
Some of the decisions also have an emotional response. When Drax tries to throw Rocket over a cliff to extend a bridge, I have the option of cheering on Drax or defending Rocket. I choose the latter and am told Rocket will remember it. While I'm not sure how that will affect the story in the end (the ending is the same no matter what you choose), I feel like Rocket trusts me more after this moment. There is a real sense of team building throughout the adventure as I carefully navigate how to defuse tense situations and hurt feelings.
The team may argue and yell at each other, but as a dysfunctional family, they're stronger together – and the game itself plays better if you accept that too.
Team leadership in combat is just as well thought out. Star-Lord can essentially direct traffic during battles by opening a menu and ordering each of his four teammates to make moves that have cooldowns. Each character has their own specialty; Groot is a kind of defensive character who uses his roots to hold enemies in place while Gamora makes heavy attacks at close range. When I have unlocked everyone's skills (each character gets four skills), I know the role of each individual and can control the action according to their strengths.
Fortunately, piloting other characters is fun, because Star-Lord's own movement set isn't particularly exciting. He can shoot guns or hit enemies with weightless melee attacks that would make Spider-Man mockery. There's a bit more depth when he has elementary weapon skills, like an electric shot that can stun enemies on the spot, but his strengths are more as a conductor than as a soloist.
But that's the point, and that's exactly why Guardians work. If you ignore the other characters and treat their skills as optional, Star-Lord will be absolutely destroyed in battle. He needs Gamora, Rocket, Drax and Groot just as they need him. The team may argue and yell at each other, but as a dysfunctional family, they're stronger together – and the game itself plays better if you accept that too.
Inspired by comics
While the game probably wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for the 2014 hit Guardians of the Galaxy, the video game version is much more indebted to the team's comic book origins. It tells a loaded, galaxy-spanning story full of characters, locations, and outfits from the comic. It's almost like developer Eidos-Montréal assumed there wasn't going to be a sequel and tried to fit in as much story as possible so that it feels like a final customization (complete with talking cosmonaut dogs).
All the Easter eggs don't stand in the way of this surprisingly touching story, in which every hero gets a full bow. While there are plenty of ironic jokes, the story shines in the sincere moments. In one storyline, Rocket Raccoon has to overcome his fear of water. It starts out as a running gag the team uses to poke fun at Rocket, but it turns into a pivotal moment in character development. The Guardians have always had a brave underdog vibe and it's really new to play a superhero game that puts personality above power.
The character arcs work particularly well thanks to the game's strong voices. While the actors orientate themselves towards their film colleagues, it doesn't feel like someone is making an impression here. Nolan North effortlessly balances comedy and tragedy in his portrayal of Rocket Racoon, while Adam Harrington draws a whole range of emotions from the phrase "I am Groot".
The game's comedic moments are more mixed than the delicate ones. Not because the script isn't funny, but because there are just so many jokes. The guards are always joking no matter what they do. There is seldom a moment in which there is no dialogue; conversations often collide and end abruptly because someone else has triggered it. It's impressive that there is so much unique dialogue in the game – I've rarely encountered repeated lines during my playthrough – but the barrage of one-liners of characters constantly screaming can be gritty. The first Guardians film is a riot of laughter, but imagine if it went on at this pace for over 16 hours.
It's almost like developer Eidos-Montréal assumed there wasn't going to be a sequel and tried to fit in as much story as possible so it felt like a final customization.
One movie influence that works is the game's reliance on '80s music. If a special gauge fills up in battle, Star-Lord can call the team together for a group meeting and create a motivational speech based on the team's needs. This gives everyone a temporary boost in damage, but it also causes a song to play over the fight. It's a real pleasure to be in the middle of a tense battle against a towering boss, only to have the dramatic score replaced with Don't Worry, Be Happy.
While the whole experience can feel like sensory overload at times with the dial constantly turned to 11, it's exciting to see a superhero game with such a unique sense of style. There's a clear reverence for the source material here, and the game feels as much like a historic celebration of the franchise as it does a fitting introduction to its ever-growing lore.
The last-gen experience
The Guardians fight many menacing supervillains throughout their adventure, but they cannot defeat the most powerful villain of them all: bugs. Not like insects – they kill a lot of them. But Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a disappointingly unstable proposition. From graphical hiccups to bugs requiring checkpoint reloading, there is a feeling that Square Enix should perhaps have taken the lead in every other 2021 game and delayed this one a little.
Some bugs are ridiculous, but not groundbreaking. In a cutscene I walk through a prison cell from the first person perspective. I push against the bars and suddenly my very realistically rendered eyeballs pop out of my head in front of me. Disturbing, but minor. Other problems are more serious. Sometimes dialog boxes stay on screen until I reload the game. Other times, I'm trapped in a fight because an enemy disappeared, but the game still thinks he's alive. A day-one patch will fix some of its more serious issues, but there's no doubt the game needs some fine-tuning before it becomes a smooth experience.
Bugs aside, it's also a visually inconsistent title. It can be a real treat at times, with vibrant alien planets bathed in a bright pink and purple color palette. At other times, it seems clear that the game is some kind of awkward holder of the current transition in console generation. Faces can look a little creepy, while large visual effects like explosions can be rough around the edges. It's not a deal breaker, but the superhero genre lives and dies by the spectacle. Guardians of the Galaxy offers some Hollywood thrills, but the budget feels thin in other moments.
From graphical hiccups to bugs requiring checkpoint reloading, there is a feeling that Square Enix should perhaps have taken the lead in every other 2021 game and delayed this one a little.
The best comparison I can make here is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. This game had an arc that I imagine will happen with Guardians. The main game was great fun, but it started in a buggy state that players wrote off. Nowadays, it is the type of game that players will highly recommend to others when it is for sale. I can imagine that this will also be the case here. You can ignore Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy at launch, but there's enough heart, charm, and creativity here to make it an underdog for the holiday season. Suitable, don't you think?
Our opinion
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy isn't doing what players might expect – and that's for the best. By focusing on team management, Eidos-Montréal is able to creatively extend games like Mass Effect. Driving traffic in battles is a rewarding experience, and dialogue decisions actually have an emotional meaning. It's not the cleanest experience. Bugs, graphical issues, and weak Star-Lord combat make it feel like it could have used more time in the oven, but it's exciting to see a Marvel game that thinks a lot about which mechanic best suits its heroes .
Is there a better alternative?
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a really close superhero story that is way cleaner on a technical level. If you want multiplayer, Marvel's Avengers is now available in Xbox Game Pass.
How long it will take?
There are a total of 16 chapters, each of which lasts about an hour on average. The whole adventure takes between 15 and 20 hours, depending on how thoroughly you look for collectibles.
Should you buy it?
Yes sir. Though rough around the edges, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a charming superhero game with lots of fresh ideas – and lots of Easter eggs to keep Marvel fans busy.
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