Welcome to our review of Guardians of the Galaxy, a game that brings us even more of the Marvel universe.
Fire up Star-Lord’s jet boots for a wild ride across the cosmos in this third-person action-adventure game, a fresh take on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. With the unpredictable Guardians at your side, blast your way from one explosive situation to another, with original and iconic Marvel characters caught in a struggle for the fate of the universe. You got this. Probably.
I was about 5 minutes into the game when I started just admiring how pretty this game is. From Rocket, who looks so much better than the hero from Biomutant to Gamora her hair tones and skin. In the cockpit, I was stunned by details like the chairs, which looked to have Alcantara dressing, you know that really fancy leather from luxury cars.
Skins of characters no longer looked computer-generated/smooth but they actually had realistic grains on the skin, you know, like how no picture on Instagram is smooth, right? Well, at least not before they put a million filters on them, got to love how Instagram ruins the real-life perception and how a game no less does exactly the opposite and makes it even more impressive. Sure, we all know the Xbox Series X is the superior choice for graphics, but this is beyond expectations.
Now I always said that graphics do not make the game, its contents do. For Guardians of the Galaxy, this is a bit of a mish-mash of Star Wars Squadrons (not in a good way) and your everyday action-adventure game that you have come to love and cherish.
First let me start with the part where you fly the Milano, luckily a minority of your game time with the game, and to be frank, this part kind of the game sucked. You fly with a single thumbstick and the entire time you try to touch your right one, you either 180 or do a sharp turn. This is very confusing at first and I crashed to my death more than I’d like to admit probably. Not to mention the times where I had to fly a sort of obstacle course on an ice planet, needless to say, this did not end well.
But once you are past those bits and pieces, you are left with a really nice game. In short, you can in a way compare the action menus to Scarlet Nexus, another great game that came out this year, where you are the main character and you can make your fellow heroes perform special attacks. From Groot grabbing enemies and holding them down to having Rocket fire all his guns in an epic blaze.
Storywise, the game really does an impressive job of getting the story out. Slowly but surely you learn about the premise and everything the bad guys are doing. How they are taking over the universe, threatening familiar places and faces. I especially liked how casual the introduction of the big bad guy was made.
Action-wise, like mentioned before, this one does resemble Scarlet Nexus but is a little more complicated as almost every button in the game has a double function and I did at times feel like I needed 3 more digits on each hand just to keep up with inputting my commands during battle. Thankfully the options menu brings us the option to completely slow down the menus, something I gladly took advantage of. I can not imagine playing this game at 100% speed. I took it down to full stop so I could just make sure I did not tap the wrong button.
Aside from the fighting, there are also quite some puzzles in the game and some of these can be quite frustrating. Not trying to pick up ammo in Crysis frustrating, but just not making sense-frustrating. While I dislike spoiling storylines and puzzles, I will do so now, because I just have to. When Rocket and the others are stuck and about to drown. Do not look at the sparkly bit on screen, you do not need to bring your pointer to that point.
It is highly misleading that you see the screen sparkle at that time, but in reality, you just need to bring both the left pointer and the right one (not towards Drax) but towards each other. I spent at least 10 retries on this, including the mandatory animation about how they were going to die… I showed a housemate this bit and they also instinctively moved the pointers the same way as me, this was not a “me” issue.
Aside from that, Guardians is actually a fun game, though personally, I think it could be improved upon a little. Not just by getting rid of that sparkle that admittedly might get patched out, but by just making some aspects of the game more smooth. But I am not complaining. Once you really get used to the fighting system and get a few well-needed upgrades, you are no longer doing the hit and run principle.
You will be taking the lead, pulling a distant enemy shooting at you towards you. Punch him into oblivion. Take down another one by first freezing him in his place, to blow him to bits afterward. Use Groot his binding powers to ground flying enemies, … Even using parts of the environments at your disposition. I loved throwing bombs at enemies that way. The game is quite diverse in that way.
In conclusion, Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy is a game with mostly highs. Not everything was top-notch, but I really enjoyed the battle system a lot. It may not have been the best game I played this year, but it sure was fun to play and a great story to boot!
