Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

[sheeldz]

I reckon this is one of the best comic book video games ever made. It takes the team aspect of the comic (and, by extension, the film) and turn it into a genuinely impressive action game, that surprises with heart and nuance not entirely expected but certainly earned.

Graphically impressive and one of the more "cinematic" games not forgetting it also needs to be, by the half way point you're able to fire off wild levels of combos and team ups that very very over powered in the best possible way.

The downtime between story beats is welcome too, reminding of the best slow elements of the Mass Effect trilogy.

But for me, the key thing that makes this stand out is the narrative. I fell for the fake out bad ending at Peter's home, and also fell for the fake out actual ending, and whilst the concept feels eye rolling, the game manages to toe a line between "this doesn't work" and "this is working brilliantly".

An absolute surprise package, and so much more than the initial reveal (and the bemoaned Avengers) would have had you believe.

[Kinketsu]

Although I generally like most things Marvel since I was a kid reading the comics, this game had my cynical side rolling my eyes out of my head based on the previews. It looked like everything I didnt want - four player co-op, overly chatty, laser blasty nonsense, right?

So as the comments from a few friends, not Marvel fans in general by the way, came in, I was intrigued. So it is not like that after all?

Well, it is and it isnt. The idea to use only Quill and use the others as directed team mates was by far the best way to do it. The blasting was actually fun and the graphics were, in some places, amazing. The design work on the interiors of some of the space ships or surface of weird planets was up there with the best of them, especially the use of lighting. There were lots of comic call backs and easter eggs for fans. Overly chatty? Yeah, but it kind of gets lost in the middle of some of the absolute madness of the fire fights.

Where it falls down for me is the repetitiveness towards the second half. Some locations literally are just reused, others seem to decend into an infinite loop of charmless boxes and just plain annoying encounters. It really smacks of running out of money or time, although obviously I have no idea. All the imagination and care and charm is just drained out of it and it becomes a bit of a slog.

All in all though, a good game, especially for cheap / gamepass / PSplus and one that definitely deserved more of a fair shake than I myself gave it at first.

[Kentish1973]

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the few games I've played that has genuinely made me laugh out loud. As a fan of the films, you could argue that I might have been a willing audience, but it's to the game's credit that by the end, I was fully invested in these versions of the characters and not comparing them to their filmic counterparts. It's a truly stunning looking game on the Series X as well, and remains one of the surprise packages of this generation.

[Alex_117]

I think Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy got unfairly panned by critics and players at release. I genuinely think this is a great game and one of the few great Marvel/Comic book games we’ve ever gotten. Yes, it has flaws but a lot of them could have been elevated by the game being shorter.

We rarely get big budget, Uncharted style romps anymore but Guardian’s did that formula in a way which was just fun throughout. Plus the story and writing had real heart and charm!

This game really was the first causality of the Marvel fatigue and it was clear Square had no love for it either and sent it out to die. They had been burned by Avengers and were done with it.

[T-BirD]

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is probably the funniest game I've ever played, as well as one of the very best I played that year.

While it took me a few chapters to really warm up to the combat (the more complex it became, the more I liked it), I quickly fell in love with nearly every character. If the writers and voice actors did not receive numerous awards for their work in this game, there is something wrong with the universe. The crews' interactions and near constant (often hilarious) banter feel completely natural and like the product of relationships developed over time. The universe-saving story provides a good backdrop for your teammates' character arcs, and takes us to some truly incredible locations throughout the universe. Not all is unfamiliar however, as the opening scenes are just a whole heaping dose of nostalgia for kids of the 80's - bad haircuts and all.

Of course that means we have to have a killer 80's soundtrack as well, and we do, along with some new songs that sound like they were lost tracks of that period. Also, there is an unforgettable karaoke scene.

Spoiler: show

How does that guy sing so well without lips??

As I said, combat took a while to grow on me, but once you begin to really get comfortable with your powers and the awesome team combos, it's almost always fun.

Guardians is not perfect, but for me it's close; some more enemy variety would have been nice and it's pretty buggy, though never game breaking. Some bugs were of the funny variety, like talking to empty couches or having Jack Flag (I had to look it up as I had forgotten about him) appear in your ship (in the middle of space) as a mute statue at one point, only to equally as mysteriously disappear again.

It's a shame the game did so poorly, as a sequel would have been a day 1 purchase from me.

3 word review:
IT'S. SO. METAL!