31 October,2021 09:26 AM IST | Mumbai | Jaison Lewis
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
After the disaster that was Eidos's Avengers game, I wasn't too sure how Guardians of the Galaxy was going to turn out. It is an understatement to say that I was happy with the outcome. The storyline is a little different from the MCU version. It has Peter Quill aka Starlord abducted at a slightly older age. He is still an â80s obsessed man-child, but there is more nuance to his character, compared to the MCU version.
The story from the start, is peppered with lots of humour, emotion and camaraderie. This changes over time depending on the dialogues you choose, as Starlord. Team members can either trust you, or they can lose faith in you, depending on what you select. The most immediate effect of dialogues can be seen in Huddle mode that happens in the heat of battle. If you accidentally trigger Huddle while your team is kicking a'', chances are you will be told off by your teammates and the temporary adrenalin perk from a Huddle doesn't get activated. If you time it right, everyone gets pumped up leading to faster power moves and louder music. The dialogues throughout the game are well written and there are times in the game where the emotional connection between the characters shines through. You even miss them when some characters are not available during the playthrough.
For most of the game, you will be shooting and arguing your way out of sticky situations. The constant chatter and team style combat is a lot of fun. You can have Gamora and Drax execute devastating attacks while Rocket can blow them up. Groot, of course, helps keep enemies in place while you execute your attacks. It feels like a well-oiled machine and chaotic at the same time. That being said, there are times where you will end up playing the same combat over and over again because even at the least difficult moment things can get tough. In some instances, the checkpoint in the game is farther behind than you thought. When this happens, you will end up going through all the dialogues and cut sequences before the combat begins again. There was one particular instance where I was fighting an octopus-type tentacle monster. I had one last tentacle to deal with when Peter died in combat and after the automatic save point loaded, I suddenly had two tentacles. Needless to say, that was annoying.
The team also has its uses in the environmental puzzles. Drax can be used to lift heavy objects, Rocket can handle electronics, Groot can build bridges and lift things while Gamora can slice through things. These are elaborate but fairly repetitive, which means after the first few puzzles it got old quickly. The music, like in the movie, is brilliantly chosen. There are lots of â80s hits all ready to be blasted on Peter Quill's walkman and boom box. The original sound track is good enough to have on your phone, playing all day. There are also a bunch of custom tracks created for the game which match the â80s rock vibe. In case you are a streamer, you can turn off the proprietary music to listen to the custom original sound track of the game.
Guardians is mostly bug-free on the Xbox Series S. Though, a few things got me a little irritated. The most annoying bit was picking up an object from the ground, going too close or too far away and the indication to pick it up goes away. I spent a lot of time just moving back and forth to pick something up. Considering you need to pick up components for upgrades, this can get annoying very fast. I also got stuck and couldn't get out or die in one of the missions, so I had to restart from a checkpoint. There were a few frame skips as well that I noticed while playing the game, but these were rare.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a surprisingly good game with a fun storyline that will have you emotionally invested in the game. While there are a few technical bugs still to be ironed out, I think the game, overall, was a treat to play. It just goes to show how a well-written story and properly defined characters can influence the final product. I might even replay the game just to choose a different set of dialogues and see how things turn out.
