| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 4 | 8.60 |
| Overall | 8.60 |
|
After last years Avengers disaster it’s great to see a single player story driven game, that has no monetization, be great. Guardians of the Galaxy is the quintessential single player AAA game, it focuses on story and presentation over gameplay but it’s done with such care that it makes for an extremely enjoyable experience. The structure follows the AAA playbook to a tee. It’s a very linear game with the usual small branches to find a hidden collectible. This game a game with the classic trope where you need to make a choice on which path to take , you want to take the one that leads to the hidden item but instead you take the story critical path and it immediately locks you from going back meaning you miss the item. There are a bunch of squeezing through tight quarters to hide loading (damn last gen). It has mild character building where you use whatever upgrade you find scattered around the level to level up abilities, by the end you will have way more than you ever need as everything will be maxed out. There are minor puzzles a baby can solve, simple platforming sections and the ever popular slide down a very long slope while moving side to side to avoid stuff. This game is not breaking any new ground, it’s as by the book as it comes. The core combat is nothing to write home about either. You control Star Lord who can hover with jet boots and shoot his two laser guns at enemies. There is a charge shot, a dodge move (with slow down if you time it right), a melee attack, and a few special attacks that you can use that have a cool down. As the game progresses the guns earn elemental statuses that are used against enemies weak to that type. The rest of the team is controlled through commands issues by shortcuts, each member has four abilities all controlled by their own cooldown. The way it controls is similar to Mass Effect but with none of the depth of classes or any real strategy. Most of the encounters are kind of chaotic with hordes of enemies of different types attacking the team. Most of the time you are just dodging attacks, spamming your guns and constantly cycling through the team attacks. Yes there is a strategy to taking some enemies down as there is a stagger bar and a health bar, bigger enemies need to be staggered to enter a weakened state where the damage dealers (gamora, rocket) can really unleash their best attacks. Also different team members can use environmental hazards to their advantage simply by highlighting it and pressing triangle. Knowing when to use the powers and in what order to maximize the effectiveness of the attacks is key to victory… well probably, I think you can just spam attacks and survive it just won’t look pretty. Some enemies have shields of a certain type so switching between elemental attacks is step one, then use a stun power from Groot or Drax then attack with Gomora and rocket as well as usual a special attack from Peter, that’s the usual flow I had. Some encounters add environmental obstacles to the mix, like needing to disconnect giant power couplings from a big machine. Attacking weak points of some gigantic monstrosity while dodging area attacks that rain from above. Some enemies are healers and try their best to run from you making targeting them the priority. Eidos Montreal does the most with its very limited combat system, enough so that I was entertained. I played the game on the hardest difficulty and died a few times, I had to pay attention at least which made the fights more fun for me. I didn’t dread getting into fights, and I quite enjoyed when a fight went perfectly coordinated and I achieved a max rank. Speaking of which there is a unity bar that fills when you vary attacks and use the team well, this leads to a point where you can achieve a huddle. This is one of the strangest gameplay mechanics I have ever seen in an action game. It halts the game completely, the team comes together and they say a few phrases which are shown in text around the team just in case you are too dumb to remember what they said. Then two dialogue choices appear and you should pick the one that mentions the words the team just mentioned, this is baby stuff. If you pick the right one the entire team gets a massive boost with health and cooldowns and the best part, Peter turns on his tunes and a random 80s song plays during the fight. This entire sequence takes a good 30-40 seconds, sometimes it’s needed if the battle is a tough one but most of the time you can totally do without but because I love the 80s music I always went for it. Nothing quite like getting Rick rolled while fighting space bounty hunters. I wish I could pick which songs are included in the randomized set list as I felt I had one important boss battle ruined by the horrible We Built This City on Rock and Roll. This mechanic is a strange experiment, one they should totally scrap or retool entirely so that it doesn’t act like a gigantic pause to the action. So far this review sounds quite negative, taken in a vacuum the gameplay is just standard stuff. Well games aren’t just one aspect or another, it’s a combination of many elements and it’s all those other elements where Guardian soars. Rarely do I see a game with so much care put into how every moment of the game is part of the story, it’s Naughty Dog like in its execution. You are almost never alone, the team is with you and they never stop talking. Every location, every time you run off to get a secret, during every fight, every moment they are commentating. By the end of this game I couldn’t help but feel like one of the team. A movie gives you two quick hours with characters, some show seasons about 10-13 hours, here you are with them for about 20 hours. This makes the game come alive, moments that would just be the boring trek across a linear map to the next fight is a chance for the characters to grow, it’s a chance for revelations about a characters backstory, no time is wasted. The entire story is brilliant in its writing and execution. While the basic plot is superhero stuff, some bad thing threatens the entire Galaxy and heroes need to band together to fight them; the games focus is more about this group of misfits learning to work through their faults, confront their past and becoming a family. If that sounds like the movies that’s because it is similar, but that’s the source material, I find this game’s take to be different enough to be worth experiencing even if you seen the movies multiple times. For one the characters are more balanced between being jokers and being serious. The most significant change comes from Drax who in the movie is basically played just for laughs as an oblivious grunt. Drax is still used to great comedic effect but he has maybe the most emotional storyline of the group that legit moved me. He is a complete fleshed out character in this game. Same goes for Peter Quill who in the movie is basically a lovable dumbass but here he is a smart ass who you can see being a great leader. Gamora and Rocket are very close to their movie counterparts, they each have their moments. Groot is Groot. Rounding out the stellar cast is collection of characters from Guardian comic lore including Mantis and Cosmo. Mantis in particular is leagues better than whatever version of her they put in the movies. There are so many deep cuts, surprise characters and more, for Marvel fans this game delivers so much. I cannot heap enough praise on the voice talent, everyone does a superb job bringing not just comedic chops but the ability to carry heavy emotional moments. What’s so great about the story is what a grand adventure it is. This being a linear game helps the pacing so much. There is no wasting of time swinging around New York doing pointless side quests. The game starts and never stops for 20 hours, it’s just one moment after the other. The Guardians travel to remote planets, battle all kinds of creatures and super villains. One moment they are fighting among each other on how to proceed the next they are coming together with a totally insane plan where they have to work as one to succeed. There are so many exciting moments, these set pieces like situations that sadly aren’t executed as well as a Naughty Dog game but at least it builds the excitement for what the player is doing. And that’s the sign of a games story and gameplay working together, when I don’t want to stop playing because I don’t know what’s going to come next. Some of the most exciting moments of the game lead into boss battles, there actually aren’t that many but they are pretty damn good. I especially loved the massive screen filling “torso” boss battles, yes you know the trope, big thing is at the top of the screen while your characters avoid attacks on the bottom arena. You follow the pattern and eventually the giant thing gets weak and allows you to damage it. It’s not original but it works and in this game it’s a huge spectacle and at least it changes the pace of the usual battles. Above all I found them all to be good battles, that’s important for the exciting story beats to enhance the best gameplay moments. Between levels you can have some downtime with the crew on the Guardians ship the Milano. This is like a mini Normandy where you can chat up every member and have some team building. There are hidden artifacts to find in the game worlds and these open up some optional conversations with every team member to learn more about them, it has zero impact on the gameplay but it’s good story content. There are some story choices that come up during the game, don’t expect some Mass Effect level differences in how teammates or the story reacts to you but it does have some influence on how situations play out. Sometimes it can lead to different routes through a level, other times totally different dialogue situations. Many choices in the middle of the game affect how difficult the final battles are. It’s mostly there for show but at least it makes you feel like Peter making choices and seeing that have some impact on what is basically a linear story. Graphically the game confuses me cause on one hand it’s beautiful to look at and at the same time it shows it’s last gen nature in animations and weird effects that don’t match the rest of the game. For instance when there is an explosion and some debris falls in the game world, that debris is made of very low quality models and it almost immediately disappears from the game world as if it’s some PS2 game. Animations of the characters are stiff during most combat and when performing actions, they looks so video gamey, clearly no real motion capture was happening here. The facial animations are fine but not in the realm of what the best studios are producing. But the environments are stunning to look at, this game has some all time beautiful skyboxes, made all the more stunning in quality mode which plays the game in 4k but 30FPS. I went quality cause the drop on resolution was pretty big on performance and it’s not really a game where you need good frame rate for the action. It’s no Naughty Dog but it’s still a looker. One very easy way into my heart is to have an 80s soundtrack in your game and this has one of the best collections of 80s tunes around. Hit after hit after hit, including maybe my all time favorite Everybody wants to rule the world. These aren’t just played at random during the huddle events, but key story moments use certain tracks to great effect just like the movie does. On top of the licensed music there is a fantastic score with a great theme and memorable music throughout. I want to conclude the review by addressing the roles of story and gameplay in games and how many view it differently. For me it’s always been gameplay first but the story can always help tremendously to elevate a game. That’s is clearly the case here, Guardians is just any random average action adventure game but when you add the magic sauce of an excellent story, well written characters, great pacing, all the elements that make a AAA game feel like playing a major movie all of a sudden that average game rises to new levels. I can only go by how much I enjoyed my time playing this game and I had a smile from beginning to end. I laughed out loud plenty of times, I would get giddy with excitement at the idea of where the story was taking the Guardians to next. I would feel heartbreak when one of the characters reveals their most painful memories. It’s why I say gaming could be more powerful than movies or shows, it can do all the things those two can do but they can never place you in control, make you an active participant in the story and that alone makes gaming so much more interesting. But others don’t feel the same way, I know many players that feel if a developer isn’t going to bother making a game with deep gameplay then it’s a waste of time. Some think a story driven game might be better off leaving behind average gameplay, they might say it just gets in the way. Some people play games in the lowest setting because they find the actual playing to be a chore. And others might be bored of the AAA template this game desperately adheres to. These are all aspects to consider when choosing to play a game like this, if any of what I mentioned above describes your feelings on certain games then maybe this one isn’t for you. I don’t think Guardians of Galaxy should win any awards for being the best game of the year as it does not bring much to the table gameplay wise, so there is a limit to how good this game is. But it executes all other aspects extremely well and it provides an experience that is so much fun to watch, play and listen to. It also uses the Marvel property in a sublime manner, this even rivals the movies and I love those movies. Guardians of the Galaxy is everything good about the AAA single player gaming experience (and maybe everything wrong with it as well) but for me it’s exactly the kind of game I enjoy |
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Posted by Dvader Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:01:44
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