I was able to finish off Guardians this weekend and just thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
I don’t know if I have much to add to the discussion that hasn’t been already said, but I’m really bummed that the game didn’t perform better commercially to warrant a sequel, or at least enough to encourage more story-driven single player games from Square-Enix. (Of course with the recent failure of Avengers and Babylon’s Fall, I’m not sure that Square-Enix has any genre outside of their mainstay JRPGs that they feel confident in). The industry is saturated with Marvel content, so I don’t know that a second GotG is what the industry needs, but I wish that we’d get more games like this — ie AAA quality where there’s team based gameplay, character and narratively driven, linear with mild exploration, etc. Unfortunately I feel that soft sales will send a message that this style of game is not in demand.
As far as critique of the game, I think I’ve given plenty of praise but some more detailed observations include the following:
I think the visuals are fabulous, the HDR is a particular highlight (no pun intended). The facial animation leaves something to be desired though. Not nearly as consistent in the facial capture and virtual acting as games from Naughty Dog or Quantic Dream. Some of the character interactions were quite good but a lot of the facial close ups were wooden and uncanny. Several times the characters’ eyes would dart around quite creepily.
Performance was likewise a mixed bag — despite playing most of the game in performance mode, I noticed dropped frames from time to time. And audio cuts were actually quite common. I can excuse some of the audio quirks due to the unique nature of the game’s constant chatter from characters, so to have a side conversation cut off by a timed and scripted dialogue event should be expected. It doesn’t change the awkwardness of when it happens though. I guess I’m spoiled by God of War’s deft treatment of that issue when characters would seamlessly return to their conversation when gameplay would interrupt it. GotG had a lot of recycled dialogue too which, again, is to be expected with such a large amount of constant chatter. Amazingly the repetition only seemed noticeable during battle, and I don’t recall much during exploration. The worst offender was there was only so many “huddle” speeches, and so I was seeing those repeat by mid-game.
Without spoiling anything, I liked how the game ended. There was some frustration and a little trial and error which made it tedious, but the overall direction of the game was really well handled and consistent with the tone of the movie (and presumably the comics, I would guess).
Overall, I’d put it up there with my favorite games I’ve played this year, which is some esteemed company (sitting alongside Miles Morales, The Last of Us Part II, Demon’s Souls, and Kena). With a little more polish it could have been outstanding, but in a way I’m glad it didn’t have extra time and resources put into the small details since it already lost money as it stands.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Glad to see you enjoyed it! I did love just how complete an experience it was, it was a full linear game without any bloat. I think that might be everybody done now so I’ll get the list of games together as soon as possible!
I think guardians of the galaxy is an excellent game, excellent story better than most marvel films and great characters. the non stop banter is the real highlight of the game.
Its one for my collection and thats high praise indeed as im very fussy
@trev666 yeah, I know what you mean… I definitely thought the story and characters were to a higher quality than the two GotG movies. They did a great job and the game should’ve sold gang-busters.
@LN78 I do get you but I think it’s an awkward comparison when putting film run-times up against game run-times. I say this as a film’s action scenes would take up less of a run-times’ percentage than a games gameplay sections.
What I will say though, I think my expectations probably contributed to my rating. I had pretty high expectations for the movies being a massive fan of the Abnett and Lanning runs but fairly low expectations of the game. Maybe that caused me to enjoy it so much more.
@LN78 yeah I generally like Gunn’s movies too, I only go as far back as Slither and Super but I pretty much like everything he’s done (I think his Suicide Squad movie is the best DCEU movie to date… I’m not counting Nolan’s Batman movies as DCEU).
I have to be honest, I really didn’t enjoy the first Guardians… movie on first viewing. I think it was partly just how different it was from the comics and partly to do with the fact that we were moving that weekend and I was very stressed. I’ve watched it since many times and enjoyed it immensely. I also really liked what the Russo’s did with them in Infinity War.
@LN78 yeah I waited for Peacemaker to hit Sky tv with baited breath. And yeah, I’d say that was the best DC TV show too tbh.
We’ve had D+ since it started, so have watched all of the Marvel D+ stuff (including I am Groot just this week) and I’ve found it all a little (only a little mind you) under par so far. I’m looking forward to the Guardians Xmas special though… and even more to GotG3. The raw emotion on stage at Marvel’s recent Hall H presentation at Comic Con when Gunn and the crew walked out was something to behold.
@LN78 yeah there is a definite Endgame hang over in Phase 4… and even more worrying, there seems to be less care involved in regards to simply adding stuff that fans would think cool.
I’m hoping that now we have a ‘direction’ for Phase 5 & 6 (Kang and Doom) that it’ll all start to come together as with Phases 2 & 3 once we knew Thanos was on the horizon.
@LN78 fair enough… I mean for me, Feige has enough credit in the bank that I’ll probably catch all of phase 5 in the cinema at least. I do think the quippy humour is now in need of a rethink though, I wonder how long that sentiment will take to filter through to the scripts though.
Votes are open for the next game! I’ve added a couple that were suggested to the usual unlucky suspects as well as a few from the PS Plus lot.
Sonic Mania
The Last Guardian
Star Wars Squadrons
Ghostrunner
Crash 4
Metro Exodus
Bugsnax
Assassin’s Creed II (included as part of Ezio Collection)
Batman Arkham Asylum
Little Nightmares
@nessisonett can I throw on A plague tale innocence to the list? Might be good, given the sequel is coming out soon.
Next vote would be last guardian, then little nightmares
If its OK @nessisonett can I be added to the distribution list? Keen to get on-board as I'm currently between games on PS, and this will give me a kick to start something new.
For whats it worth, my vote goes to Little Nightmares (downloaded earlier from PS+, another backlog item...!)
@CJD87 Absolutely! The more the merrier after all.
@R1spam That’s a good suggestion actually, I’ll make sure it’s on the list next month. I think I might retire some of the ones that have been on the list for ages now though, like unless Sonic Mania and Shadow of the Colossus are chosen soon then they’re clearly not popular enough!
And that is the credits rolled for Guardians of the Galaxy. I really enjoyed it overall. I'm usually more of a gameplay guy than story and characters, but the latter is so well presented and written that I kinda put up with the samey combat.
I didn't find the combat to be as bad as others, but I did think the targeting was a bit tricky when there were loads of enemies on screen. There also needed to be more perks and abilities, and I had no need to collect any thing and had stopped earning ability points with about a third of the game to go.
Would say I would be interested in a sequel, but if the game did not sell well, it does not feel likely. Wonder who the rights sit with after the Embracer sale? I could not find a definite answer online.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Last call for voting! Might need at least a couple more just to get a true idea of what people will be up for playing next. If the winning game wins with only a couple of votes then it might be a quiet month!
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