#marvels guardians of the galaxy

an (almost) perfect combination of comic and film lore!

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has been tempting me for months now with its near universal acclaim - and bright, colourful promotional images. 

That the game’s developers went all in on the James Gunn space opera parody with yacht rock fun was something many fans and reviewers called out as a highlight. I can see why, blasting Soft Cell’s Tainted Love during a fight scene (did Bioshock Infinite do it better though?) is fun. 

But on top of some technical issues with the volume of the music itself (I am probably missing something, but the jukebox on the Milano communal area sounded constantly muted to me), it was the waves and waves of the same types of enemies that the Guardians have to wade through that sticks in my craw. 

That said, I loved the space llama. 

The two main aspects of the game that I personally enjoyed were the quality of the writing, ably combining elements from the Gunn movies with the Abnett and Lanning comic runs (plus some deep cuts to Jim Starlin’s cosmic Marvel comics writing), and the James Gunn films; in addition the relationships between these Guardians was very emotionally engaging, something I would credit to both the writing team and the actors. 

Kimberly-Sue Murray nails Gamora’s bruised hopefulness and polished cynicism so well - the daughter of Thanos here gets audibly excited whenever the topic of mental health is raised, and I found that cute, tragic and funny in equal measures. 

Alex Weiner’s delivers a vocal performance as Rocket Raccoon that parallels Bradley Coopers, but has a quality of its own that again, will make you cry at the hurt feelings of a space raccoon. The Guardians as a whole are all very good, but Gamora and Rocket really stood out for me here. 

A quick shout out also to Mylène Dinh-Robic as Meredith Quill and Sarah Levesque, who almost steals the whole game as Lady Hellbender. 

Which is all to say this game soars when the player has to negotiate the relationships between Peter Quill (Jon McLaren) and his crewmates. The story takes in not just a quest to uncover the secrets behind the rapid conversion of planets to an obscure faith known as the Universal Church of Truth (there’s that nod to Starlin’s Warlockrun), but Peter’s desperate efforts to keep the morale of the Milano’s crew positive. 

There are arguments, break-ups, and depending if you play your choices correctly, satisfying resolutions. 

Thank goodness this Guardians story is not entirely bound up with daddy issues (well, that is, unless you consider SPOILER an example of same). Again the merging of the comics and films canons is handled in such a way that the spirit of Gunn’s version is retained, but we don’t have the interminable ‘what makes Peter so special’ stuff that I found frustrating. 

Especially when it was bound up with the Ego stuff. Yes, in the game Peter is back to his comics canon version of being the illegitimate son of an alien from Spartax. 

There ARE mommy issues aplenty though, and beginning the game with Peter as a child being greeted by Meredith on his 13th birthday is a masterstroke. 

I must confess, I spent a good half an hour just using Peter’s Walkman, fastforwarding and rewinding a tape to follow the lyrics by a band named ‘Star-Lord’ (think Kiss, if every member of Kiss was Ace Frehley), just reliving being a teenager in their bedroom, with posters and books scattered as signs and signifiers of a developing individual personality. I loved the game’s opening. It set up expectations for emotional storytelling that the writers nailed at multiple points (see Gamora and Rocket, once again). 

Marvel’sGuardians of the Galaxy is also a victim of the game industry’s expectation for a popular title, in that it serves up the aforementioned ‘wave after wave’ of opponents. 

Sure you’ll get a button mashing experience out of it, but any temptation to replay this game for me means assessing how many hours I want to spend blasting goons, with occasional breaks for some very well acted, well written, and genuinely funny interludes with these characters. 

So, consider this a qualified recommendation. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is a game I enjoyed and had a lot of fun with. I almost wish it was a smaller, indie title that I could dip back into just to hang out with these characters. 

-Emmet O’Cuana 

I love any game where I can have a home base ship with my team that’s more like a family and each character has their own dedicated space that is representative of their personality

playing Guardians of the Galaxy! tagging it #gotg lb for anyone who doesn’t wanna see