Guardians of the Galaxy Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos, Speedrunning Tips

The Guardians of the Galaxy team from Marvel Comics and the Hollywood blockbusters feels like perfect video game material.  

That's something Eidos-Montreal sets out to make good on with the aptly-named Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy release that pits Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Raccoon and Groot in an action-adventure taking them all over the cosmic side of the Marvel universe. 

Given the names and inevitable expectations, this release always had a massive hill to climb. The Spider-Man series from Insomniac Games represents the high bar for superhero games now and what players have come to expect. There's also pressure to avoid a flop with beloved characters like 2020's Avengers from Crystal Dynamics. 

Whether Guardians can reach for the bar or land somewhere in the middle predictably hinges on depth of gameplay and that critical team dynamic that made the movie franchise such a sensation. 

Graphics and Gameplay

The first thing players will notice is that the characters don't match the movie designs. For the most part, they aren't clean-cut copies of actual comic iterations of the characters either, but it doesn't take away from their design. 

Star-Lord's crew is instantly recognizable regardless and looks great. The leader has his jacket and swagger, Drax has the body paint, Groot is Groot. They all look and feel like fans should expect. 

The next big thing players will notice is these aren't the big movie-star voices behind the characters either. But this doesn't have a big negative impact, partly because the voice acting and writing is so strong. The banter matches what players/viewers would see right on the Hollywood big screen and is often hilarious.

And while the voices are different, the inflections and speech patterns to each character are almost creepily perfect in their match to big-screen counterparts. Drax is measured, Rocket fires off his paced quips in the same way the movie stars handle the characters. 

Sure, there are times when the banter is a little forced, but there were hiccups in the group's big films in the MCU too. 

Seasoned comic book readers know all too well how different iterations of beloved characters pop up all the time. A new author takes over a book and puts his or her spin on it. It's no different here—some players will love the iterations and others will be lukewarm about it, but strong voice-acting performances and writing make it hard to believe anyone will hate it. 

As a Guardians property demands, the game has a long list of classic licensed hits that blare from Star Lord's playlist, which adds a layer of authenticity. Overall sound design is fun and the game looks great as a whole. The locales are as varied and colorful as one would expect from a Marvel title that visits the cosmic side. 

Smooth transitions between gameplay and cinematics and then back again make for some wow-worthy moments in a brilliant presentation. 

Plus, funny gameplay moments amplify the characterization of these beloved characters. Within the game's first 20 minutes, Rocket tells Star-Lord that going down a path is a dead end. It's the perfect use of Gamer Psychology 101 as players will of course go down that path to look for goodies, if nothing else—and Rocket lets Star-Lord (and the player) hilariously hear about it for a while. 

Tasks blocking progression or exploration out in the world won't blow away players from an innovation standpoint. Objectives while exploring include finding items, defending a character for a certain amount of time, hitting the right character input for a certain task and much more. 

Ditto for combat, which travels some well-trodden ground. But in this case, it's not a bad thing—directing the entire team on the fly and leaning into fun combos is the only way to succeed in a game that has some pretty surprising difficulty uptick. 

Players might not be too thrilled about the idea of only controlling Star-Lord given the colorful cast of characters here. But it works because restricting playable characters means better control of the team, more variety to the challenges they face and less chaos. Jumping between each member of the team would fundamentally change the gameplay and potentially the experience. 

It helps that Star-Lord is so much fun to control in combat. He's a double-blaster, jet-boot wearing assassin who moves fluidly through fights, over terrain and can blast from a distance or throw down some big melee attacks up close, all while dishing orders to teammates. 

Unsurprisingly given the characters and universe, combat has some pretty intense depth to it. Star-Lord has unlimited ammo to his guns, but the classic Gears of War reload mechanic is here. Mis-time the reload and the bad boys jam, which adds another detail to monitor during hectic combat sequences. 

Star-Lord also has four different elemental alt-fires to his guns that offer various bonuses, and the game throws different enemies at the group vulnerable to each type. Juggling guns, elements and tasking teammates with environmental interactions or tag-team moves that create rewarding sequences is a challenging but rewarding affair. 

One of the more controversial decisions comes in the form of the game's huddle-up during combat. It's exactly what it sounds like, as the team will take a break mid-fight and huddle up like a football team. Players will have to listen to the team's chatter, then make the right dialogue choice for the occasion. Do that, and the team comes blitzing out of the huddle with a boost while a licensed song starts blaring. 

It's fun the first few times and something the team from the movies would do. But it does start to lose its charm over the full course of the game. 

As a whole, it's a fun romp, with exploration a plus thanks to the different environments and team banter, while combat is more challenging than one might expect and hectic in a good way. 

Story and More

Those familiar with the Guardians aren't going to be caught off guard by the narrative. 

It provides a great intro to the Star-Lord character and rolls through a major journey from there. The Guardians are a scheming team looking for scores, but they of course run into the 'superhero' side of things in predictable (and fun) ways. 

Early on, players get dropped on Milano, the team's ship. By exploring the ship and engaging in banter with teammates there's a little Mass Effect feel to the whole thing, with a Guardians flair, especially when Star-Lord hooks his music up to the ship's sound systems. 

The game sprinkles hints at the much bigger picture throughout, which comic book fans will be able to keep up with. The game doesn't even highlight these things, which makes exploring or carefully observing environments all the more rewarding. 

On the Milano or out in the wild, dialogue options aren't window-dressing either. They impact Star-Lord's relationship with each team member, which in turn ends up having an impact on unlockables and developments beyond just better understanding each character.

As for progression, experience earned is something players must dole out to the entire team. While Star-Lord is the only playable character, it might make sense to load him up with abilities first, but players will discover that there has been a superb balancing job done here because his teammates have some amazing abilities worth investing in too. 

There are a ton of different unlockable outfits, including some from the movies that will assuage some complaints. Uncovering or earning these is just as rewarding as any suit unlocked in the Spider-Man games, which is a welcome feature that would have been a glaring omission. 

The sense of progression and rewards is a necessary element to a game like this, especially when dealing with this source material. And Guardians nails it, which means players aren't stuck with only the narrative, gameplay and characters themselves as the lone justification to keep playing. 

Of note, players might decry the lack of multiplayer. But that's just not the experience the developers were going for here, and while blasting through the story, it's not a thought that comes up all too often. And based on the state of the Avengers, this is probably a smart move. 

Speedrunning Tips

There's an outside chance Guardians could develop a pretty interesting speedrunning community because of the skill required to manage a full team on the fly in hectic combat scenarios. 

Early out of the gates, some of the most basic tips and necessary combos apply. 

There's the usual skip conversations and cinematics advice of course. This also largely applies to the wealth of in-ship interactions players could get sidetracked with often. 

But early-game combat combos to lean hard into involve asking Groot to wrap up tougher enemies so Star-Lord can unload with the proper element. That, or Drax can pick up something heavy and slam it down on them. 

Overall, there doesn't seem to be a ton of open-ended ways to break the progression through each level as things are pretty linear. But memorizing the route remains a must. And while this might sound like a negative for a runner or onlooker, the reality is it keeps the emphasis where it should be—on the skilful combat that will ultimately decide top times. 

Conclusion

Almost any angle it's analyzed from, Guardians is a resounding success. 

On a sliding Marvel and/or superhero game scale, Guardians doesn't hit the Spider-Man heights (but what in the genre does?), but it also doesn't come close to residing in Avengers territory. 

While the actual innovation behind exploration and puzzles is a little underwhelming at times, Guardians is how a Guardians game should be—a hard-rocking, chaotic combat romp with some really interesting and funny character work. 

While Spider-Man games and the Wolverine game in development will command attention, Guardians shouldn't go overlooked as a superb entry in a superhero genre that needs more standouts.