Guardians of the Galaxy

[Timothy]

Huge fan of the comics and first movie. Didn't have high expectations (didn't really enjoy the Avengers game) but this game is a pleasant surprise.

The dialogue is great (and often really funny), the combat is fun and fluent and they really managed to create the proper GotG atmosphere.

Anyone else here playing this?

[Mister Six]

Is this a single player thing? I thought it was a multiplayer game by the guys who fucked up that Avengers online beat 'em up, so haven't really looked into it.

[Timothy]

Yes, it's a singleplayer game. There's no online multiplayer (or co-op). Luckily it's nothing like that Avengers game.

Currently on a 8.1 Metacritic score with most reviewers saying they expected a mediocre game after playing the Avengers but that this might be one of the biggest surprises of the year.

[Mister Six]

Huh. I've got a ridiculous backlog so I'll probably hold off until it's on discount, maybe even a GOTY version with DLC. Glad it's been well received though.

[madhair60]

Yeah this is shockingly good stuff. The voice acting is probably the best I've heard in a game. Gameplay is AAA as you like but the story, the adventure is a lot of fun
Funny and quite moving at times, oddly.

[Shaky]

Anyone played it on the Switch? How does it run? I refuse to read Youtube comments on this.

[MojoJojo]

If you didn't know, its cloud based on the Switch, and the comments I've heard are it's rubbish.

[Timothy]

Anyone played it on the Switch? How does it run? I refuse to read Youtube comments on this.

There's a demo for the Cloud version of the game (as of now the only available version) in the Eshop.

Unfortunately it's not good.

[Shaky]

Cheers, chaps. I suspected as much.

[oggyraiding]

Very good, but too long, and several enemies/bosses were zero fun to fight. I kind of wish you could upgrade skills, I'd already maxed out the buyable skills by the mid way point, so I no longer received skill points. Felt like a bit of a cop out, as if it was a half fleshed out mechanic. If this team were let loose on The Avengers we might have had something of value rather than a tepid live service thing.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I got this for Christmas and have finally made a start on it. So far it seems pretty good, although there's a general shonkiness to the controls and combat can be a little iffy: Star Lord's lasers seem a bit weedy and have an annoying habit of losing their lock-on at random. The squad mechanics are fun, but the Grauniads tend to get themselves into trouble right when I need them most, leaving me to wade into the fracas and usually get killed. Hopefully that will improve as I unlock more powers.

The Telltale style branching dialogue is interesting, but it's too early to know if it actually makes a difference to the story.

The voice acting is alright but nothing gobsmacking. There have been some notably flat line readings from supporting characters. I'm trying not to compare it to the film cast, but it's not easy. I never thought I'd compare Vin Diesel favourably to anyone, but Groot here doesn't convey meaning and emotion nearly as well. I think they might even be reusing the same few recordings for all his lines - you might say it's a wooden performance! I've been nice to Rocket at every opportunity, because he doesn't sound mean enough (I also keep mistaking his voice for Star Lord's). Drax is probably the best. I could have sworn he was played by Khary Payton, but not according to IMDB.

It's still early on though and I'm enjoying it overall. Time will tell how it shapes up.

[The Roofdog]

I got this for Christmas and have finally made a start on it. So far it seems pretty good, although there's a general shonkiness to the controls and combat can be a little iffy: Star Lord's lasers seem a bit weedy and have an annoying habit of losing their lock-on at random.

Yeah it's a bit silly that your two massive space cannons are your light attack and running in and punching something is your heavy attack but it does make you think more about using the other team members' attacks together with the stun modes on the guns.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've just finished and, overall, it shaped up pretty darn well.

The baddies remained bullet sponges throughout (The fight against the man with the golden arm was particularly drawn out) but fighting certainly got a lot more fun as I unlocked more powers. It's good fun when you leverage the whole team and start mowing down space bastards, but that does make it all the more of a drag when you have to wait for them to recharge their attacks while you run around with your pew pew puny.

The team pep talk mechanic is quite delightful, but the right words are so obvious that I'm not sure why they bothered putting the dialogue options in. It may as well have been triggered instantly. The colour coded baddie shields are a similarly rote mechanic.

Overall, there's nothing here that hasn't been seen in other games - I was frequently reminded of that Fallen Jedi one from a few years ago and any number of others during the hallucinatory levels - but it all works well and I found the story engrossing enough to smooth over any cracks.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I wasn't sure about this at first but once I was an hour or two into it I started really enjoying it. I don't like that Starlord sounds like Steve from RE Code Veronica though.

[Magnum Valentino]

I wasn't sure about this at first but once I was an hour or two into it I started really enjoying it. I don't like that Starlord sounds like Steve from RE Code Veronica though.

Sawry to hear that, probably won't play this as a result, then.

[brat-sampson]

I picked this up in the Epic sale and enjoyed it more than I expected to. Combat is... fine, but honestly it lives on its atmosphere, world-building and writing. They nailed all the characters and it's just insane how *much* quality dialogue there is in this. It must be like 10 hours or so of each character, bantering about every story beat and situation in the entire game. From the gameplay I thought it might end up being a chore/too relentless, but in the game I enjoyed almost all of it.

[AsparagusTrevor]

This is coming to Game Pass in the next couple of weeks. I'd normally be annoyed but I had so much fun playing through it I'm honestly happy to have spent money on it.

[bgmnts]

Only just started it but 10 minutes in and i've already heard 4 banging tunes, the graphics are brilliant and all the little references are nice touches.

I love that child Quill has a Samantha Fox poster and adult Quill has a Dazzler poster in his room.

[bgmnts]

Fair play this is some of the most fun i've ever had playing a video game. If they released one of these every year or so but it was Avengers or X Men or a general Marvel Ultimate Alliance crossover type thing I would buy it every time.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Shame there probably won't be another one like it since it didn't meet Squeenix's sales targets of 3 copies per person.

[bgmnts]

Well I'm sad now.

[oggyraiding]

Have hopes, they projected that while initial sales were below expectations, word of mouth and the big VGA award win means more people might pick it up, plus Game Pass folks on top of that. Psychonauts got a sequel and that sold like shit, we may still get a GotG sequel.

[oggyraiding]

https://gamerant.com/square-enix-marvel-games-loss/

New information about Square Enix continues to come out, however, and according to MST Financial, the publisher has lost $200 million between its two Marvel releases. This paints a reasonably clear picture as to why Square Enix would sell off both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, who worked on Marvel's Avengers and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively.

Okay, maybe don't have hope.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

How the fuck do they get the licence to one of the most popular things in the entertainment world and not make boatloads of money? Same thing with EA and Star Wars. Making crummy Avengers/Battlefront games is a good start, I suppose.

[Huxleys Babkins]

How the fuck do they get the licence to one of the most popular things in the entertainment world and not make boatloads of money? Same thing with EA and Star Wars. Making crummy Avengers/Battlefront games is a good start, I suppose.

Because they got greedy and tried to turn Avengers into a live service game even though everyone obviously wanted a proper single player game like the Arkham ones or Spider-Man.

[bgmnts]

Fuck me I'm so sad. As someone who has obviously burnt out on gaming, to find just a really fucking fun, immersive, entertaining mainstream game that had me smiling and having fun all the way through is like a diamond encrusted pot of leprechaun gold.

No industry is as depressingly greedy as the games industry. And not just Square Enix (and the rest) are horrible business cunts that value profit over enjoyment, but the fact that these cunts hoard the intellectual properties to games they'll never make out of pure spite and greed.

Fucksake.