Despite growing up as a lifelong fan of Marvel Comics, I knew next to nothing about the Guardians of the Galaxy until their self-titled Marvel Cinematic Universe film in 2014. All of the Guardians films are some of the best to come out of the MCU. They’re a fun and surprisingly emotional trilogy of films featuring a really enjoyable cast of ragtag mercenaries turned found family. 2021’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy video game mostly manages to capture what makes those movies a good time. Unfortunately, for almost everything this game does right, there’s a caveat that brings it down.
You would think that the game being named after the whole team means that you’d eventually end up playing as each one of the Guardians, but that isn’t the case. In this game, you only play as their leader, Star-Lord. The entire game revolves around his capability as a leader. It focuses on testing his ability to lead the Guardians and making the best use out of all of their unique powers and talents, as well as maintaining morale throughout the entire team. This concept extends to every facet of gameplay, and I really like it. I think it's a great way to approach a video game about the Guardians.
The story is definitely its strongest point. The game has its own spin on the common themes and ideas that are explored in the movies- learning how to lead, deal with loss, the positives and negatives of a found family, and opening up to those around you. It takes place in its own separate continuity from the MCU, but you can tell that it draws almost all of its inspiration from James Gunn’s interpretation in terms of portraying the characters. It manages to be just as enjoyable and funny as the films, to the point where it's almost indistinguishable from them aside from certain plot details. It surprised me with one of its plot twists, and the story as a whole actually exceeded my expectations.
Levels involve you exploring all sorts of different alien worlds and getting into skirmishes with either the local wildlife or various factions seeking to stop you from saving the universe. Exploration is fairly linear and straightforward. You generally follow a path with some light platforming until you come across a roadblock that will require one or several of the Guardians’ abilities to remove or overcome it. Platforming can feel very stiff. Star-Lord’s jumps have almost no momentum and it can lead to some embarrassing falls at times. The roadblocks always require the same Guardian ability to get past them, so you never really have to think too long about what you need to do to progress. There were times when the way forward is through a tight crevice whose entrance can be hard to see, so I was left very confused on where to go several times when exploring. It was really frustrating when this happened.
Combat is essentially that of a third person shooter. You’ll be shooting enemies while issuing commands to the Guardians. Each Guardian has unique attacks and abilities that can be used to damage or incapacitate enemies in a variety of ways, and they each have their own situational uses. It takes a little getting used to at first. I didn’t realize how much the game wanted me to utilize the Guardians’ abilities initially so combat was really difficult for a while. You’re meant to constantly be using them, otherwise you won’t do that much damage to a majority of enemies in the game. Their abilities do have a cool down, but that cool down isn’t very long, so you have to constantly be watching for when they are available again. Star-Lord also has his own unique abilities with their own cooldown periods. It can get chaotic tracking everything on screen at once. You not only have to keep track of the large amounts of enemies you’ll be facing in a fight, but you also need to constantly keep an eye on your teammates, make sure they’re not incapacitated or downed, and watch for when they can use one of their special abilities again, while also being aware of when Star-Lord’s own abilities are available. It can be overwhelming, but you eventually get used to it.
When your backs are against the wall, you can Huddle Up, which is this game’s version of a power up mechanic. When activated, the Guardians will come together and make some comments regarding how the fight is going. You’ll then have dialogue options for a short speech that’s meant to rally and empower your team, and you have to pick the correct option based on their comments. If you pick the correct option, the entire team’s health is restored and they’re all temporarily buffed, but if you pick the wrong one, only Star-Lord gets buffed. I really love this mechanic, it’s one of the most creative power ups I’ve ever seen in video games, and really captures the theme of leadership the game is trying to convey.
In-between exploring worlds, you’ll also have an opportunity to just chill in the Guardians’ ship: The Milano. Here, you can bond with your teammates and speak with them to learn more about them, as well as discuss the unfolding events of the story. This game has a lot of dialogue, and I suspect that this might get on certain people’s nerves. Personally, I found the dialogue to be entertaining, funny, and endearing most of the time. However, something you notice over the course of the game is that the Guardians yell at each other a lot. They have to yell at each other during combat since fighting is loud, but they’re also yelling and arguing amongst each other frequently during the first half of the game. While overall I enjoyed the dialogue, I won’t lie, it can get grating at times.
The game is rather long, to the point where it really overstays its welcome. Levels tend to stretch on for quite a while, enemies can take a long time to put down which drags out combat, and you revisit the same locations multiple times. The experience gets rather repetitive the longer it goes on for. By the time I reached the end, I was very ready for it to be over. There is definitely a lot of fat that could’ve been trimmed.
Graphically, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, with a really colorful artstyle that I found very pleasing to look at. However, the game itself really lacks polish, with constant visual and audio glitches. A lot of animations won’t play correctly and cause certain characters to stutter wildly at times. Drax often won’t sheathe his knives when he’s supposed to, so when he crosses his arms, it looks like he’s impaling himself with them. Dialogue in cutscenes will frequently skip or just straight up not play at all. I will say that it runs super smoothly on PC, I never had any frame drops despite all of the chaos on the screen, but the other glitches were constant and distracting, especially the audio ones.
Aesthetically, the game emulates the films’ 1980s vibes, and they do a great job doing so. There are a ton of licensed rock, metal, and pop tracks from that time period that play either after you Huddle Up in combat, or on board the Milano, and they’re all mostly great picks. Though I do have to heckle the devs for their choice of an Iron Maiden song. Seriously, you had access to the entire Iron Maiden catalog and you chose Where Eagles Dare??? Not Run to the Hills, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Aces High, or The Trooper… you chose Eagles. It’s such a disappointing and mid choice. This has no real bearing on my overall opinion, I just really like Iron Maiden’s music and was a little sad at the song they chose to be in the game. They get bonus props for creating a fictional metal band with an entire album just for this game.
It’s hard to recommend this game unless you really love the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Overall, it’s a good time, but I wouldn’t say it's a great one. It’s not the best superhero game I’ve ever played, but it's far from the worst. It has a lot of heart and a unique approach to adapting these characters into a video game fashion. I’d love a sequel that trims the repetitive fat that made the game drag, and that polishes the numerous presentation bugs. If you’re not already a fan of the Guardians, I don’t think that this game will do too much to change your mind. If you are a fan, I think you’ll find that this game offers quite a bit to enjoy, enough to make it easier to overlook its flaws. It’s definitely not a game I’d pick up for full price though.
You would think that the game being named after the whole team means that you’d eventually end up playing as each one of the Guardians, but that isn’t the case. In this game, you only play as their leader, Star-Lord. The entire game revolves around his capability as a leader. It focuses on testing his ability to lead the Guardians and making the best use out of all of their unique powers and talents, as well as maintaining morale throughout the entire team. This concept extends to every facet of gameplay, and I really like it. I think it's a great way to approach a video game about the Guardians.
The story is definitely its strongest point. The game has its own spin on the common themes and ideas that are explored in the movies- learning how to lead, deal with loss, the positives and negatives of a found family, and opening up to those around you. It takes place in its own separate continuity from the MCU, but you can tell that it draws almost all of its inspiration from James Gunn’s interpretation in terms of portraying the characters. It manages to be just as enjoyable and funny as the films, to the point where it's almost indistinguishable from them aside from certain plot details. It surprised me with one of its plot twists, and the story as a whole actually exceeded my expectations.
Levels involve you exploring all sorts of different alien worlds and getting into skirmishes with either the local wildlife or various factions seeking to stop you from saving the universe. Exploration is fairly linear and straightforward. You generally follow a path with some light platforming until you come across a roadblock that will require one or several of the Guardians’ abilities to remove or overcome it. Platforming can feel very stiff. Star-Lord’s jumps have almost no momentum and it can lead to some embarrassing falls at times. The roadblocks always require the same Guardian ability to get past them, so you never really have to think too long about what you need to do to progress. There were times when the way forward is through a tight crevice whose entrance can be hard to see, so I was left very confused on where to go several times when exploring. It was really frustrating when this happened.
Combat is essentially that of a third person shooter. You’ll be shooting enemies while issuing commands to the Guardians. Each Guardian has unique attacks and abilities that can be used to damage or incapacitate enemies in a variety of ways, and they each have their own situational uses. It takes a little getting used to at first. I didn’t realize how much the game wanted me to utilize the Guardians’ abilities initially so combat was really difficult for a while. You’re meant to constantly be using them, otherwise you won’t do that much damage to a majority of enemies in the game. Their abilities do have a cool down, but that cool down isn’t very long, so you have to constantly be watching for when they are available again. Star-Lord also has his own unique abilities with their own cooldown periods. It can get chaotic tracking everything on screen at once. You not only have to keep track of the large amounts of enemies you’ll be facing in a fight, but you also need to constantly keep an eye on your teammates, make sure they’re not incapacitated or downed, and watch for when they can use one of their special abilities again, while also being aware of when Star-Lord’s own abilities are available. It can be overwhelming, but you eventually get used to it.
When your backs are against the wall, you can Huddle Up, which is this game’s version of a power up mechanic. When activated, the Guardians will come together and make some comments regarding how the fight is going. You’ll then have dialogue options for a short speech that’s meant to rally and empower your team, and you have to pick the correct option based on their comments. If you pick the correct option, the entire team’s health is restored and they’re all temporarily buffed, but if you pick the wrong one, only Star-Lord gets buffed. I really love this mechanic, it’s one of the most creative power ups I’ve ever seen in video games, and really captures the theme of leadership the game is trying to convey.
In-between exploring worlds, you’ll also have an opportunity to just chill in the Guardians’ ship: The Milano. Here, you can bond with your teammates and speak with them to learn more about them, as well as discuss the unfolding events of the story. This game has a lot of dialogue, and I suspect that this might get on certain people’s nerves. Personally, I found the dialogue to be entertaining, funny, and endearing most of the time. However, something you notice over the course of the game is that the Guardians yell at each other a lot. They have to yell at each other during combat since fighting is loud, but they’re also yelling and arguing amongst each other frequently during the first half of the game. While overall I enjoyed the dialogue, I won’t lie, it can get grating at times.
The game is rather long, to the point where it really overstays its welcome. Levels tend to stretch on for quite a while, enemies can take a long time to put down which drags out combat, and you revisit the same locations multiple times. The experience gets rather repetitive the longer it goes on for. By the time I reached the end, I was very ready for it to be over. There is definitely a lot of fat that could’ve been trimmed.
Graphically, the game looks absolutely gorgeous, with a really colorful artstyle that I found very pleasing to look at. However, the game itself really lacks polish, with constant visual and audio glitches. A lot of animations won’t play correctly and cause certain characters to stutter wildly at times. Drax often won’t sheathe his knives when he’s supposed to, so when he crosses his arms, it looks like he’s impaling himself with them. Dialogue in cutscenes will frequently skip or just straight up not play at all. I will say that it runs super smoothly on PC, I never had any frame drops despite all of the chaos on the screen, but the other glitches were constant and distracting, especially the audio ones.
Aesthetically, the game emulates the films’ 1980s vibes, and they do a great job doing so. There are a ton of licensed rock, metal, and pop tracks from that time period that play either after you Huddle Up in combat, or on board the Milano, and they’re all mostly great picks. Though I do have to heckle the devs for their choice of an Iron Maiden song. Seriously, you had access to the entire Iron Maiden catalog and you chose Where Eagles Dare??? Not Run to the Hills, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Aces High, or The Trooper… you chose Eagles. It’s such a disappointing and mid choice. This has no real bearing on my overall opinion, I just really like Iron Maiden’s music and was a little sad at the song they chose to be in the game. They get bonus props for creating a fictional metal band with an entire album just for this game.
It’s hard to recommend this game unless you really love the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Overall, it’s a good time, but I wouldn’t say it's a great one. It’s not the best superhero game I’ve ever played, but it's far from the worst. It has a lot of heart and a unique approach to adapting these characters into a video game fashion. I’d love a sequel that trims the repetitive fat that made the game drag, and that polishes the numerous presentation bugs. If you’re not already a fan of the Guardians, I don’t think that this game will do too much to change your mind. If you are a fan, I think you’ll find that this game offers quite a bit to enjoy, enough to make it easier to overlook its flaws. It’s definitely not a game I’d pick up for full price though.