This is a great game, and pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Guardians of the Galaxy game. It's basically a Telltale-like narrative story with choices, but much more interactive gameplay. It oozes style and offers all the humor and banter that the crew should. I really enjoyed my time with it and it only got better the more I played. It does however have its share of problems.

I'll start out with the biggest problem here, which I realized halfway through: A bad first impression. The first time I tried playing, I only made it halfway through the first chapter. At first look, the whole cast just seems like movie actor imposters, since they purposefully designed the characters to look extremely similar but slightly different (even the voice actors sound similar.) When you start playing everything seems fine, but when you start playing you quickly realize that the main draw of the game - the dialogue - is extremely easy to accidentally interrupt by walking across trigger points for other dialogue or cutscenes. On top of that, you frequently get optional dialogue prompts, which you purposefully have to wait until the very last second to make a choice because they will also immediately interrupt dialogue. And then you run the risk of missing the prompt entirely. I haven't seen a game with this much trouble with dialogue interruption since the original Borderlands.

But then, the game introduces you to combat. Every enemy in the first chapter is quite annoying to fight, and your first introduction has you fighting them solo with nothing but your pathetic basic pea-shooter pistol attack (and the guns overheat very quickly.) The next fight, you actually get other characters to assist and unlock a single ability for them, but you're absolutely swarmed with enemies and the cooldowns are too long to reasonably deal with the flood. It's just not fun and the game throws similar combat experiences at you throughout the chapter.

Thankfully though, once you push through that initial chapter, things only get better and better. You (mostly) learn how to avoid the annoying dialogue interruptions, and you unlock more combat abilities for but you and the rest of the crew and aren't constantly fighting annoying enemies. Somehow battles actually end up being fun after a while. And that helps you appreciate the rest of the game even more.

Now for the good parts of the game: The writing is quite humorous, and there's lots of great dialogue between all the characters. The story offers significant impactful choices that often aren't just obvious black and white options. The game also dives into a bit more of the weirdness offered by Marvel than the movies do. The art direction is fantastic, offering a wide variety of beautiful and striking locations to explore as you play through. The game also features a surprisingly impressive implementation of ray-traced reflections, if your system can handle it, and excellent HDR support. Combat does eventually get quite enjoyable as well. And like I said at the beginning, it just gets better the more you play, and really doesn't stop getting better even as you reach the credits.

I certainly wasn't expecting much, particularly after my poor first impression, but this really is a great game and definitely worth your time.

This is a great game, and pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Guardians of the Galaxy game. It's basically a Telltale-like narrative story with choices, but much more interactive gameplay. It oozes style and offers all the humor and banter that the crew should. I really enjoyed my time with it and it only got better the more I played. It does however have its share of problems. I'll start out with the biggest problem here, which I realized halfway through: A bad first impression. The first time I tried playing, I only made it halfway through the first chapter. At first look, the whole cast just seems like movie actor imposters, since they purposefully designed the characters to look extremely similar but slightly different (even the voice actors sound similar.) When you start playing everything seems fine, but when you start playing you quickly realize that the main draw of the game - the dialogue - is extremely easy to accidentally interrupt by walking across trigger points for other dialogue or cutscenes. On top of that, you frequently get optional dialogue prompts, which you purposefully have to wait until the very last second to make a choice because they will also immediately interrupt dialogue. And then you run the risk of missing the prompt entirely. I haven't seen a game with this much trouble with dialogue interruption since the original Borderlands. But then, the game introduces you to combat. Every enemy in the first chapter is quite annoying to fight, and your first introduction has you fighting them solo with nothing but your pathetic basic pea-shooter pistol attack (and the guns overheat very quickly.) The next fight, you actually get other characters to assist and unlock a single ability for them, but you're absolutely swarmed with enemies and the cooldowns are too long to reasonably deal with the flood. It's just not fun and the game throws similar combat experiences at you throughout the chapter. Thankfully though, once you push through that initial chapter, things only get better and better. You (mostly) learn how to avoid the annoying dialogue interruptions, and you unlock more combat abilities for but you and the rest of the crew and aren't constantly fighting annoying enemies. Somehow battles actually end up being fun after a while. And that helps you appreciate the rest of the game even more. Now for the good parts of the game: The writing is quite humorous, and there's lots of great dialogue between all the characters. The story offers significant impactful choices that often aren't just obvious black and white options. The game also dives into a bit more of the weirdness offered by Marvel than the movies do. The art direction is fantastic, offering a wide variety of beautiful and striking locations to explore as you play through. The game also features a surprisingly impressive implementation of ray-traced reflections, if your system can handle it, and excellent HDR support. Combat does eventually get quite enjoyable as well. And like I said at the beginning, it just gets better the more you play, and really doesn't stop getting better even as you reach the credits. I certainly wasn't expecting much, particularly after my poor first impression, but this really is a great game and definitely worth your time.