Oh you want opinions on Guardians of the Galaxy, do you? Oh boy do I have opinions on Guardians of the Galaxy. On the one hand it’s a snot-squirtingly mediocre game that like so many triple A games of its ilk has the air of something that was stitched together from preexisting templates by about nine different teams who haven’t been talking to each other since a harrowing experience at the company picnic, but it also has a licensed soundtrack that includes Kickstart My Heart, so on the other hand it’s my game of the year, no more questions please. I can only assume someone at Square must’ve stolen my high school crush diary ‘cos how else would they know that Kickstart My Heart is my one weakness. See, there’s absolutely no action a living being can take that doesn’t become slightly cooler when it’s done to Kickstart My Heart. Even fingerpainting with Grandma takes on a sort of air of euphoric defiance. Anyway, Guardians of the Galaxy is Square Enix making hay as the Disney contract shines with a cinematic strictly single player non-live servicey game based on a Marvel movie property to hopefully counteract what they did with Marvel’s Avengers and convince us to stop sitting on their head.
And they really are splashing that Disney money around for this one, licensing every classic 80’s rock song that ever spent a regretful drink-sodden afternoon in Guitar Hero’s love shack. There’s even a couple of direct references to Star Wars that I’m sure someone bought a second yacht over. Which makes it all the more weird to me that as with Avengers they refuse to just flat out adapt the fucking movies. They’ll use the same aesthetics and the same characters with the same traits if some slight changes to the backstories but recast them all with their fucking stunt doubles. Oh I’m sure there’s some cunty bureaucratic reason. I’m sure the fact that it’s technically a new adaptation means some twat in a suit banked two paychecks this week, but try explaining that to the heartbroken kiddywinks wanting to know why Star-Lord is no longer loveable huggable Chris Pratt but instead some thuggish fratboy cunt with a steam iron for a face and a haircut that makes him look like the result of the unplanned anal pregnancy of both Beavis and Butthead. But like an angel with poor finger dexterity you know I hate to harp on. Our story begins with Star-Choad and his motley crew –
Drax “pro wrestler named after a bathroom disinfectant” The Destroyer, Rocket “My motion capture animation makes me look like a tiny person in a mascot costume” Raccoon, Gam “I don’t really have anything to do in this plot” Ora, and Rocket Raccoon’s pot plant – flying through space doing their best Cowboy Bebop impression when their latest money-making scheme goes awry and they get embroiled in a threat against the entire galaxy that they must overcome by finally learning to come together and work as a team, which they do about eight or nine times at a conservative estimate. Because triple-A only makes two kinds of single player games these days – open worlds, and this thing. A tortuously drawn out sequence of clunkily separated gameplay modes strung together like a collage on the wall of a primary school classroom. It’s got a token combat element relegated strictly to samey enclosed combat arenas, action set pieces possibly involving quick time events or their kissing cousin: the chase sequence where you die instantly if you do anything other than press forwards, and all of that is spaced out with prolonged sequences of walking very slowly through spectacular skyboxes, occasionally squeezing through very narrow passages so the rendering engine can have a quick swig of energy drink before the next spectacular skybox.
Throughout these slow bits the characters banter. By the anal fistwork of the Siddhartha Buddha do they banter. You can’t stop ’em. It’s like that Spider-Man three panel daily newspaper comic where Spider-Man has to recap that he’s up against Doctor Octopus nineteen times in a single lunch meeting. They bang on about what they’re doing, what they just did, what they’re about to do… “Ooh the boss we’re about to fight is supposed to be like ninety feet tall with wings like stage curtains and teeth like an overbooked Ku Klux Klan meeting” – Which usually turns out to be true even though it sounded like they were setting up a gag where the boss turns out to be a goat in a hat or something. I feel sorry for the no doubt small legion of poor bastards they had writing all this shit because about 75% of the conversations got cut off by me entering a narrow passage or starting the next set piece because of my infuriating desire to progress in the game at slightly above a slow walking pace. See, none of this feels like it exists organically or is essential for the telling of the story it’s trying to tell. It feels like it’s there to fill in a template. Why else would Stank-Lord routinely land his ship half a fucking mile from the house of the person we came to visit?
Because the next two hours have been earmarked for walking slowly down a corridor until the “action set piece” light comes on and the floor promptly collapses beneath us. Then a token sequence where we slide down a hill on our bum ensues where I might as well strap the controller to my wrist and play by enthusiastically milking an unruly cow for all the difference it makes. Then we return to slow corridor walking with absolutely nothing changed except now chafed bum cheeks have been added to the list of things to banter about. And of course other parts of the pointless journey have been earmarked for some samey combat arenas so we can justify the token shitty upgrade menu and still call it a video game with a straight face. In which Stank-Load’s standard laser gun attack feels about as effective as tossing glowsticks at the house of someone you hate who doesn’t even realise you hate them and that makes you hate them even more, so it’s more about waiting for cooldowns to end so you can strategically instruct your four chums to use their actually effective attacks. A combat system presumably designed to emphasise Pant-Load’s status as leader, as is the super special attack thing where you can call a time out and the enemies weirdly obligingly take a quick piss break while you select the obviously correct dialog line from two options that gives your team a super buff and picks a random licensed song to play for the rest of the fight.
Which if you’re lucky will be Kickstart my Heart and if you’re unlucky will be fucking Rick Astley or something, which is like when your nice hot invigorating shower unexpectedly switches to dispensing cold sick into your face. Frankly the combat also feels like it’s more here to tick boxes than offer any kind of smoothly integrated gameplay. But you know what, Guardians of the Galaxy is like the Marvel movies in general. It’s an ocean of samey predictable blandness and meaningless action set pieces that very often feels like it’s been machine produced in a factory where the workforce all speak different languages, but it’s got this occasional flash of imagination and good humour that means we have to keep slogging through the rest of it to see if any more happen. I remember thinking this at the bit in the game where we have to escape from a prison by directing a space llama to a control panel through the repulsive power of Gamora’s terrible singing voice. I guess there’s not really a core mechanic in that but it was interesting. Take all the shit like that, cut off about 75% of the plodding through copy pasted areas, gouge out anything that doesn’t progress the plot, pull its legs off, stick ’em up its nose, wrap its lower intestine around its neck like a pretty scarf and THEN you’ll have – ew. Something I’d rather didn’t stand on the living room carpet, actually.
