Guardians of the Galaxy Review -Surprised- _Buy_ Wait for Sale_ Never Touch

 guardians of the galaxy is way better than i originally thought it would be then again i thought it'd possibly suck but the reason they don't

call anyone who looks at the stars an astronaut is because you have to experience it and after playing through guardians of the galaxy two times

well let's get to the review and discuss it hit subscribe in the notify bell if you're not getting notifications you may need to hit it again youtube has had some issues i have more reviews coming this week the podcast an interview video and another meet your heroes video coming subscribe it helps the channel guardians of the galaxy i've always felt that the apathetic flaccidness that superhero games are delivered to us that aren't called spider-man has been pretty devastating avengers arrived with so many issues its greatest hero in the game might havejust been the fact that some people couldn't experience it right away nor heroically saved the pain of averageness wrapped inside a microtransaction shell thicker than anything tony stark could make guardians of the galaxy's announcement didn't offer a ton of concrete evidence on the other side either it didn't make any real difference what we saw it all looked

like just another avengers despite it being from a different developer within square it was claimed to be a single player only game the skins and other

micro transactions were not going to be in there and i can guarantee you they aren't but we've heard that before a complete experience we've heard that

before but even after booting it up the first time you can feel that there is a difference here in how the games are presented graphically marvel does a

great job to impress almost right away each game has delivered its superhero focus in a different way from punisher's ps2 dirty gore of smashing a dude's

eyeball on a mammoth tusk in a museum tospider-man's wild antics perfectly animated into some alien combination a clumsy slickness in the playstation

titles but with guardians it can just be alien and stunning and that color work along with the detailed enemies and the background sprawling out into asteroid fields spinning around in the sky as you hoof it through space stations and the surprisingly mammoth and complex nowhere a city built inside the hollowed out head of a dude who apparently was pretty [ __ ] big aliens chattering directly and distinctly in various different groups around you characters moving around and giving you the player a feeling of a real lived-in place versus the 12-person economy of magic that a lot of rpgs have when the same dozen

people seem to cohabitate the entire city while the environments are excellent usually with a couple missteps the facial movements the details the

emotion it's mind-blowing here there are a number of story beats poignant moments punctuated by characters hatred surprise dismay confused anger or desire forrevenge that guardian hits every time despite the fact that i even called this star-lord the douche lord because of the way he looked even that worked out every single time i won't spoil anything but there are huge changes to the characters lives and to see the actual sadness on a character's face versus that muppet sack [ __ ] we normally see where skins look like they're deforming slower than the faces below them in a lot of other games doesn't happen here guardians goes the extra mile in a ton of places that i did not expect the ship for instance has loads of personality with items all over it that peter can comment on or when an item's found in the game world peter will actually return it to the ship and others may have comments on it or full unlocked story moments and elements which by the way can be missed if you don't grab those items and you're going to want to grab those items because skins are always done in the same way in a lot of games hidden canisters i will say i was pleasantly surprised that in guardians of the galaxy finding those canisters was harder than i expected depending on how the game played out some are out in the open but others are off beaten paths enough that if you're in the mindset of getting to or running away from a battle you may not actually see them i like that that feeling of actually having to look a little bit for them was very cool and the first playthrough i did not have them all but that doesn't mean everything's perfect in guardians of the galaxy especially when you do special moves the way that the characters move around the game world is sort of a flickety split kind of thing almost from a looney tunes where you see a bit of smoke and the character appears as if they're transversing through this teleportation of the ether and appearing in any plac in the game world that you've actually commanded them to go it fits in some cases but it looks decidedly awkward in other cases while explosions and effects and lasers and the elemental guns all look spectacular the different transformations of the enemies look good in the way that they move around there can be some times where you'll see

enemies stuck on various parts of the scenery perhaps they're they're just a performance spare though and that's what we're gonna talk about right now this is a mixed bag first on the consoles you're looking at 1080p 30fps for the last gen and while the nextgen do have performance modes with 60fps as theircap and a much lower resolution and less effects or a quality mode which is non-native 4k it looks like and around 30 fps but it seems to be uncapped and goes above that is definitely fluctuating a lot when you're playing especially in quality mode later in the game there are also two stages where the fps took a nosedive i tested on three different machines the s and two x' with reboots as well as making sure that the quick turn on for the system was not

on because that has caused issues in the past as well as loading a save game they did have a patch which did rectify some of these fps issues but it did not

correct all of them so be aware that i was able to get through it but because of the level i played the game at which was on the harder difficulties for that end level area it was really hard to get everything lined up all the way prior t that the issue is really not that much of a problem the fps isn't solid on quality mode on the xbox series x and there are some texture pop-ins at times which is pretty brutal in a couple different spots the performance mode as the game swaps in and out some models doesn't look the best and there's a strange dithering kind of lod effect you see that's ugly as [ __ ] performance mode it makes it look like somebody shot the background with a gun loaded with shadows and murky water it for sure has its issues however most of the time it's running well enough for you to enjoy your experience and on the pc of course you have enough power that you can just throw at it i still thought the game looked phenomenal i'd like to see another patch to really shore up that frame rate in those last two sections especially when a lot of fog is on the level and another thing that's on the level is the audio imagine the glory of such a death our goal isn't death drax glorious death [Music] oh hey little guy[Music] like to be wrong i admit i like the avengers i know that the actors would not be the characters i did wonder howthis would pan out in the game but damn  other than rocket falling a tiny bit flat a couple of times but that's expected due to the difference in the voice actors this is a different group than the movies with slightly different dynamics in the story and for sure a very different history and overall cohesion that plays out well for example john mclaren hot off the heels of the award-winning movie my nanny secret takes over star-lord's voice acting he does a very good job reflecting a

star-lord much more cognizant of his team something that i've actually really felt the movies didn't do as good of a job on his desire to lead well and take care of his family which is that team at all cost is ratcheted up when things gosideways and the emotion he displays fighting for someone's side that maybe

isn't something that he actually agrees with is pretty freaking awesome and that's one thing you notice right away is that the writing here has everybody a tiny bit more respectful that means when arguments do occur it's not that inevitable sighting of a car crash after  seeing someone speed by it's the

surprise hit that tells much better on screen than the angsty constant barbed back and forth that we see in the movies and assuredly this is done because

they're interacting versus multiple hours compared to a two-hour movie thank god they did you may also recognize brandon paul ells who was playing drax

in the telltale games as well as a number of other spots marvel ultimate alliance future fight and other games kimberly sue murray as gamora offers a

much more accessible less angsty gamora who still carries secrets but she displays in many interactions with the others that she's more invested in the

guardians than i think you're going to expect also alex winder and robert montcalm rounded out as rocket and groot alex isn't as sing-song as bradley

cooper and the movies in that delivery it's snappy riding between everybody and that really works the one-liners were actually funny it's just you have to be prepared for rocket to not necessarily sound the way you've probably heard him sound before and i'm sure someone's here saying you know what audio and music don't matter but my lord smash some triangle-headed alien with a vertical drax attack double dipping double damage dealing daggers into his head while never gonna give you up by rick ashley's plane and tell me that is not some epic [ __ ] i've slaughtered enemies on alien planets while new kids on the bloc reminded me to hang tough and i defended best friends against gelatinous cubes while pat benatar challenged them to hit us with their best shot seriously it's a montage moment from start to finish almost every single battle even when exploring or hanging out on the ship the fog shrouded interior of your ravager vessel has this mysterious puffs of steam coming out of all of these uncovered vents and you can hear the echo of don't fear the reaper playing out on an old ghetto blaster and there's also the fictional rock band star-lord it comes hammering in i think it's got 10 or 11 brand new rock songs that feel

lodged in that particular time frame trust me few games hinge music so carefully into the narrative as guardians of the galaxy has already in

the comics and in the movies the game actually ups that beyond both of those also when it comes to the sounds bravo to the sound designer jumping into the

sound options is like an option smorgasbord it's a nerd audiophile's wet dream at least as far as video games options go device presets from studio

reference down to normal tv and a custom setting for adjusting speakers angles of orientation towards you to dial it in these dynamics are awesome and speakin of dynamics you can jump there and you can change it from very low to very high depending on the compression that you want and maybe what time you're playing the game now two weeks ago when i got the game there were some audio bugs present that have been patched out and i can now say that for the most part the soundscape is very impressive and more so with that patch it's fixed some of those issues moving through the ship you can hear the tonal changes of everywhere you're going that soundscape moves around you and characters move as well and as they're talking to you you can hear them adjust in their locations explosions rocket through caverns and when you come out into the open and this gaping wound of a valley in front of you that bit of an echo makes everything in place feel recorded from that location instead of let's say a studio battles the game has audio nailed down as well from explosions to verticality to channeling very well done like i said there are a couple bugs here or there but overall still very good audio and that brings us to gameplay in a bit about the story so this has been 12 years since the galactic war with the shitari your peter quill star-lord and with the war over your life as a ravager behind you you put together a motley crew called the guardians of the galaxy your heroes for hire your leadership skills are a bit iffy your intentions are we'll call them suspect what could go wrong now that's from the back of the game's bio entry those things are terrible and it does the game a wicked disservice because story wise guardians starts out a bit blah it does a lot of wtf and then it turns it up to 11 without a moment's notice and hammers through to the very end you may not like it you may get lost at times but i have to hand it to them where i expected the game to be like six hours long with a couple places to go an order 1886 superhero version if you will we instead get a title that took me more than 20 hours that splits courses in some places depending on choices and seriously where the hell did some of the writing come from because it's actually not that bad if you pay attention you're going to find some excellent storyline moments here from the different side characters not only as you play them out as part of the largest story but as they arc over into many episodes like almost side comic book moments and in hidd discussions between friends or reminders of memories long forgotten in alien alcohol interpretations as you randomly impromptu air guitar with a pissy alien pirate more story is one thing a better story is a good thing and here we have a mixture of both i don't think anybody' gonna think's as good as spider-man but hey it's a step up from a lot of other superhero titles as star-lord gamora groot drax and rocket raccoon you uncover more of a growing mystery you start pretty much right at starting you find more places to explore characters to meet and the game begins to feel somewhat like a mass effect light or more appropriately an alpha protocol if you've ever played that game a title with a skill based element but with more rpg choices than you may have actually expected control in battle is simple enough with you free firing or locking onto enemies while holding down on the trigger with the ps5 having some adaptive trigger elements in small ways not only do you have star-lord's trusty blasters you have that ability to jump jet into the air with his boots and an armored visor to look around the world to see interactables as well as weak spots if you buy that perk you also have abilities for each character that can be comboed up double teamed and then cooled down whenever ready guardians is the best example of the difference between exploration and discover when moving around a game world you don't explore a ton in guardians it's much more like mass effect in that way hub based at least the good places and not that abomination andromeda i'm talking about the original three moving to a new planet space station or other spots in the fiction has you working through them sometimes doing environmental puzzles with your blasters or just the

character's secondary combat and environmental abilities or fighting now when fighting the control's pretty slick but in combat you can bounce off other

characters because star-lord isn't some dude made out of mdc armor equivalents in fact his perk section only has a couple related to health in the harder

difficulties with enemy damage cranked one or two shots can spell utter doom but luckily when battling or when just exploring you do get ability points that

can help you a little bit with that this is unique and in a different way than i expected it's a combined skill group for example if you have two you can only buy a second level skill for one character it's not two two two for everybody while a bit forceful since almost every single skill is about a group dynamic it makes sense in guardians of the galaxy it also reflects the story's timeline and the newness of the team each character has four powers with the fourth being unlocked by a story mission a bit later on in the game and as star-lord you're backed up by not only your own weapons and their timed reload overcharge shot ability but also elemental abilities you can unlock on your gun as you move further into the game shots looking like enemies on fire arc electricity between groups of enemies to stun them freezing enemies in place so other characters can hit them and even getting a wind ability to pull enemies that are hard to hit closer to you and each character does have those environmental integrations drax can move larger objects he can smash walls gamora can help you double jump to top locations you can't get to alone groot can make root bridges and rocket can squeeze into smaller sections

environmental attacks also play out here you can find interaction points in the world when you're in battle and lead enemies towards them and then launch the characters to interact with that spot for example gamora will slice the cables off of a ship part and have it drop down onto enemies but while the combat is team oriented it can be a bit confusing at first what can appear like spam for the button skills turns into this needed concentration if you have the difficulty higher for instance some moves add damage multipliers on easy mode this isn't really needed until later on on harder difficulties or on settings where the damage is done highly from the enemies this is a staple with you needing to pay attention to what attacks are doing what later on in the game you're going to need the light enemies on fire then use groove to hold them so that the damage over time can build up which is much more important than just hitting them and wading back in and letting that chip damage slowly kill them but also crew on you and each of these skills does have a target stagger

and damage and cooldown setting while all the characters have those perks areonly pretty much for star-lord you can adjust them as you see fit you get the

abilities by the time you complete the game almost all of them you can easily not get all the perks though if you don't go around scavenging money and

parts so buying ones that fit your play style is pretty worthwhile right from the start sadly i just can't say that the perks are that imaginative the

ability to scan enemies for weaknesses during a firefight was a bit time consuming for me but charge shot and rapid reload are huge bonuses it's just not that sexy and i will absolutely agree that while all the characters have four skills it's probably not as many as i would have liked it does feel even on

the harder difficulties like a couple more would have been nice and what this does is it reminds you of the games prior to multiplayer being a thing four

people in a group with the player activating the specials and calling out shots it's explained via the fiction here but for a lot of people i think a

couple more would have been ideal and that's especially when you look at the difference between fan service and good fan service and it's always been weighted heavily towards the prior in a lot of our superhero games other than some of the big hitters guardians call outs for every single designer when you unlock a skin the first moments of a character in a comic book one-liners that the story has as well as some characters you see in this game that i wasn't expecting or discovering items in the game world and having discussions about them solidly lodged this game in the latter and more surprising part and

all the better for it even if it doesn't always come across perfectly but my enjoyment was actually strangely enough just cranking the difficulty up right

away that required thought it required me diving into the options to identify how i wanted commands to slow down the action for a moment so i could decide it really required a more realistic appraisal of the abilities and the skills and perks not everybody's going to want to play that way but that's what

worked for me and to be honest a lot of guardians worked for me assuredly this is not going to be called a super deep combat game it's a guardians of the

galaxy game it's probably one of the most confident superhero games i've seen in my life to the point to where it's at least equal to spider-man not when it

comes to its presentation or anything like that but in its desire to present a story perhaps not presenting that story as good certainly not as good at action but it's a child that doesn't know it's behind in a race and just keeps trucking along and you actually end up looking at it going that's pretty [ __ ] cool speaking of cool let's talk a little bit about fun factor even if sales don't reflect it the strength of a product always shines through true words have never been spoken to me one night when a friend tried to sell me as ford pinto it's profoundly hard to describe the elation you feel taking down an elitist orthodox space priest sucking from his own cup of faith and you throw grenade into his face while aha plays in the background that's what guardians can offer you at the same time it doesn't offer you times where you're jumping into the combat and you feel like there's just so many moves and you can always freestyle everything all games end up finding a place of repetitiveness regardless and certainly this game does have that but where a lot of games will push you out and that fun factor becomes lost here despite any issues i ran into i would end up having more and more fun and continue to jump in enough that once i got done i wanted to see what some of the larger choices in the game cause for example i haven't even really talked about the huddle system because i didn't feel that it was overtly incredibly over the top and used in this game but allows for you when you're getting your ass kicked or kicking their asses to huddle together and have that movie moment where everybody gets together and has a little bit of a talk i didn't really love it because a lot of the times you know exactly what to say when you go out of that huddle there isn't really  question of what you may or may not sayto these characters but it's the fact  that it's not just tacked on it's an actual scene it's a moment within the game that really surprised me the characters are there in front of you fully acted it's not some kind of momentary cut scene it's where characters are acting and talking and reacting off each other and throughout all of them it never repeated which was really surprising i rate games on a buy weight for sale rent or never touch it again rating system and this is a buy though there is some trepidation there especially with those technical issues but the story the characters which i believe i actually like more than the guardians of the galaxy movie characters which surprises me because i actually really like the movie everything comes together the story is a much longe story than i expected and while it's not any absolutely great shakes it's the fact that it never really takes any shortcuts that i think a lot of people would have expected for a title like this i really was expecting a shorter title and one where they didn't put their all in and instead almost

everywhere you go in almost everything you do there's a little bit more than expected admittedly i would have liked to have seen more skills for sure so

anyway that's it for me i hope you guys liked the video subscribe hit the notification bell stay tuned for all the reviews that are coming up this week

peace out and enjoy the rest of your week [Music] [Music] you