Guardians Of The Galaxy

We sit down and review Guardians Of The Galaxy — Tangled Up In Blue. This is the first episode of Telltale's version of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Here's our review on how they did

With Guardians Of The Galaxy being the big thing right now in the Marvel film universe, it makes sense that we would see the first episode of the new episodic game release here to add to the whole experience. It is not linked to the film or comics, outside of the basics, and is completely something from Telltale Games for us to experience and have fun with before, after, and for a while after we catch the film. We do only have the first episode of this Guardians Of The Galaxy experience so far, but we've had our chance to give it all a whirl and see just how they did. Here's our review of the first episode and game so far.

Story

The Guardians Of The Galaxy are doing their own thing and messing around as they seem to do. They are a bunch of space rogues and such after all. But they are also the Guardians so when Thanos is up to no good and trying to claim yet another mystical relic in the universe, the Nova Corps tasks them to stop him from whatever horrible plot he has planned. As things tend to go, they do "save the day" but only to find out that the relic has a lot more hidden within and that is where the true issue arises and we have to deal with it all.

Hated

One thing I love about most of Telltale's titles is that they have a way to make all of their characters feel new and unique even if they are based off someone else's already set franchise. I was looking forward to this for Guardians Of The Galaxy but either the source material has already cemented my thoughts already or there was a hope that we would embed our own thoughts here. None of the characters had a new or interesting feel here. Almost to the point where they were all boring or one-sided; even with all of the extra dialog that could be experienced. They all seemed flat for an introduction episode which made the whole experience more of a chore than a pleasure.

Another item here, and it seems to have been more and more in a lot of the Telltale Games as of late, but the options and choices we are given here in Guardians Of The Galaxy all seemed forced or made to direct us down a very obvious path. The appeal of these kinds of games here are the branching paths and dialog choices, but everything was presented that we had multiple options but one was greatly stressed to the point where you wouldn't want to give the others a thought. Even the big one where you have to choose the Nova Corps over another choice, the Nova Corps are presented as the best option where the other was, "well, we have another option." This was how all of the choices felt here and it made me feel more like I was along for the ride and not truly guiding a thing.

Loved

While I may have found the characters lacing in any kind of originality here for Guardians Of The Galaxy, one thing that it seems that Telltale has done is to give each a special way to do their Quick Time Events that fit into the general feel we should have for them. Maybe this was me reading more into it, but it truly felt like each had their own structure and in the major battle scenes they blended so very well. It was a great addition into the style of game and could have worked only better if the characters felt more "original" as we know they can do. I hope it stays in for Guardians Of The Galaxy and makes its way over to the other IPs that the team creates. Such a great new feature.

Another aspect of Guardians Of The Galaxy that I was glad to see was the fact that the free-roam option we normally get in these games actually felt a lot more free-roam than ever. In many other of Telltale's titles we get to walk along a specific path or in a relatively small area with invisible walls. I hate invisible walls. At one point in this episode we actually had the chance to navigate multiple floors of an open area that made sense for us to be confined to. This was one of the better sections and made me want to look around and not just get to the solution as quick as possible. Only one other title from the developers has ever given me that same feeling before and I'm glad to see it back and hope it wasn't just a one-time thing.

Overall

Currently with only this episode being out there for Guardians Of The Galaxy I find it a little hard to recommend it. This is even as a fan of the team from before the first film was released. It was hard to care about the characters and their motivations as they stood here and had it not been for the fun combat and traversal I would have been bored with it all. This is the first episode and hopefully it will improve over the subsequent ones, but until that point I'd say that you should hold off on picking up Guardians Of The Galaxy just yet. Hopefully it is building up to something and it will capture us all soon.

I give Guardians Of The Galaxy — Tangled Up In Blue 5 Dead Nova Corps on the Dead Nova Corps scale.

Guardians Of The Galaxy — Tangled Up In Blue was developed by Telltale Games. Guardians Of The Galaxy — Tangled Up In Blue was published by Telltale Games for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on April 18^th 2017. A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.