Starting with the team travelling to take out the biggest bad in the Marvel universe, Thanos, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series definitely starts off with a bang. From octane fight scenes to a nice get together at the local bar, Telltale’s entrance into the Guardians franchise does a decent enough job at providing an entertaining foray into the deeper parts of the Marvel universe.
While the series’ main theme has always been one of family and teamwork, you’re placed in the role of group leader Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord. You’ll control the actions of the team’s other four members during the occasional quick-time event, but for the more gameplay sections of this interactive adventure you’ll be playing exclusively as Quill.
This move may seem bizzare to some, but it does work in the situations you’re placed in. You’ll be asked frequently to side with certain character’s actions over another during the course of the game’s first episode. From simple team squabbling to deciding how to make some money to pay off an overly large bar tab, Telltale has you pick team members over others, followed with the oh-so-daunting “this person will remember that” text flying overhead.
Apart from the first chapter, Telltale’s first episode in this series doesn’t strike the fire all too hot. It starts interestingly enough with the fight against Thanos, but surprisingly that’s only chapter one. Until the final chapter you’ll be conversing with teammates, discovering fairly interesting plot points and listening to exposition. It’s not boring but it does seem a little dry for a series to be opening on, especially one with the countless possibilities this series does.
The narrative in Guardians’ first episode is written well enough but the time spent between the game’s first and final chapter are overly dry. Many sections seem less like opportunities to inform the player of interesting character development or lore and more like padding. The game’s bar scene for instance started off strong with characters having a fun time but then introduces a way to make Rocket the Raccoon mad at you without any way to stop it. In fact, the strongest scenes in the game are flashbacks to a young Peter and his sick mother. In these scenes, Telltale show great skill at making believable characters with realistic outlooks on life.
It really does go to show that not all of Telltale’s writing conforms to that of a game. I found myself enjoying Guardians more when I was just watching the conversations and actions than actually taking part in them. This is because some options in the game’s dialogue tree stand out instantly as the one you’re supposed to choose. There’s not so much of the good or bad, or the chance to really make Star-Lord your own character and the off choices in the game usually just feel wrong and stick out as so.
Throughout the short ninety minutes of each episode, you get to learn each character fairly well and within a such a short time-frame you can tell that some choices aren’t the ones which this adaptation of Star-Lord would choose. It’s a tough problem, as the character is written well enough so that you feel you understand him but the choices you’re given don’t always match the same character.
When you aren’t choosing what to say or do you’ll have to play through Telltale’s basic point-and-click sections. In Guardians’ they’re done quite well with Peter’s rocket-propelled boots allowing you to scope out numerous places that other team members wouldn’t be able to get to. In this first episode however, they seem to be fairly limited in scope and lack the same amount of budget poured into the rest of the game.
Performances across the board are good enough with Nolan North’s Rocket Raccoon sounding weirdly accurate to that of Bradley Cooper’s performance in the 2014 movie. The cuts between shots may seem off at times making the flow of wit seem off on occasion, but for the most part Guardians of the Galaxy has a pretty good cast of actors filling in the colourful group of characters.
Summary
Guardians of the Galaxy is another Telltale game. The wit and style of the series’ characters are definitely a highlight of this installment in Telltale’s formula but it’s still a very by-the-numbers title. While the plot is intriguing enough for fans of the films, those who don’t enjoy other games by the company won’t find much to love here. Here’s hoping it gets better as the series goes on.
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.