4/5 ★ – pixelsaturn's review of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Time to beat: 16 hours Platform: Playstation 5 (MILD SPOILERS) I had no doubt in my mind that I would love this, being the huge fan of the source material that I am. And it’s very safe to say that I did absolutely love this from start to finish. I wish I could’ve loved it another half a star more, but sadly it’s let down by a fair few technical issues, all of which were minor, but fairly consistent. I’m so happy with how this game turned out in almost every area, though. The story is a heartfelt, weird sci-romp with some deeply personal themes of accepting ones past, loss and grief that REALLY hit close to home. The gameplay is fun, pretty addictive and has a nice variety to it throughout. But the MAIN stand-out of this game is the art direction and level design. Holy. Shit. Some of these environments are absolutely bonkers, so much so that a few of them made me audibly gasp and just sit in awe for a few seconds upon first seeing them. Seriously, the people who designed the environments in this game were clearly smoking something funky and it works SO well for the weird space-hopping adventure that Guardians has always been about. The whole game is a visual Marvel (haha) and it’s just bloody to see all that care and attention that went into it all. The characters are… well, pitch perfect, in my opinion. I thought the MCU movies nailed it, but this game nails it even more. I ESPECIALLY love this slightly edgier, kinda loveable-douche-ier version of Star-Lord. But of course, they all start as kinda flarkin’ scutbags, but over time they grow to love each other and love their place in the team, and so you grow to love them too. Obviously, i already loved them from the get-go, because it’s the Guardians of the flarkin’ Galaxy. The ONLY slightly weaker story element for me was the main antagonist. He wasn’t a mustache twirling Evil Guy, and he also wasn’t a sympathetic villain either.. somewhere in the middle? But I feel like this is just the result of us knowing almost nothing about him as a character. His motivation gets mentioned once in passing, but never fully explored, which is kind of a bummer, because the actor who plays him does a fantastic job. But, overall, yeah. It’s Guardians. It’s a third person single player action game. And it’s not anything like that Avengers scut that Squenix released last year. Oh and also Eidos have just switched to a 4 day work week. Buy this game. They deserve every last sale.