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Telltale has been churning out episodic, decision-based games ever since 2005; and so far, their newest incarnation has not been disappointing.
Episode one of Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy is dubbed Tangled Up In Blue, and from the second the game starts, it feels as if you are right back in the MCU. Ditching their old school comic book style look, the Guardians are more comparable to a 3D animated short, than what one has come to expect from these games. Whether you like that or not, the voice acting and character dynamics are nearly identical to their film counterparts. Another way the developers created a cinematic-like experience with this game, was getting the rights to real classic rock songs to have in the soundtrack. Everything mentioned, coupled with the fact that the basic plot is riddled with themes and settings shared in the movies, successfully make the game feel like it has real weight to it.
The episode starts right in the middle of a fire-fight between the Guardians and the galaxy’s long time foe THANOS. After crash landing on an exotic Kree planet, they must stop Thanos from getting to an ancient artifact that will give him infinite power. This may feel foreign to people who have not seen either of the two films, but bickering between characters fills in a lot of the gaps. Without giving away any spoilers, Star-Lord and company wise crack their way through several misadventures, diving deeper into the lore of almost all of the Guardians.
Most of the gameplay works seamlessly, with Telltale’s signature button choice sequences. Although the story revolves mostly around Peter Quill, the action scene portions are especially fun because the player jumps between characters, working together as a team to take down their foe. This is made especially poignant because throughout the episode, Star-Lord is trying to keep the team from falling apart, due to conflicting morals from Rocket Raccoon, Drax, and Gamora.
One can think of this game as almost a gigantic cut scene, with small areas that did not work as well as it could have. The point and click sections effectively pulled me out of the story, and forced me to search a poorly designed map for little dots. Once I found all the dots, the story would pick up right were it left off. This only happened twice in the 2.5 hour episode, but each time left me groaning and wishing I did not have to work through it.
Also, some of the dialogue choices left the same effect on me. I would often have to choose between what I felt like the game was gearing me towards, or what I thought Star-Lord would actually say. The only problem with this, is almost every decision you make, affects the direction of the rest of the game. So if I choose the funny Star-Lord comment, things later in the game would change.
Overall, the story felt nearly identical to the movies, and I am looking forward to episode two coming out later this month on console and mobile devices.
Jake I love your articles! They are so in depth and engaging! Keep it up!
I’m a bit torn with the new direction TellTale has taken. While I’m glad they’re getting some cool IP to play with, I’d rather see them use original characters. It’s hard to get invested in crafting a character’s personality when they’re already directly modelled off the movie or comic book version.