Huge disclosure: I love-hate Telltale games. I shouldn't. I should outright love them - they're trying to marry movies/tv and video games, that should be a home run for me, but their execution always falls flat.
The games run so poorly on console, it sometimes feels like they're actively trying to get me to quit them. For the uninitiated, Telltale Games is a developer that essentially takes popular franchises and turns them into a choose your own adventure of sorts, where decisions you make will impact the world and the characters around you, making some paths of the story accessible later on, and close off others entirely. I've played a bunch over the years, and they're all of varying quality.
- Back to the Future C+
- The Walking Dead Season 1 B
- The Wolf Among Us B-
- Tales from the Borderlands B+
- Game of Thrones D
I love everything about Telltale Game's output, except actually playing their games. I find them chore-like, since progress is inevitable, and there's no decision you can make that will prevent you from ever finishing the game.
So when Guardians of the Galaxy came on sale on the PSN a few months back, I grabbed it somewhat begrudgingly. I'm a huge comic book nerd, but after Game of Thrones I wasn't sure if I was ready for another slog through the formula they've made for themselves. I bought it, thinking I would get to it sooner or later. I started it and yup, couldn't handle it, putting it back on my digital bookshelf to be picked up another day.
But then I remembered I wanted to play 52 video games in a year, and it doesn't hurt that this game stars a talking raccoon and a meandering sentient tree that can snap a Buick in half. But mostly the 52 video games thing.
And to be honest... I really enjoyed it. The first episode was admittedly slow, but the underlying mystery of the device you find, and how it's warping Peter's memories of his mother was genuinely fascinating. Also interesting, was that the main characters kind of hate each other. They're like a family, sure, but an extremely dysfunctional one. Choosing one teammate's side over another's in an argument actually felt like it carried weight that would affect the story in interesting ways.
The story itself was pretty fun too - it felt like a lost backup Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom would've banged out in the early 90's - fun, somewhat emotional, but neatly wrapped up by the end, which kind of leads me to the game's biggest problem outside of the weak opening chapter.
There was this dude named Blake Snyder who wrote a book called Save the Cat. In it, Snyder breaks down the formula most movies follow, the beats they have to hit to tell a complete, satisfying story. So, you know that moment when the hero is abandoned, Plan A didn't work, everything fell apart, yadda yadda yadda - that moment is key. It's essentially a 15 minute version of It's A Wonderful Life packed into every single movie. We see the hero fall so their ascension at the end can be even higher - more romantic, more epic, mo' better.
It's Luke's hand getting chopped off in Empire. It's Hans Gruber finding out who McClane's wife is in Die Hard. It's the Ghostbuster's being shut down by the EPA and then arrested.
Guardians of the Galaxy absolutely has this moment, but it's still only about 15 minutes. 15 minutes is all we're given to see doubt - it wasn't just the "All hope is lost" moment of the episode, it was the "All hope is lost" moment of the entire series and it was just underwhelming in scope considering how quickly it's resolved.
You didn't even really get to do any gameplay in that moment, it was essentially an elongated cut scene (like the whole game, but c'mon, you know what I mean). It didn't feel proportional to the story, and it felt like it was over right after it began, leaving very little for the player to imagine life in this new status quo, because it changed back so quickly.
All things considered, I liked Guardians more than the average Telltale game, and considerably more than I thought I would. The first episode is a slog, and the emotional impact as the overall story nears its finale is a little light, but still a pretty fun way to kick off the Backlog Quest Log.