If I was going to give this the shortest, most concise possible review to get across to people what the experience of playing this game is like, I think I might go with this: think about being able to play through one of the Guardians movies with slightly (slightly!) lesser writing quality pushed through a sieve of modern AAA action gaming tropes.

I think that would broadly cover a lot of my thoughts on the game, without getting into qualitative analysis. That description really does cover both the good & the bad of this game, which is why even though parts of this game are really expertly executed I settled on a more middling score. In terms of visual & audio presentation, writing, acting, etc; this really is pretty much a B-Team approach to one of the James Gunn Guardians films. Maybe the comedy isn't quite as sharp, maybe the performances aren't quite as good, maybe the visuals aren't quite as weird or fantastical, but the fact this is able to get pretty much right on the line should still be seen as pretty impressive. I would say that I found the majority of this charming & easy to get through, with a few caveats: the nature of the game scenario format makes it feel like we spend way too much time with the Guardians bickering & arguing, certain humor elements feel horribly out of place & needed to be excised (i.e. awful outdated Reddit humor like the space llama, space cursing or Adam Warlock's alliteration), and I think some of the dialogue decisions felt arbitrary or unclear what is meant to be important (maybe that was the intention I know, but it just annoyed me). The main cast performances are all really good & I think most importantly the story is pretty good & structured well for a video game. Since a lot of this game tries to be closer to the comics than the MCU, the plot here also feels more comic book & I think that helps it be broader in scope in a more natural way.

When it comes to gameplay I also start to have more reservations, as all the things done well here are balanced against tropes that I get sick of seeing in modern AAA games. Shimmy through wall cracks, scripted in-game sequences where the game expects you to react a certain way (I both liked but was constantly annoyed by the fact the team yells at you when you go off to look for secrets, great for writing purposes but irritating as a player) & a combat system that feels all to familiar. Sure, I think the combat system is set up really well in making it a rotation of special skills & which to use when; a system that rewards movement & energy, but the handwaving of Quill's "elemental guns" feels very trope-heavy & the combat engagements can get repetitive (though I think once everything is unlocked near the end game fights get a little more complex, and most of the boss encounters are good). Secret-hunting is fairly easy to pull off, though I feel embarrassed for how easy most of it is but still having missed a lot of the costumes. They also don't entice you much to do a NG+, I doubt I'll ever revisit this ever again even though I liked it a decent amount. I did hate hate all the young Peter sections though, as I had no desire in that setting to read all the flavor text & engage with it all. Most of the "forced walking" segments in the game were a little annoying.

Overall, for a game I got for free from Epic, I would have paid a decent amount to play it fully after trying it out. One of the few action games to flow fairly well as a movie, and kind of the positive middle ground that I'd want AAA games to ride in if they aren't making out-and-out masterpieces, which happens very rarely.

It's weird, but... I'm not really sure why I started playing this.

I got the whole series as a bundle maybe 2-3 years ago super cheap, I just decided to buy them since I'd heard so much praise for this one in particular & I am a decent fan of Cyberpunk. However, I start this and just... nothing grips me. Sure, you get feet & ass RIGHT AWAY to try to lure you in, but nothing inherently about the world really entices me to delve deeper into the game. Some of the Witcher abilities & designs of things in the world are interesting, but at least from a surface level view this does not distinguish itself enough from broad fantasy tropes for me to care even in the slightest.

I think also innovations CDPR used in Cyberpunk have spoiled me a little in their formula, because right from the get-go there's a lot of the design in this I find to be odd & clunky. The movement feels kind of spastic & too quick, especially for tighter quarter areas, and something about the combat feels like there's gaps in it or it doesn't flow as smoothly as it should.

I don't want to totally abandon this game, partially because I really did not get that far in it & something this universally lauded & praised should be given a better effort (same with all forms of media, to a certain extent). At this point though, I just innately have no interest in this or drive to keep playing. We'll come back later to see if I feel any different.

A game that seems to be plagued by a curse of AA & some key choices that don't work in their favor. To start, I think the artstyle chosen for this (while it makes sense to fit in with the themes) does not complement the budget or online aspect very well. I think the landscapes look excellent, and it's a neat trick that they seem to all be fully rendered at all points in the game, but the character models are pretty busted & clash with the overall look of the thing. Had they gone for a more minimalist or cartoonish style I think it might have worked better, but the Talos Principle influence rings too strong.

The online aspect leaves me with very mixed feelings. On one hand, for some of the puzzles I was able to learn through natural observation of other players how to get through some of them (the glass maze & some of the ring puzzles) which is a really cool way to do collaborative multiplayer. However, I think the budget of this game again constricts it so that load times are pretty busted, and there's just the slight whiff of jank that stops me from investing a lot of time into it. I wish there was also more accessibility options, as I was able to jerry-rig controller support but this game was obviously not designed for it. I fully intend on coming back to this if it stays up for a decent amount of time, but in some ways it feels like the first attempt at something that could be really well-refined over time.

An odd little crossover fighting game, set up in the arena style of combat kind of like Power Stone but a little more focused on speed & movement than Power Stone's more item-based gameplay. Admittedly, I'm really only familiar with YS so I'm only getting part of the fanservice here but the structure of the combat & the look of it is a lot closer to YS so I guess it has that going for it?

While I think things are charming aesthetically for a PSP game (on an emulator the splash screens are there for a second & then gone), I just cannot really click with the combat. Often it just feels like frantic flailing & not a whole lot of strategy going on, even though it's not a particularly difficult game. A neat idea, but it didn't stick.