Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series – Tangled Up in Blue Review

Guardians of the Galaxy

(Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, Telltale Games)

<p>Fans of <em>Guardians of the Galaxy <&sol;em>are going to get a whole lot of what they love with <em>Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series<&sol;em>&period; Whether it&&num;8217&semi;s the movie or the comic books&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s an endearing amount of the cosmic Marvel universe to explore and for Telltale&&num;8217&semi;s first foray into the Marvel camp&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s one that they have few problems mining for great moments&period; Though it occasionally veers a bit too much into the snarky territory&comma; there are plenty of heartfelt moments and genuine tensions that prove that a Telltale game is a perfect conduit for the ragtag group of misfits&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For the uninitiated&comma; the Guardians of the Galaxy are Peter Quill a&period;k&period;a Star-Lord&comma; Gamora&comma; Drax&comma; Rocket&comma; and Groot&period; All of the characters are brought to life with varying uses for source material&period; You can tell that Quill is aping off of the Chris Pratt movie incarnation of the character&comma; but other characters feel like a mish-mash of the different source material&comma; which I appreciated&period; That being said&comma; the voice cast is a large part of why the characters feel the way they do&period; Telltale regulars like Scott Porter and Adam Harrington voice Star-Lord and Groot&comma; respectively&period; Obviously Porter is given more to do&comma; as Harrington is left to just repeat &&num;8220&semi;I am Groot&&num;8221&semi; over and over in different tones&comma; but both do an excellent job&period; The stand out for me was Nolan North as Rocket&comma; who is also the most prolific of voice actors in the cast&period; He does a really good job bringing the frenetic energy of Bradley cooper&&num;8217&semi;s vocal performance but meshing it with North&&num;8217&semi;s own fantastic delivery&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Of course&comma; this also wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be a <em>Guardians of the Galaxy <&sol;em>title if it didn&&num;8217&semi;t have a lot of licensed music&period; Electric Light Orchestra greets players&comma; and there are plenty of other moments scored perfectly with other 70s tunes&period; Episode titles are all just famous song titles&comma; that do hold some bearing with each episode&period; The first episode&comma; &&num;8216&semi;Tangled Up in Blue&&num;8217&semi;&comma; sets the stage for a fun adventure that fans of the movie will definitely enjoy&period; Those who like the comics will probably get more out of the interesting story beats that the episode provides&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124487" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124487" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-124487" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;19131836&sol;gotgbago3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124487" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series&comma; Telltale Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>What is fantastic about this Telltale series versus other ones is it is much better paced because of its source material&period; The Guardians are not prone to long bouts of exposition&comma; and you&&num;8217&semi;re going to find yourself contending with a barrage of action and quips before you&&num;8217&semi;ll come to many smaller&comma; more character-driven beats&period; For a pilot&comma; <em>Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series <&sol;em>does a great job establishing the two big things that will likely mean a lot throughout the series&colon; a battle against Thanos&comma; and a new artifact called the Eternity Forge&period; The battle will surely bring fans on board immediately&comma; but its the aftermath and decisions that players will be making that provide tension between characters in a believable way for a very dark reason&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Meanwhile&comma; the Eternity Forge gives us our human moments&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m not going to explain why&comma; but this is where we get Peter Quill at his most vulnerable &&num;8211&semi; and also serves as the basis for why a new villain appears to take the Eternity Forge&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s hard not to give props to the team at Telltale for utilizing the Eternity Forge in interesting and occasionally funny ways&period; The way Quill treats the artifact in one scene versus another provides a great sense into the dichotomy of Star-Lord&period; On one hand&comma; he is the hero with that little bit of vulnerability that lets us root for him&comma; but on the other&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;s kind of despicable and was raised with very few manners and a lot of snark&period; The conversations you have allow for a lot of that latter point&comma; but I found myself trying to avoid witty responses unless the situation was ridiculous or light-hearted&period; It&&num;8217&semi;ll come back to bite you if you&&num;8217&semi;re not careful&comma; so it seemed important to play with a duality that fit the character&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Other characters got a lot of attention in my storyline&comma; as well&comma; though it mainly seemed like choices were between Rocket and Gamora&comma; both of whom are very well fleshed out and get plenty of quiet moments with Quill&period; Its not just those smaller character beats that matter to the relationships&comma; but it helps get an idea of where each characters head is at&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re not really familiar with the Guardians then you&&num;8217&semi;ll enjoy these instances because they illuminate what makes the characters tick&period; The decisions you make regarding them generally feel pretty consequential and right after making my choice and seeing the aftermath&comma; I worried what might happen&period; Which makes for a more tense and exciting experience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s when the gameplay hits that there&&num;8217&semi;s a lot less excitement&period; The quick-time events that are always in every Telltale game are still present and they feel like they have a lot more momentum than usually&period; The main reason is that&comma; while prompts remain simplistic&comma; the camera tracks the main character and shoots towards the next beat of action when required&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a smart addition to the action and works really well with this franchise&period; But then there&&num;8217&semi;s the detective stuff&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124485" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124485" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-124485" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;19131625&sol;GotG&lowbar;Rocket&lowbar;with&lowbar;gun&lowbar;1920x1080&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Guardians of the Galaxy" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124485" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series&comma; Telltale Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;m happy that Telltale is trying something new&comma; and there is a neat inclusion of Star-Lord&&num;8217&semi;s jet boots for more vertical exploration&comma; but overall&comma; the detective section of the episode feels unnecessary&period; Quill becomes a time detective as he explores the wreckage of a scene&comma; but it slows everything down to a snail&&num;8217&semi;s pace&period; Players can communicate with Drax&comma; Rocket&comma; or Gamora at any point during the sequence&comma; but it adds very little&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s clearly a trick pulled from the Batman playbook&comma; but I don&&num;8217&semi;t think it works well or feels all that congruous with Quill&&num;8217&semi;s actions throughout the entire episode&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s cool to include some more gadgets&comma; but I felt the pacing slow suddenly when I got to the section&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I think there are enough things that hold this back from being an incredible pilot episode for the series&comma; but <em>Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series <&sol;em>is being primed for something explosive&period; &&num;8216&semi;Tangled Up in Blue&&num;8217&semi; does a great job establishing Quill and his companions&comma; which is crucial to a series where the dynamics of its characters holds such weight on where the plot moves&period; Based on some of the decisions made already&comma; this seems like the perfect place for the Guardians and their relationships with one another to be explored&period; Hopefully the same pacing and tension maintains throughout the series&comma; but all I know right now is that I can&&num;8217&semi;t wait to see what comes with the second episode&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A Playstation 4 Review Key for Guardians of the Galaxy&colon; The Telltale Series was provided by Telltale Games for the Purpose of this Review&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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