Please be advised that there are minor spoilers ahead for the new Guardians of the Galaxy video game below. Please also be advised that the official name of the game is Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which is obviously ridiculous and will not be repeated. To whom else would the Guardians belong?
The new Guardians of the Galaxy video game is, by all accounts, very good.
It’s apparently well written, bursting with wholesome charm. It’s a dedicated single player game with a robust campaign, an antidote to the underwhelming games-as-a-service offering of Eidos Montreal's previous ridiculously-named game, Marvel’s Avengers. It’s said to feature a fun combat system, allowing you to directly control Peter Quill (aka Star Lord) as he flips around with his jet-boots, wielding his dual Quad Blasters. Your other team members, the loveable miscreants Rocket Racoon, Groot, Drax and Gamora, can be ordered to perform splashy special moves or assist you with environmental puzzles. The next-gen graphics are gorgeous, featuring a quality mode that runs at 4k/30/FPS, and a performance mode for 1440p/60FPS. Just like the movies, the soundtrack features a curated selection of nostalgic radio hits. I’ve even heard there’s a dedicated “huddle” mechanic that provides a power boost to the team in the form of an inspired speech.
Sadly, I will never get to experience any of this because as someone who grew up in the 1980’s, you cannot make me leave Peter Quill’s childhood bedroom, introduced in the very first scene of the game. Allow me to explain.
After a brief cinematic intro of the Quill family home in a beautifully rendered rural setting, Guardians of the Galaxy puts you, the player, in the first-person perspective of a teenage Peter Quill, as he sits on the bed in his bedroom, located in the basement. Held in his hands is the unfolded lyric sheet from a cassette he’s listening to - on his walkman, of course - by the fictional 80’s hard rock band “Star-Lord” (the brainchild of Eidos Montreal’s senior audio director, Steve Szczepkowski). The album is called Space Rider, and the first song, “Zero to Hero” is playing (you can listen to it and the rest of the album here, or do yourself a favor and watch the amazing music video).
You can actually sit and listen to the entire album, browsing the lyrics sheet and turning it over in your hands. Should you so desire, you can also pick up the copy of Rolling Stone magazine that’s lying next to Peter and read the feature article about “Star-Lord” from start to finish. Once you're done with that, you can get off the bed and begin exploring Peter’s amazing bedroom, in third-person, for as long as you please. Which is exactly what I did, and have continued and will continue to do, until such time as I am forced to stop.
Mind you this is a brand new video game that I have paid full retail price for. Am I excited for the thrilling adventure ahead of me? Yes. Am I enthralled by the prospect of seeing just how this adaptation will play against my expectations of what a GOTG game should be? Yes. Am I curious to see how this development team will treat the characterization of some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved anti-heroes? Yes. Will I allow the game to advance beyond this lovingly detailed tribute to what it was like to be a kid in the 1980s? No. No, I will not.
You see, thanks to YouTube, I know that opening Peter's bedroom door will end this introductory sequence and begin the game proper. This cannot be allowed to happen. Peter Quill's childhood bedroom is a magical time machine that instantly transports me back to my own time as a teenager in the 80s.
It not only makes me incredibly nostalgic for the things I actually had, but acts as wish fulfillment for the things I longed for. Like Peter, I too spent countless hours in my bedroom, eternally parked on the bed or floor, rock music blasting from a cassette in my walkman or stereo as my constant companion. But I didn't have the type of sprawling, totally awesome basement rec room Peter has, the kind that for me only existed in movies. Words fail to express the sheer joy the wood paneling, scratched up shelving and exposed pipes and wires give me. What 13-year old me wouldn't have given to be able to kick back on the game's fabric couch, basking in the late afternoon light streaming in through the hopper windows, while I flipped through the Monster Manual. And don't get me started on the sight of that completely rad Gibson Flying V guitar (it's interactive too, though just barely - it doesn't have The Last of Us 2's robust guitar mechanics), the original Transfomer toys, the beanbag chair, and, most importantly, the Samantha Fox poster. Peter even has TWO desks for crying out loud.
Of the many items in Peter's wonderful room, there are some that I had, too - the collection of Garbage Pail Kids, the set of six-sided dice, a copy of the beloved gamebook Deathtrap Dungeon, Iron Maiden's seminal Piece of Mind album, the Coleco Vision (though mine was an Atari 2600), the skateboard, the Nintendo Power magazine and the unfinished Rubik's Cube, all rendered here in pixel-perfect detail. Seeing these items make me happy, but also make me wistful...so much meaning assigned to these signifiers of my youth and the collective youth of that era. And where are they now? Casually discarded, put aside in favor of the new, only to be repackaged and sold to us time and again. But here, in this perfect time capsule, all of these things exist together, just waiting to be revisited with the push of a button.
So, perhaps you are the sort of person who enjoys playing the games they pay for. Perhaps if you purchased a game called Guardians of the Galaxy, you would want to experience everything contained in the promise of that title. I’m not here to tell you how to spend your time. I am simply here to say that my entire Guardians of the Galaxy playtime has been spent in Peter Quill’s childhood bedroom and I have zero regrets.
Now if you don't mind, I have to give the "Star-Lord" album another spin.