Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is honestly, no recency bias, one of, is not the best, game of all time. I'm not exaggerating, this game just exceeded my expectations more than any other one. I didn't know what to expect at first, instead I just gave it a shot and now I wish I had played it way sooner.

This game's story is so exciting, the gameplay is very action-oriented and narrative-driven and includes great dialogues, huddles, which allow the team to regroup and reset all characters' ability cooldown time while being motivated by Peter, and character interactions coupled with stellar voice acting, aside from perfectly balanced humor and drama, as well as the ability to choose many different dialogue options when bantering with your colleagues, negotiating with enemies and talking your way out of, or into, trouble and who to side with in certain situations. In short, it's a product of
a simply superb combination of every aspect needed for an unforgettable gaming experience.

The story is about the 13 yo Peter Quill who got abducted by Chitauri warriors, who killed his mother in the process as well, from his home on his birthday. Later in the story, he formed mercenary group "Guardians of the Galaxy", which includes, assassin Gamora, the tree looking Groot, weapons specialist Rocker Racoon and the Katathian warrior Drax. They headed into the prohibited, from Nova Corps established, "Quarantine zone" hoping to steal a mysterious monster for their patron, Lady Hellbender.

However, after Peter picked up a yellow gem, which he dropped after a few seconds, an unknown entity was released. After attempting to escape the QZ, a Nova Crops ship managed to capture and arrest them. It was led by Peter's ex-lover Ko-Rel, who was later killed by that very entity, where he also came across her daughter, Nikki. They were fined a huge amount of Galactic Units as a punishment. Searching for ways to accumulate the needed money, they tried scamming Lady Hellbender at first, but after this went wrong they sought help of security chief Cosmo, from the space sation "Knowhere", for help leading Star-Lord's group to investigate "Hala's hope" (a mysterious signal being transmitted) in exchange for Cosmo speaking to the NC about removing their fine. After getting captured on Hala's Hope by Raker, the leader of the Universal Church of Truth, they were taken to meet the "Matriach" of his Church. There, they found out that Nikki is the "Matriach", after she found the yellow gem Peter has dropped early on in the game. This lead to Nikki being able to brainwash thousands of followers from an illusion called "The Promise". After the GOTG became a target as well, they started to try to free her in order to become a normal human again. After unsuccessfully seeking help from the "Xandarian Worldmind" they had no other choice, but to flee the galaxy. After Drax fell victim to "The Promise", they asked Mantis, a powerful psychic, for help allowing them to enter Drax' mind and free him from the Promise. After the revelation of the churches' "Golden God" "Warlock" that the entity possessing Nikki is his dark side "Magus" and that his plan is to consume the entire galaxy, the GOTG no other option, but to turn to Lady Hellbender again. After winning her over, they entered the church's flagship "Sacrosanct". After being trapped in an energy field, Peter managed to enter Nikki's mind and made her accept that Ko-Rel is really dead, which she refused to believe, although she witnessed her death by the entity first hand. After the release of her mind, she was free of Magus' control and thus unlocked some hidden powers. The threat of the church was ended by the defeat of Raker and Magus absorbing Magus back into his body.
Magus unfortunately managed to take control of Warlock's body shortly afterwards. By wielding the soul stone, Magus was imprisoned again. Warlock eventually thanked them for their help, took custody of the soul stone and offered them further assistance in the future before departing "The Milano".

Fighting in this game is so much fun and diversified. Each character possesses various abilities and one Mega-Ability (after you've unlocked their previous ones) allowing you to freely decide when and which ability the respective character makes use of. Each character has its own kind of style and weapons.

Groot (the tree) uses his roots to grapple individual or multiple enemies in place or causing them to shoot up from the ground, dealing moderate damage to enemies in the process. His Mega-Ability is to revive downed guardians, which includes the protagonist, as well as the abilities' cooldown reset. It will automatically be used by Groot, in case Star-Lord is incapacitated.

Rocket's abilities include blasting all enemies in a radius dealing moderate damage in the process, tossing grenades at enemies, as well as throwing grenades, which release several darts during the impact, at the targeted foes. His Mega-Ability allows him to pull out a huge Five Barrel Barrage used to bombard the respective opponents with various projectiles such as missiles, bullets and grenades.

Drax' abilites causes the adversaries to get hit with a powerful attack, getting charaged at and damaged in true Katathian style or getting hurt by the ground being shattered. His Mega-Ability makes him start roaring and assaulting all nearby targets.

Gamora's abilities allow her to harm nearby antagonists with her "Godslayer" weapon. She can either deal heavy damage to a single enemy nearby, strike each one once by dealing moderate damage or strikes a single enemy leading to moderate damage, but therefore being able to follow up on the attack by releasing a wave of energy leading to moderate stagger to all opponents behind the inital target. Her Mega-Ability results in an individual target being neutralized by getting dealt to super-heavy damage with multiple strikes.

Star-Lord's abilities contain the possibility to rise to a tactically advantageous position by prolonging the burn of his jet boots, unleashing rapid fire blaster shots and lobbing several grenades at the ground below after ascending into the air.
His Mega-Ability enables him to draw an impenetrable shield providing him full protection from all sort of attacks for a short duration.

Character conversations don't simply just further the campaign, instead they simply go on, while you, as the protagonist, can just stand nearby listening to them, without advancing the story. These sort of conversations take place in either the Milano (their spacecraft) and during the missions. So, if you don't simply wish for a quick end of the story by rushing the game you can just keep standing next to the other Guardians, have drink and listen to their chats. One conversation between Rocket and one of the other male Guardians is even about Peter (the protagonist).

Regarding, the major dialogue choices and consequences, I can give everyone the all-clear that most of the dialogue choices are inconsequential and therefore don't affect the story and instead are used for backstory reasons and giving you the chance to trigger various responses only, so no one has to be afraid to somehow twist or mess the story up by selecting a certain answer. However, it has to be said that there still some options leading to a change in behaviour of other characters. The answer will therefore be mandatory and can't be timed out.

Honestly, if there's one game deserving a sequel it's this one. I'd even spend 100€ on it. To bad Eidos Montreal was bought by Embracers, who already discharged around 100 employees of EM as of now. That makes a sequel extremely unlikely. The release of the game shortly after Marvel's Avengers didn't help the already poor marketing of the game either. That's such a massive shame. There'd be lots of potential to turn this into a series, as one game is simply not enough.

Anyway, let's hope for an unlikely turn of events nonetheless.

Well, well, well... What should I start with?

I remember how I got myself this game on the PS3 and later on the PS4 as well and I simply LOVED it . I completed it 4 or 5 times on each platform combined, including PC, if I recall it right. Back then it was such a masterpiece.

Having three different characters to play with was sth new which I liked. The campaign could almost give the San Andreas one a run for its money, but only ALMOST. It offered the biggest GTA map ever, which in itself is great, but I missed a second big city tbh. The rural area is so vast, which offers more than enough space to add another city, but to just leave the rest an area of that size without another big urban area and I'm not talkin' about Paleto Bay e.g., instead a city almost as big as Los Santos, just seems a bit careless, if I'm honest.

That was the positive part. What about the negative one?

Well, first of all it seems like RS doesn't give a damn about cheaters. As long as they got a high number of players, who keep spending all of their money for shark cards it's all fine I guess.

Secondly it's a disgrace that Rockstar just canceled the release of the Story Mode DLC, which they've promised would come in 2014. Yeah sure.

Instead, they've been keeping their focus on the online mode, even to this day. I get it. It obviously brings in more cash than a Singleplayer addition, especially due to stuff like the shark cards and so on, but to keep withholding the promised SP DLC, which was what it used to be all about is such a huge joke. GTA was never about the online mode, instead always about the Story Mode and to keep moving away from that identity, which they've always had just keeps debunking Rockstar's true face more and more each time they add new stuff for the Online Mode. Such a shame. The Story Mode had so much potential, which was never used.

Anyway, I will still give this game a thumbs up, cuz the campaign is close to being a masterpiece to me and allowed to have a great time and mess around in the virtual world. I just hope RS won't do the same with GTA VI and actually start to care more about the Story Mode again, as they used to to.