We are just one week away from the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 in cinemas and to say both MARVEL comic fans and film fans are incredibly hyped up and excited to say the least. So the timing of the launch of Telltale Game’s first series based on MARVEL’s Guardians of the Galaxy could not have been timed better. But could this series capture what made the first film so successful or like their take on Batman, try and do their own thing with the Guardians?

When the game was announced late 2016 I was not quite sure what kind of approach Telltale would take with it. Would they try to follow the style of the film or perhaps go towards the animated series or just give their own take on the characters much as they had done with Batman: The Telltale Series. Happily I feel that they chose to blend all three. Visually the game uses the look most known from the comics and animated series but the pace, tone and humour from the characters is very familiar and in keeping with what many fans will know from the big screen.

Playing it safe this way was a smart move, unlike Batman, most fans of Guardians would only have seen or known them from the film, so by keeping it familiar Telltale are able to bring fans into a world they already know but have some fun at the same time. I like that the game doesn’t try to give us an origin story for how the Guardians came to be together, instead we get to learn more about each character and backstory via their dialogue exchanges with Peter ‘Star Lord’ Quill. The game uses Peter really well in this regard, it keeps the focus on him as the leader of the Guardians by making him the one responsible for keeping the team together and much like how the first film ended, the team will follow his lead when it comes to big decisions.

Big decisions are the driving force for any Telltale Game, and pretty early on in this first episode the player will be made to start making choices that will shape how the story and character relationships will progress. The story will use two guardians to try and steer the player choices with Gamora and Rocket both trying to entice or encourage Peter to follow their way of thinking. This not only sets the story path but also the moral compass for Peter Quill. Gamora strongly encourages Peter to align himself and the team with the Nova Corps and be more hero like and good. Rocket however is Rocket, and it is all about the better payday so tries to get Peter to go down the route to make the most credits. It is also interesting that with Rocket comes a little emotional baggage as he says he wants a break from the Guardians, which adds the element of trying to keep him happy to get him to change his mind or upsetting him and pushing him further away.

You can also shape Peter as a leader in the dialogue options for him which can be stoic and very hero like to funny and sharp-witted which can either charm people or make them roll their eyes. How you shape your Peter Quill as a character is completely up to you as the player and it will change certain cut scenes and character interactions which I found interesting in my two full play-throughs trying out all the different choices both in dialogue and discovered some very fun little nods and references that only appear depending on character interactions so I advise trying different options with different character conversations, I won’t say what the results are but it is definitely worth trying out.

Gameplay wise it certainly follows on from Batman: The Telltale Series with set piece action sequences, conversations and some point and click sections. In the fights the QTE moments involve all the Guardians, with each one taking a turn should they be present and it gives the player a feeling of controlling the whole team. The moments where Star Lord gets to investigate an area can feel a little draggy but overall the pacing works well between the action set pieces, dialogue sections and decision making scenes, I loved the humour with Peter Quill with his interactions with the team, especially with dialogue options. The Action sequences are fun, and with a big opener to start the game and another towards the end, episode 1 really sets the scene for what is potentially a great series for Telltale entering the MARVEL Universe.

Playing this is a great lead into Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 hitting cinema’s next week. Much like Batman, you can get the fresh feel that Telltale have put into elements of the game but never strays too far away from what fans will know from the film. You may expect to have the same songs from the film but the selection for the game still work and are placed well enough to compliment the gameplay. Sadly it still has the now standard frame rate issues and loading into the next scene following a path decision that almost all Telltale Games have which is both annoying and frustrating but not quite experience breaking here.

After believing that The Walking Dead: A New Frontier series has shown how stale that universe has become, this first venture into MARVEL’s universe shows that Telltale can do great and refreshing things with new IP’s. If the episode release schedule can stay on track for this series, the partnership with MARVEL could bring amazing titles in the future. Right now as the song says, I am “hooked on a feeling” with Telltale’s take on Guardians of the Galaxy!

LEGO, loved it as a child but even more as a grown up thanks to the amazing games that bring to life so much of the universes that make up my nerdliness. From Star Wars to DC and MARVEL Comics, LEGO Games have transported me to those worlds time and time again. So it is rather fitting that TT Games have now given fans the chance to create their own universes in LEGO thanks to LEGO Worlds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAcPkCaRTz0

I never could get into Minecraft but always respected the potential it offered the more creative players out there with some truly amazing builds but for me, LEGO has always felt like the most obvious use of such player creation mechanics and now finally, we have that very game. I was honestly not sure what to expect with LEGO Worlds but I have to admit I was both impressed but frustrated with the game in equal measure.

What took me by surprise to start with is how the game is presented to the player and clearly someone in the design team has played Little Big Planet as the game features a Narrator that both explains what is happening but also adds a nice sense of humour to the game, especially when you are just starting out. The premise is that you are an explorer but when your spaceship is damaged by meteors and crashes on a strange LEGO world. The narrator explains that you must find Gold Bricks in order to repair the ship and continue your journey to become a ‘Master Builder’, something that the Narrator makes sound so awesome!

The first thing about LEGO Worlds that strikes you is just how accessible it is for players of all skills. It brilliantly uses familiar LEGO game systems to bring the creative elements to life in easy and fun ways. The first tool you are giving is perhaps the most powerful one in the game, the Discovery Tool. It can be used to scan any and all items in the worlds you visit, and once scanned and unlocked, it can be used to create more of them in the world or to remove them and serves as the player’s first taste of manipulating the LEGO world around them.

The opening hour or first three worlds that the game takes the player too serve as a nice tutorial, as these training worlds give a superb look at how the mechanics of LEGO worlds work. Each world will give the player a new task to complete along with collecting more Gold Bricks in order to improve the Space Ship allowing it to travel to new and larger worlds which will in turn increase the player’s Builder ranking with the ultimate goal of becoming a Master Builder. The game will clever give the player more tools to help them shape and craft the world around them. The Copy tool allows you to literally copy anything within the world and gives the player the chance to edit it and save it so they can bring it with them anyway they go, so if you build an amazing house on one world but cannot face doing it again, you can simply copy your creations and using the discovery tool, place them in any world you visit going forward. The Paint tool allows you to well, paint objects in the world to whatever colour or colours you feel like.

The Landscape tool allows a player to manipulate the world around them, raising hills and mountains or creating landmasses. It is a hugely powerful tool once you become more experienced in the game especially once you have mastered the build tool. The Build tool allows for precise building rather than copying or simply recreating something using the discovery tool. This is the tool that will allow players to create masterpieces and whilst I lack the skills to really create something rather epic, you can already see what other players and teams of players have created online, and it is staggering what you can do in this game.

The worlds themselves are procedurally created, that means each world is random and generated by the game itself. The worlds all have a different environment and theme such as the Candy World full of sweets and houses made of Candy with Gingerbread people running around or the Forrest World where you will find some very Robin Hood themed characters and buildings. There are so many different environments to enjoy and discover and with each world being uniquely made, there will always be a surprise once you start visiting different worlds. One of the best features to LEGO Worlds has to be the ability to invite friends to join you in your worlds, something the main LEGO Games must adopt as a mandatory feature going forward.

Inviting a friend to enjoy your world makes this game to a whole different experience to enjoy. For example, I was able to invite my good friend’s six year old little girl to join me in the world. The sense of wonder and just pure fun for her to explore a LEGO world was joyful. I was able to create bicycles for us to ride, helped befriend animals like horses and pigs to also ride on and create a house for her with a garden. The power of LEGO Worlds to inspire a younger audience is wonderful. This would make a superb game for parents to share with their kids and with the price being a very forgiving £19.99 in most retailers at the moment, it is a great educational game with controls which are easy for younglings to pick up and use.

Sadly though the very nature of LEGO Worlds also becomes its more frustrating problem, which I first discovered whilst playing co-op and then playing solo. This game has a lot of bugs with more than one game breaking issue I really hope will be addressed and corrected. The draw distance of the world is quite frankly shocking at times. Just running around on a world for more than 20 minutes caused issues for me, as the world would fail to generate correctly as I moved around meaning whole chunks of the environment would be missing at times. This led to falling off or even through the world forcing me to reload that world. This happened far too many times and particularly in the small worlds that the game opens with before collecting enough gold bricks to move to bigger worlds. I do not understand why the game does not simply create the world and then the whole thing is left to be explored rather than trying to generate it constantly based on where the player is moving means the world can break if it fails to do it quickly enough.

There are also the tedious tasks that characters in each world will offer the player to do to earn Gold Bricks or new items and designs. There are only so many times you can enjoy bringing ice cream to a character to get a small amount of LEGO pegs to spend or befriending animals by giving them the green or red apple they want which then leads to them following you around non stop, even if say you are trying to build a tree house for one character to get earn a Gold Brick only to have the horse somehow follow you up to the top of the tree and constantly get in your way as you are trying to build. These tasks needed more variety to make them worth while especially when once you learn or gain an item you can just give it to anyone who asks for it, removing the challenge once found.

But with those frustrations aside, I cannot help but really love LEGO Worlds, from its online co-op to user friendly controls allowing for very quick pick up and play. The narration is great fun and the freedom to explore and create in each of the worlds is rewarding enough to make investing time genuinely satisfying. The problem of draw distance is holding back the game on Xbox One for me, and future updates must address and improve on this problem. But sharing this game with friends does lift it and it will make a great game for parents to share with their kids. The surprises each world can have just make you smile as the player, I remember the first time I discovered you could also explore the ocean in a world and was soon swimming with Dolphins, Stingrays and riding an Octopus and it was so delightful.

But the issues are game breaking at times, and it does take the shine off it more than it should which is a shame. But it has the potential to be great if it is supported in the future. LEGO Worlds is worth playing if you are a fan of the LEGO games and want to create your own world and just explore a LEGO universe.