Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

Speaking of deeply underrated. It’s hard to blame anyone for giving Crystal Dynamics’ Guardians of the Galaxy game the side-eye after Square Enix’s Avengers debacle poisoned the well. Anyone who’s actually spent time playing it, however, knows the truth. Guardians is just a damn fine third-person action title that really puts in some serious work making the Guardians feel like a caring-but-dysfunctional family that Star-Lord has to manage. It helps, too, that Star-Lord is an infinitely more likable, thoughtful scoundrel than Chris Pratt who, even when faced with a crucial, branching choice, finds a way to keep his family together. It helps even more that he doesn’t get himself in a scenario where all he has to do is wait till the goddamn Gauntlet is off and then he can combo up Thanos all he wants but nooooo, he has to get his smackdown on while everybody else is trying to save the goddamn universe from being snapped, and because of him it fails, and it’s his fault, and he is scum and you know what, I may still have anger issues about that. Let me make note of that for my therapist.