Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode Four: Who Needs You (PC) Review

Credit where it's due: the story and dialogue feel far snappier and emotionally-driven in this episode. There were moments that caused genuine chuckles, and others that could elicit tears from series fans. With Hala in control of the Eternity Forge (regardless of whether the player destroyed it in the last episode), the Guardians are quickly overpowered, and end up plummeting to what should be their demise. Luckily, the writing gods are on their side, and the crew winds up trapped in the depths of some ancient ruins. Escape involves a face-off with a bunch of hungry rock worms, but also serves to widen the cracks in the Guardians' relationships.

Focusing on the interpersonal conflicts of the Guardians is where the episode is at its best, but there's also a flashback scene to Drax's past that is both informative and touching to witness. Of course, it does suffer from the problem faced by all Telltale flashbacks: if you know the state of affairs following the event, the illusion of choice quickly becomes apparent.

At first, that line of thinking also carried over into the main story: "They're not going to get rid of any important characters; they'll want to give a happy ending!" was a common line of thinking. Thankfully, without going into spoiler territory, this episode makes it clear that it's possible for Peter Quill to run into serious problems with the people in his life.

There were quite a few noticeably pointless gameplay sections; a problem that has permeated each episode so far. Here, this amounts to QTEs that play the same scene regardless of whether you succeed or fail, and object interactions that frequently boil down to "click the thing, watch a cutscene of Peter looking at the thing, then click something on the thing and watch another cutscene". Absolutely riveting.

There's also some awful checkpointing at play. This came to a head in a puzzle sequence, where Peter was frequently forced to fly over an acid pool with a limited fuel supply; take too long, and into the acid he goes. While some players may figure out what to do immediately, others may find themselves dying repeatedly due to experimentation. If you fall into the latter camp, prepare to watch and listen to the same unskippable dialogue time and again. Don't worry, if it causes you to rage-quit for a while, you're not alone.