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Decided not to wait another month for the US version of the boxset...

I mean, it's good you didn't wait. The US version is 'Region A', it would only work on a region free player

So he's the Takashi Miike of games then. We might not have our Citizen Kane but we may one day be blessed with our own 'Ichi the Killer'

Beat this today. Turns out putting 20 hours into a game over 4 days is possible when you're lying around with a flarking cold. I really turned around on this. I think the first 5-ish chapters are a bit meh, then 6 to 10 are fantastic and the remaining might no be as good, but still really well executed for the most part. I didn't really feel like it dragged on too much, apart maybe from one Chapter that could technically have been a cutscene, but I presume they let it breathe a bit because it concluded Drax's character arc. Which I think is commendable. You can tell this was made during the height of the MCU's popularity with SE seemingly throwing just a lot of money into Eidos Montréal's direction and them basically going all out. It's rare, especially these days, to see such a 'complete' game from a third-party publisher. I even kind of made my peace with the combat. I still don't think it's particularly good but I went more accurately for weaknesses and staggers from a certain point onward and that makes rather quick work of most enemies. I also must have missed some tutorials early on because there's a two-button melee finisher in there I don't remember reading about and just finding out about through trial & error in the last third. Oh well. Midway through I also switched to ray-tracing mode because it's so sluggish to control anyway and wow, it's a really pretty game, even on my 2011 1080p TV. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, goddamn does it feel shit to control. For some people this might be nitpicking, but it actually negatively impacted the sightseeing aspect for me, which is obviously part of the deal here, because of the horrible deadzone in the right stick and whatever the hell Quill is doing when you move the left one. These additional transition animations that add an extra layer of delay to everything you input just need to disappear in the Nexus. I don't care how good the running animation looks if it makes controlling the character feel awful. Anyway, apart from that rant, this was a great experience. I think it's the characters that really sold it to me in the end – starting with that one dialogue between Quill and Drax on Knowhere, it becomes less of a goofball cartoon thing and embraces some more serious ideas and themes to better balance itself out. Some really good writing around key character moments, even Groot felt like a complete character here unlike in the movies. Beating this also made me realise what a shitty bunch of years this has been for the developer. First this comes out and it flops to no fault of their own, then they get sold to Embracer, who proceed to cancel their Deus Ex game and massively reduce their workforce so that they're now basically just a support studio. It's a shame to see, but I hope having this game on their CV helps everyone who ether willingly or unwillingly left land on their feet again.