GOD OF WAR

huh?

or am i retarded?

did you get someone else to do the handjob?

;)

SPOILER

The Gravedigger in front of Oracle's temple

END OF SPOILER

I can't get enough. Please all, mark your spoilers. I really don't want to know what comes next but I had to just enthuse for a while!

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After all the time in that temple I got killed. F u Aries, you made this personal!

That said, I finished playing at half seven yesterday evening and still was wound up around half 12, that game gets intense!

I remember there *Shudder*

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Between that challenge, the rotating knives in Hades and spikes through the floor I swear that this game was great until you tried those levels. Between the camera angle and the controls ("DON'T JUMP ON THE BOX!!! PUSH IT!!! AW FUCK!!!) it could make those puzzles a right challenge!

End of spoiler

Hades was really hard, yeah, but nothing that hampered my enjoyment of the game. and it just looks amazing

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=10179&type=wmv&pl=game

Also found this:

Huge Collection of Combat Moves: Players can utilize their favourite combo attacks from GOD OF WAR along with a whole new set of moves and magic. Magic is based on nature's elements which include utilizing the power if wind, ice and much more

New Characters: From the popular Cyclops and Cerebus to the Flying Gryphon and more, players will encounter some of the greatest Greek mythological beasts, along with more enemies and bosses

Puzzle Solving: GOD OF WAR II features more puzzle solving, where players must solve intelligent, challenging and progressively more complicated puzzles latent with brutal elements that are intricately woven into the overarching story

Exploration: Players will continue their previous experiences in the dark, violent world of Greek mythology and test their agility through more levels as they traverse treacherous, often brutal terrain that will range from the undiscovered Sisters of Fate to the Dark Swap

WTF? How?! NO SPOILERS PLEASE!!!

Nice one. Still can't play this. Was just too tired last night and not up for the stress!

Just keep hitting away with Blades of Athena over and over again. It's tedious but it works.

This is the kind of thing I can't stand in video games. If I even catch a whiff of this kind of "action" I stay far far away.

Whatever ico boy.

(j/k. It is a real pain just button mashing over and over again)

I remember having to kill some giant monster in Tomb Raider (or possibly TR II?) which took approximately FOREVER to do, and it involved running around in a wide arc, shooting unemptyable revolvers at it for probably 20 minutes total. I could go for like 4 or 5 minutes at a time before losing focus, I'd have to press pause, make some tea, and go back to it. Eventually I was like "wait this is supposed to be fun"

(cf: racing the same races in Gran Turismo over and over again with a tricked-out car, just to get enough money to get an even more tricked-out car.. so that you can advance to another race that you race over and over again)

I have yet to try this game.

(cf: racing the same races in Gran Turismo over and over again with a tricked-out car, just to get enough money to get an even more tricked-out car.. so that you can advance to another race that you race over and over again)

this isn't really the place to defend it, but, this kind of action can be really great, in a haiku, pleasure-of-small-diffs kind of way. but yeah it's kind of enforced aspie-dom too

I remember having to kill some giant monster in Tomb Raider (or possibly TR II?) which took approximately FOREVER to do, and it involved running around in a wide arc, shooting unemptyable revolvers at it for probably 20 minutes total. I could go for like 4 or 5 minutes at a time before losing focus, I'd have to press pause, make some tea, and go back to it. Eventually I was like "wait this is supposed to be fun"

God of War is not really like this, however. The action is very fast and intense and sometimes gets slightly button-mashy but the programmers are very good about mixing up/varying the enemies, environments and puzzles so it doesn't get boring.

i just started playing God of War 2 and the scale of the the first level already outdoes anything in the first game, which is quite an accomplishment. The PS2 is really being pushed here graphically, this game looks AMAZING.

Just stunning, isn't it? My hands are like claws!!! Bloody hell though, fantastic fun.

I'm quite into highly repetitive nonsense in video games, especially that which leads to even more highly repetitive nonsense.

We spent hours and hours racing around the maintenance tunnels in Dead Rising to get the "Zombie Genocide" achievement, and almost as long taking them on without weapons to get "Karate Champ".

Finishing things like that gives me a fuzzy "yes, I never have to do that shit again!" feeling, so I inevitably crave more of it. The same feeling I get completing a game in one fuckoff all-night session with a friend, only to put the disc back in the box at the end and say "let's never speak of this again" (thank you, Eternal Darkness.)

Right. 3 hours straight is enough! Nearly cross eyed. Such a lush game though. Tense as all hell though! Fear me fellow supermarket users in the next half an hour, I'll be bring my Spartan skills down on you something rotten. Or something...

I'd love to know how far people are! Okay use strikethrough. I've just arrived at Temple of Euryale I think. Having good luck with finding Griffon's Eyes and Phoenix Feathers.

(playing original)

wow this game is kind of long!! the last adventure-type games i played were on pc like 5 years ago, which were all notoriously short (call of duty, i look @ u), but srsly this is kind of a big game

1 annoying thing: i kept fucking up a certain section and after a number of checkpoint reloads the game switched me to easy!! and i can't switch it back. lol pwnt?

I dunno actually. I don't think so. Not be thick but is there an option in "Options"?

The game is v v long. The hard part can be after some intense battle trying to find a savepoint! I can still remember one bit of it that stopped me from going back to playing it on hard, I couldn't face the literal days it seemed to take me to get past it. You'll know once you're there!

As to the second, I'm fairly near the end, I'm magicked out and powered up to the hilt. Working on maxing out Blades now and various other things. Quick question (Spoiler about maxing out life )I found the Magic of Gaia. Is there a Life of Gaia as well? I dunno if I've missed it. I'm at the Phoenix anyway

Finished! Hands are like claws! Good end, that's all I'm saying. Missed one v important thing that I'm now regretting. Everything pretty much maxed out. Can't face challenges!

finished the first one, it was fun! i ended up with a vague sense of disappointment, mainly cos the nu-metal take on greek myth never really hooked me; i kept wanting more riffs on that. i mean "pathos verdes III"?? come on, take 1x intro greek class, the name doesn't make any sense! + there's tons of mechanical trappy-type shit in the game and no HEPHESTUS? no dionysus either, i wanted crazy russ meyer maenads and stuff.

real fun tho.

except the rotating knife-wall climbing puzzle bit. whoever put that together needs to be slapt.

Okay, that wasn't my problem at all (first para)

Rotating wall knife thing was bullshit (see me on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 3:44 PM). My hands still tense up with the thought of it all!

Also, I'm too effusive. This thread shames me. I'm like an emotinal G23U5 here!

fuck yes!

2nd one v impressive, i love the additions (chain swingy shit) and the tweaks, and the visual improvements.

i love that the items you get don't just add some crazy power (tho there are those) but CHANGE your existing moves, like the golden fleece allowing counter attacks

rite now i'm stuck on 'crossing the lowlands,' the obligatory swinging puzzle challenge that i knew would be visited upon me at some point.

and the gorgon eyes and phoenix feathers and big red orb chests are WAAAY harder to get to this time around. in the 1st one, it was like, ok i'm supposed to walk up-left here... let me walk down-right, then? oh lookee more stuff. in 2 there are a bunch that are in PLAIN SIGHT but impossible to get to. i'll have to replay it with a walkthru after i'm done.

2 discs! jesus

apparently there's some kind of sex button-press challenge in like the SECOND ROOM which i completely walked past

yeah I did the same thing and then restarted just to see it. <---SAD

ps the second disc is just a bts DVD

in like the SECOND ROOM

You mean at the Colossus or after?

way before you fight the colossus, when you drop into an indoor pool type place, the chicks are behind a breakable screen.

apparently there's some kind of sex button-press challenge in like the SECOND ROOM which i completely walked past

Found that first time. This game took me so long because I had to destroy everything for globes and things. Also yeah, boxes much harder to find. Also a total trek each time. The hardest part was finding the urns. Well worth it though!

God I loved this game. Playing through with urns I can't remember max number of hits but it was well into the three thousands, eternal rage of titans = :))))

bowing_down_smiley.gif

Cheers but it seriously gets so easy with it, you just keep pounding away. The weapons in this one compared to the last are a bit useless, very slow or difficult to aim.

yeah i haven't used the hammer or spear at all, and i was way into that sword in the first one -- the sound on that was great

the whole atlas section is incredible!

just knocked off the fates (WHAT IS WITH ALL THE FUCKING TITS IN THIS GAME IT IS CRAZY) but i haven't done zeus yet -- pumped!

Dude. Mark spoilers!

The graphics are amazing. I actually checked my hit thing, closer to five and a half thousand. They stop giving you anything except globes after two thousand. Such a great game but do you find voices in the background hard to hear?

what spoilers??

waht u mean voices in the background? like ambient cries of battle etc? i think the sound is pretty good overall

Atlas bit etc. It's no biggy. No I mean bits where say Gaia talks to you during a battle and it's hard to make out.

Yeah this game needed a subtitle option

?? all i can think of her saying is the "let the rage of the titans etc" when you fill up your meter. are there other things?

restarted on hard and am at cold titan. This game. It's such. wow.

just got this from ebay and it arrived today. am addicted now. it's very easy isn't it? maybe it gets harder. I like easy games though cos I suck. And am playing it on "easy". So it does exactly what it says on the tin in that respect...

I find I just bash buttons and spin around and flail at everything. Just got that lightning magic, much better than the shitty bow.

Also screw you giant fucking fate woman's stone head. Smashing stuff is great fun in God of War. I like the story too, there's nothing particularly likeable about the main character, he's just a violent villain with a stupid quest.

It's kinda pointless to play it on easy, I think. Medium is beatable but challenging enough to keep things interesting.

Cool, maybe I will change to medium. I wonder can I do this midgame. Hope so.

Shit I can't. Oh well, reckon I'll continue on Easy rather than play all the way through again on medium.

Just got that lightning magic, much better than the shitty bow.

Amen!

Shit I can't. Oh well, reckon I'll continue on Easy rather than play all the way through again on medium.

Noooo! Just restart, you're not that far in and it would make things a lot more interesting.

Glad you like it though.

further in now....I can't be bothered fighting the colossus and stuff.

I'm now at the part with the swimming and the gigantic pillars.

it's very easy isn't it? maybe it gets harder. I like easy games though cos I suck. And am playing it on "easy".

hahaha

Well, if you just want to see the story there's no point in making it harder on yourself, I guess. I played on Spartan and there was only a couple parts towards the end that gave me any trouble, but even the final boss seemed easy to me. God of War I on Spartan was a lot harder, I thought.

the medusa was tricky enough

well, died a lot but took a half hour maybe

Does anyone ever use that Stone Stare? Never have but I'd say it'd be good with the bloody near indestructible Cyclops. Except kill their riders on the ground before they get on, all much simpler! I was really slow when I hadn't figured that out!

Well, if you just want to see the story there's no point in making it harder on yourself, I guess.

One thing I like about the game is that, if you pick a difficulty level that's too hard for you and you continue to fail, it will politely suggest that you suck and allow you to continue henceforth at an easier level. So even if you pick a difficulty that's too much for you, you don't have to start from scratch if it turns out to be too daunting.

Yeah it never told me that :P

is there any way to check what neat combos you've powered up to.

it gives you that one message but I forgot at least 3 of the moves I've learned.

L1+square and L1+circle are my bread and butter.

yeah it's all in your pause menu somewhere

The problem with the make it easier option is that it's only for battle sequences, not puzzles. You also can't switch back.

Ok I'm gonna come out and say it, I found this game totally boring. Incomprehensible button mashing totally lacking in finesse. I got as far as the three hydras boss but that was weeks ago and my motivation to go back to it is less than zero.

I found it partially boring but not incomprehensible

wait, the three hydras in the beginning of the first one? uh, try harder

Yeah, way to give up before the game even starts.

I mean, button mashers are inherently a bit boring to me, but they mix in a ton of mini-games to keep things fresh in GoW, and lots of puzzles. Among button mashers, it's easily the best I've played. And not incomprehensible at all.

I think I played it enough to get a feel for the gameplay. I dunno, maybe I'm just a bit bored of games in general. I'm still looking forward to HL2 and Portals and maybe Crysis, and I still love Singstar but that's hardly a traditional videogame; I can't think of anything else that I've played and really enjoyed in, well, at least a couple of years now.

in other words the "it's not you, it's me" line.

Oh, Katamari Damacy, that was great. And Lumines.

There was a loooot of button mashing 'tis true. The game itself though, well I liked the story and the characters. I liked the amount of action and the atmospherics, I especially liked the feeling of accomplishment that each chapter brought. It also looks amazing!

The button bashing is really enjoyable. I don't know why, but huge battles where you're turning a different direction every half second to batter the hell out of 10 different enemies are AMAZING in God of War. And not totally mindless button bashing either, you get more skillful and aim more as it goes on.

Tis true! Also it's great that as you play on you get even better combos.

what an annoying ending! I didn't get to kill that sub-Charlton Heston Zeus!

and drink the blood of every petty god!

Ha ha true. Also crap twist! That whole thing with Atlas thought. Such lush levels! Did you get many urns?

no idea...urns? I skipped the credits, maybe I'll have to finish it again and see!

Oh right, there are these urns hidden in chests that open up certain abilities and costumes. I normally don't bother but I'd read that these gave cool perks (they did). You find 4 of them during the whole game (it means exploring everywhere mind from the very first part!!!).

I splurged and picked up the psp game last night. Have only had time to play through the first few checkpoints, but so far it's pretty awesome - lots of fun - controls work just fine (except dodging is a bit awkward) - and the graphics are surprisingly impressive

Picked up GOW I again to see how good it was. Amazing graphics, lots of button mashing but the puzzles in SPOILER LOOK AWAY NOWthe maze and Pandora's temple?You can look again were just too stressful/painful/badly designed to keep the interest going.

the puzzles so far on the psp version haven't been a problem, but the combat is getting pretty tough - especially some of the finishing moves - hitting the x or square or triangle or circle isn't a problem, but sometimes you have to rotate the little nub in certain directions - very tough to pull off correctly and quickly, unfortunately. I actually got stuck on a big fight last night (about an hour and a half in) and if I can't get past it today, I may give in and switch to easy mode

Don't be crazy! Just drink lots of coffee and time will slow down enough for you to do it properly.

Yeah, typically after taking a 24 hour break, I had no problem & have managed some much tougher fights keeping it on normal. But I did get stuck on a stupid puzzle this morning for way too long, when the answer was just to pull out my shield.

Interesting (not sure it's worth a double dip though)...

"Scheduled for release this holiday season, God of War Collection will feature reworked versions of both God of War® and God of War® II on a single Blu-ray Disc™ at full 1280 x 720 resolution. Both critically acclaimed games, which were originally developed for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, have been remastered with anti-aliased graphics running at 60 frames per second for a smooth gameplay experience on the PS3 system."

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/08/31/god-of-war-collection-blu-ray-disc-compilation-available-this-holiday-season/

60fps and 720p HD is hott but it's cheeky of sony to suggest ppl don't want to play PS2 games on their PS3s and then do this; still at least it's budget-priced

it'd be really nice if they did a similar package for Ico and SotC, in anticipation of the last guardian; god knows SotC could do with a decent framerate

I only played GoW1 so this is obviously an insta-buy for me

james, why not just buy a really cheap copy of gow2 and play it upscaled on yr 60gb?

Trophy whore

haha should have locked this thread after the first 3 posts

having never owned a ps2 can i just say HELLLLO!!!!!!

I don't think I ever played the second one. Did I ever play the second one? I can't remember.

They are indeed cheeky bastards for doing this after that HEY GUYS DO YOU WANT THE PS2 GAMES ON A BONUS DISC survey for GOW3, getting a resounding "shit yeah" from an overwhelming majority of the respondents, then saying they weren't going to do it for mumble mumble technical reasons mumble demand mumble OH HEY LOOK A UNICORN

That said, I'm glad to hear it's going to happen, having only played little chunks of GOW1, especially since I only own a copy of part 1 and it's still shrinkwrapped and potentially gift-returnable.

And yeah, if they did this (assuming there aren't any technical issues with the GOW ports) for the Team ICO games I would buy them in a heartbeat, shameless double-dip or no. Shadow of the Colossus at 720p with a stable framerate and anti-aliasing? YES PLEASE. I'm not hugely concerned about graphic quality (one of the reasons I own a PS3), but while SotC was goegeous from an art design standpoint it had jaggies that could take your face off.

I don't think I ever played the second one. Did I ever play the second one? I can't remember.

― antexit, Monday, August 31, 2009 8:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes i played it at your house

I'm not hugely concerned about graphic quality (one of the reasons I own a PS3)

that's one of the reasons you own a next-gen console with a blu-ray player? huh?

gow2 was very excellently better than 1 iirc

I mean it's why I went for the PS3 instead of the 360- though most games nowadays are fine, some still have problems on ps3 (Ghostbusters, for example). I'm willing to make a slight tradeoff in graphical quality for stuff like more platform-exclusive titles I like, the aforementioned blu-ray player (I DO care very much about visuals for movies), etc

I have obtained (with Chicanery, also Wiles) the GoW 3 E3 demo. Fun, quite pretty, ludicrously violent. There is no quicker way for a game to get on my good side than to throw a swarm of disposable mooks at me then flash the instructions

BATTERING RAM: HIT O TO GRAB AN ENEMY, HIT [] TO CHARGE

Murdering a horde of skeletons with nothing but other skeletons is one of life's simple joys.

<a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/14/dream-theater-adding-even-more-metal-to-god-of-war-iii-soundtrac/#comments";>Oh dear.</a>

ha!

wth is wrong with this board

this thing is ALMOST out, where's the hype

that's true actually. I like these games, and the early reviews are <3 <3 <3, but I'm not that excited about it. Why?

Sequelitis

I would be excited about this if I actually had $$$ to buy games right now, I loved the first two.

God of War III is kind of amazing. one awesome set-piece after another. it's not especially cool when you basically have to murder a naked slave-lady, though.

but that's what I'm into!

I liked watching my friend play the first one more than I enjoyed playing it - I assume this version will be the same.

n/a, I'm in the same boat as you - would love to play it now, but no money, especially after just doing my taxes. Will definitely get it somewhere down the road though (as well as a few other games I've had to skip this month). But the other thing is, no money doesn't matter as much as just no time, or to be more precise, I already have more games I want to be playing right now than time to play them to my satisfaction, so no real need to pick up more and more games, no matter how good they look. There's just too many games!

I need local friends with PS3s who I can borrow games from.

Maybe we should have a "take one for the team" program where when there's a shortish game without much replay value we buy one copy with a paypal fund and send it around one dude to another

The first level of GOW3 is hilariously epic. That's how people learn to play this game? Crazy!

pretty every level is hilariously epic.

Just finished GOW1 on the PS3 rerelease. Looking upthread, am I the only one who found the final fight stupidly hard? Phase 1 was OK, the temple fight was manageable once I learned to spam Army of Hades and Poseidon's Rage and use that square+square+triangle move to keep enemies knocked down, but the fighting game tug-of-war phase with all the unblockable attacks, urgh. I ended up dropping down to easy after making it through the majority of the game with little to no trouble, and he went down in less than a minute. It seems to me there should be something between making me want to snap the controller in half and turning the final boss into a joke.

i'm at Zeus on GoW3, playing on titan and regularly screaming at the teevee

wow. most depressing ending ever. And a five minute unskippable credit crawl!

overall, one of the better games I've played this year but more of a slog. Who could care about Kratos at this point? He's an irredeemable asshole and he spends the whole game killing EVERYONE

Here's the plot of GoW3

Spoilers, I guess, but part of what makes this game somewhat unengaging is this litany of death without any interesting grounding:

You kill Leviathan. You kill Poseidon. You kill Helios. You kill Hades. You kill Hermes. You kill Hercules. You kill Hera. You kill Chronos. You kill Hephaestus. You kill (sort of) Daedelus. You allow Pandora to die. Along the way, you kill some three or four thousand grunts. You kill maybe a hundred innocent people. You kill Zeus. You kill yourself.

You are super player.

So I played the original God of War for the first time and went through it this weekend. Pretty crazy game!

Maybe unfair to judge it in certain ways as it came out seven years ago, but man, I figure by 2005 action game designers should have known things like "3D catwalk balancing sections are never fun" and "Resident Evil is the worst game to take after for puzzle design". But the combat is still quite visceral and fun.

The story is somewhat too serious, almost to the point of self-parody at times. But who cares about that? SO MUCH RAGE, UGH UGH. Some really great boss fights.

Just finished GOW1 on the PS3 rerelease. Looking upthread, am I the only one who found the final fight stupidly hard? Phase 1 was OK, the temple fight was manageable once I learned to spam Army of Hades and Poseidon's Rage and use that square+square+triangle move to keep enemies knocked down, but the fighting game tug-of-war phase with all the unblockable attacks, urgh. I ended up dropping down to easy after making it through the majority of the game with little to no trouble, and he went down in less than a minute. It seems to me there should be something between making me want to snap the controller in half and turning the final boss into a joke.

Nipples!

― kingfish hobo juckie (kingfish 2.0), Sunday, November 20, 2005 3:08 PM (6 years ago)

Not sure I'm gonna bother with the others though. Probably better off moving onto Godhand or Bayonetta...

dear lord, i looked into my shameful backlog records and realized I bought the game back in December 2009, back when God of War was merely four years old

so the new one is getting pretty much universal rave reviews. Anyone played it yet?

not yet - don't think it's officially released until next week

the wave of hype has def intrigued me but it seems to be impossible to pre-order a copy for anything less than full price, which is nuts

i also wanna know whether, five years on, nhex has cleared the original gow from his backlog

ah okay. The "single shot" thing sounds particularly interesting...

ha! i eventually did finish it, probably not too many months after that post. my opinion remained the same, dumb fun, but a bit clunky, typical for that generation of action games. GoWs 2 and up - still unplayed six years later. the backlog guilt keeps me from going for the new one...

God Hand by comparison was pretty amazing, as was Bayonetta. (Bayonetta I waited almost as long to get around to, maybe I got to it three years ago?) Both exceeded GoW in outrageousness, gameplay and stupidity, proving you should go all in with this sort of thing. The sober shift in the new one to emulate The Last of Us looks interesting.

So this is pretty fun! The story hasn't really taken off for me (scenes that are supposed to be infused with emotion or wonder are falling flat), but at least the dialogue is sharp and funny.

I like the gameplay though, and at least for me the puzzles have been a highlight, sitting at the sweet spot between comprehensible and challenging.

Combat is good, but at times I wonder if I'm just button mashing since there are so many moves and combos available.

If nothing else, this game is doing a great job of making heavy melee attacks actually worth using.

The fingerprints of The Last of Us are all over this game.

Something very weird is how depopulated the world is. OK there are plenty of monsters, but not humans.

before i played the game,

- minor mechanic-based spoiler -

i accidentally saw a complaint that all of the puzzles involve looking up and then throwing an axe at some switch. i wish i wouldn't have read that, because then i spent the entire game with that in mind, until by the end i was just wandering around saying "guess i'll throw an axe at the sky" as i explored new areas.

And finished. A little surprised at how short the main game is. The praise for the story is not warranted IMO, but I really enjoyed killing monsters. That is my review of this game of war called god of war.

So I'm not much of a gamer (haven't owned a system since NES), but back when I lived with some gamers I played God Of War I and II and had a blast and was thinking about trying to pirate one of these to help fill the quarantine time.
1) Which is the best of the series?
2) Am I wrong in thinking If I just get the right usb wireless controller I can play one of these off my PC, either straight up pirated or through some other <$40 means?

I'm a bit into this now and really enjoying it. It seems like a real technical marvel, but that's coming from someone who has more or less missed out on decades of advances.

The fingerprints of The Last of Us are all over this game.

I'm still enjoying this, though I can see why someone might not like this type of game. It's almost more of an interactive cartoon, but some of the puzzles and battles are tricky. Looks great throughout, of course, really impressive. The one problem I've run into (which I haven't yet tried to remedy, maybe it's easy) is sometimes I'll, say, open a set of doors that in turn seems to advance the story, but it then forces me forward when I was hoping to backtrack and get some other stuff/exploring done first. I think I'm still pretty early in the game, though, so I assume there will be time for exploration later. On the plus side (which again could be a negative for some) nothing is so difficult or confusing that I've had to look up solutions, so I've been playing it blind, which means I have no clue if I'm missing tons of stuff. I assume I am.

2) Am I wrong in thinking If I just get the right usb wireless controller I can play one of these off my PC, either straight up pirated or through some other <$40 means?

Still loving this game, tons of fun, impeccably designed and written so far, just challenging enough at times, but imo only when you want it to be.

Had my first valkyrie fight, which was pretty cool (and I understand they only get more difficult). I really like the writing in this, and heck, the relationship between bonehead and his kid; when Boy was awol I kinda missed having him around! But there are so many fun details, from listening in to Atreus yapping with the talking head to watching the boy waste time while I'm standing around, exploring, sliding across ice. A lot of work went into all of this, and if there is some degree of repetition in the battles and boss reskins, I'm not bored of them yet. The only drag is the fast travel system, which is (ironically) kind of tedious, but it's not the end of the world.

I miss Josh Plays Dark Souls

Bloodborne is in the queue! DS2 is not off the table, either. And Sekiro.

Nice. I think you would have the best time with Sekiro, since it's tuned for single player. Bloodborne is a little faster paced (aggression is encouraged), DS2 is slower paced (more similar to DS1 in that respect, although in every other respect its the odd one out - animations, mechanics, etc). And Sekiro has a very particular rhythm as far as defense and offense are concerned, but it's cool.

Second valkyrie down. I basically move the plot forward one step at a time, then spend a bunch of time on side quests. Only just now realized that I haven't been upgrading as often as I should, and that I haven't equipped some pretty powerful stuff I had in my arsenal. Dunno if it's my settings, but one thing I like that makes things easier is that when you die a few times in a row, it seems the next time you start the fight the enemies are already down in health a bit, like a handicap. Makes you feel less bad for being, like, one Sparta Fart away from beating a boss before dying, since you don't have to start from scratch the next time.

You've taken down more Valkyries than I have now!

This game could be called "God of Spam," lol.

I've not been following a guide for this one, because it's pretty straight forward, so I literally have no idea how far I have to go, but I feel pretty overpowered right now, which is still kind of fun. It could simply be because I did something out of general order and came back over-equipped or something. Also, only just now realized the neat trick this game plays with load times. It's all designed to look like one seamless interrupted "shot." That is, the only time the screen goes dark is when you die and restart. Other than that, the cut scenes and other stuff is integrated seamlessly and unbroken into the action, which is cool.

Oof, maybe I got lucky with those first two valkyries, because the next two I faced kicked my ass with "Dark Souls" expediency. That's usually a hint to come back later, especially when it comes to optional bosses.

Amusingly, I just finished the main storyline. I was convinced there was going to be some sort of bait and switch and final boss or something, but then the credits started rolling and I thought, huh. Oh well, there are still all these side quests and other things to do. And I find the writing and design and all that stuff absolutely impeccable, so I may stick with a bit longer, just for fun.

Anyway, that's the downside of not following any guides. Surprises abound, but no one to intervene and say, hey, you are getting close to the end of the game, maybe take a break from the main quest and go do all this other fun stuff first.

Did you see the secret ending?

No! But I leaned it exists when I googled to see if that was really the end.

Wow, full blockbuster tease! Surprised they didn't announce that as part of the PS5 thing.

going in

Who could care about Kratos at this point? He's an irredeemable asshole and he spends the whole game killing EVERYONE
― i'm gonna need a +1 so me & a friend can kick you in the balls (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, July 20, 2010 11:35 PM

yeah, this game is basically, can an irredeemable asshole be redeemed? should they?

paired with a nice subplot of "will i be able to sacrifice my chattering pre-teen to another god in exchange for a better weapon?"

You know he's thinking about it.

since kratos is the strong silent type, i made sure to speak for him throughout the game, firmly reminding my son that he would be traded at the very first opportunity for personal gain, and that my only remaining hope for my own life was to find that opportunity and take advantage of it

started God Of War this week. right now i'm paddling around a lake trying to shoot green parrots and grudgingly helping out spirits. fun game, even if it's a bit more 'on rails' than I'm used to. also Kratos is an absolute lunk who regularly refuses to do what i ask him. Atreus is a pain in the arse. beautiful game though, and never boring

what is the relationship between this and Horizon? is it by the same team in any way? so many similarities

no relationship other than them both being made by sony-owned studios

I am all over this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE-4GvjKcfs

That looks very good, although are those the PS5 graphics? I'm still struggling to see much improvement on PS4. Atreus especially looks like a talking dummy. I bet it'll be awesome though. Must go back and defeat those bloody valkyries one day.

they need to go on a quest... for winter jackets!!

Eh, they're Gods, they keep it cool.

xpost Yeah, I never finished with the valkyries. I find it hard to keep going once I finish a game's main storyline, plus they were significantly more difficult than anything else in the game.

As I understand it the biggest improvement on the PS4 (so far) is load-times rather than graphics. I mean, the last God o War looked great! I did see this trailer for some Chinese monkey god game in progress, though, and the fluidity and detail looked like an advance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOMIwsupy9k

Of course reviews of the new one (what little I've glanced at or seen excerpted) are over the top positive. This may end up the second AAA game I ever pay full price for.

My contribution to this thread will be GOD OF SNORE.

god of bore

woww

It's going to be an excellent playable movie with some frustratingly twitchy challenges, a decent but if action and some great voice acting. Got it on order

god of chore

Plod of Floor.

i never got past the first third of the last one so maybe i'll try SAD OF DAD 1 again

Too much brooding, not enough rage.

That said, it sucks you in after a while.

What’s the deal with these games, is it like an Uncharted mostly on-rails kinda thing

Hmm, there's a lot more to (the last) God of War than there is to Uncharted. There's some degree of freedom, in that you can determine the order you do stuff, there's exploration, discovery, travel between different realms, etc. Not nearly as linear as Uncharteds, in that you can pick the order of things, hop around do side quests and stuff. Also cool that it essentially plays out without a cut (cut-scenes aside). It's still linked to a plot/story, though, so all that stuff is ultimately in service of a set goal. And it is very heavy on character/writing/brooding as much as combat. So yeah, the combat is really cool and fun, but if you're not into the relationship between Dad and Boy it could be annoying. Personally I loved it and loved the writing. Can't wait to play the new one.

I like this game but I'm not in love with it yet, simply because so far it's exactly as I expected - a pretty-looking follow-up to the 2018 game with some very similar gameplay and challenges. It's still early days yet though, so hoping some curveballs and nice ideas come through.

I wish games like this would stop with the ",Wow look at that, maybe you can climb up there" handholding that happens before you've even properly looked at an area yet

pic.twitter.com/eTqqW9i0p6

— alright 🍊 (@ecnadolep) November 13, 2022

So annoying. Especially after having immersed myself in Elden Ring for the last several months.
It doesn't do anything to dispel the fact these games are very much on rails a lot of the time - the illusion of choice is hard to maintain when Mimir is constantly prodding you to stick to the path.
And that's a shame, because so much about this game is exceedingly well executed. I love how Atreus and Mimir will just start chatting to fill-out quiet stretches of the game. Sometimes I'm concentrating on getting my boat to steer the right way, so I miss what they're saying but it's a lovely touch.

The illusion of choice is one of my favorite things about games. I understand this one specifically has a million accessibility settings. Is there a way to make it harder/less hand-holdy?

People seem to be calling for an option to switch off the hints. I don't remember them being quite so frequent in the original game.

(Minor spoilers)
Another thing I'd like to see in a game like this (and Elden Ring maybe?) is a more populated world that isn't simply enemies + the odd NPC. When I heard we were going to a dwarven city, I got really excited. But as soon as you turn up, it goes into lockdown and you just end up wandering all-but empty streets. Don't know if that will change (I've only played a few hours), but I feel we're at a stage in gaming where we should be able to see a world that is truly lived-in, not just apocalypstic landscapes where anything that moves is programmed to attack you on sight. Witcher 3 and RDR2 did this very well of course. It would be really strange to see this in a Souls game, and I'm not sure FromSoft would ever do it, but it would have been a bold move to do this in, say, Leyndell. They hinted at it with the Radahn Festival.

That's one advantage to waiting to play a game, I guess. Heck, they're still tweaking Elden Ring. I've stayed spoiler free on this one, but googling your issue shows that people had the same problem with Forbidden West (which I also need to catch up on).

Uncharted 4 seems to be handling hints OK. Just vague enough, and then after a while it gives you the option of accepting a more overt hint. RDR2 didn't really offer hints at all, did it? I can't remember. I think games like God of War et al. the problem solving is really secondary to the combat, which is where the sliding difficulty kicks in.

xp Skyrim managed that "living world" thing, as did BOTW, IMO

I'm hearing myself say "SHUT THE FUCK UP" way too often while playing this game. There is absolutely no need for Atreus to say "Looks like the main entrance to the mine is blocked, but maybe this enormous cave right next to it which is really obviously there and definitely the only feasible way forward". He tells you about stuff before you've even clapped eyes on it yourself. Maybe this is what like having a kid and visiting the zoo is like? I just want a minute to explore please.

Meanwhile, a lot of the bosses are really tough and once you're in the fight, you're locked in - you can't evade and go spend some hacksilver on power ups, no. You HAVE to fight the boss until you beat him.

And while the boss fights have been really tough and challenging so far, I'm quite bored of having to stop my exploration every few minutes to basically have the same kind of fight with the same kinds of grunts over and over again. They're not especially challenging, they're just inconvenient and take a lot of time to wear down because there are often loads of them.

I am enjoying the story so far though, and the audiovisual experience.

Speaking of haptics, anyone on PS5 find that your L2 makes a quite loud rattling buzz sound when you're aiming the axe? I'm don't think it was doing this yesterday, so I'm wondering if my controller is faulty

Maybe this is what like having a kid and visiting the zoo is like? I just want a minute to explore please.

― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Monday, November 14, 2022 5:50 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

dad of war

i haven't played the new one yet but i'm hopeful because i've heard a rumor that it's the one in which Kratos finally murders his son

Atreus knows the narrator that tells everyone what to do as they hit the 10 second mark in trying to figure out what to do. they are best friends, and they are conspiring against you, protagonist Kratos

until they turn the hint system off, i'll pass

god of war VI: Kratos is very angry

Yeah they need to do something about it. The trouble is, the hints are rarely helpful because Atreus is usually telling you about something you haven't even come to yet.

I was in a network of mines yesterday, and naturally I like to have a good poke around before I progress down the main path. But Boy has already raced ahead and is telling me about how to open a specific door. Then 5 seconds later, Mimir is "brothering" me into doing what Atreus just said.
But by the time I've got to the bit they're talking about, they're both completely schtum

It's testament to this game's storytelling that almost every review I read focuses almost exclusively on the narrative and characters as opposed to the gameplay.

I think if I'd got this game earlier on in my gaming career, I would have absolutely loved it - all I wanted back then was a fun, playable movie. And that's what it is.

It's not that the gameplay is bad in any way, but there is a distinct feeling of repetition that sets in after a while. You follow the path, the characters fill in with some exposition, you come across a puzzle which usually involves aiming your axe in the right way, then you have to defend yourself from a wave of about 10 similar looking enemies, lather rinse repeat.

I don't know why I'm finding this a little tedious, as it's standard for games. Maybe if the enemies and combat were a bit more interesting? Or if the stakes were higher? Maybe I've just played too many Souls games recently but I tend to find the standard battles more prohibitive of my fun than actually fun because they can generally be won through brute force and a few easy dodges. And if you die, you just start again. There are loads of special moves to jujj things up but most of the time I'm just doing heavy melee attacks and doing the odd jump-dodge.

Perhaps I've also missed a plotpoint but the ultimate goal of Kratos and Atreus feels indistinct. Yes, Ragnarok is coming, which is about as apocalyptic as it gets, and yet there's little sense of agency, reason or imperative to this adventure so far - it's just "let's go check some stuff out and see what the craic is".

Update: I've all but given up on this. Life's too short. What eventually made me rage-quit was actually a story/pacing problem where an event in the story harked back to a piece of seemingly idle expository conversation that apparently I'd been having while negotiating a tricky bit of parkour about ten hours previously.

One of the problems with this game is that the characters insist on chattering away while I'm concentrating on steering a boat the right direction, or working out where to climb next. And it's not like this is taxing stuff, but these conversations go on a fair while and it's hard to know exactly how important they are: i.e. whether they're important to the story, or if it's just a bit of background flavour dialogue to pass the time. In this case, a major plotpoint just went totally over my head because I'd mentally skipped a conversation between two characters about another character during a mission about a fourth character.

My friend, who was playing at the same time as me, ended up putting it into story mode to get the endless ambushes out the way. That's the other issue: The fights and ambushes happen on the beat. You know exactly when to expect them, and they all turn out more or less the same. Thye end up bcoming a hindrance. You know like random encounters in old turn-based JRPGs - you're trying to get somewhere but everything stops to have a battle. And usually that's fine, because you know that fighting baddies is part of it, and there's usually a tangible reward at the end (like levelling up).

With Kratos, even though there are loads of different weapon and ability upgrades, I don't feel like they're exciting enough. A new axe rond? Why would I swap it for the one I've spent hours upgrading? It makes little difference - I'm still invariably hammering R1 with the odd shield block or dodge to spice things up. In short, I don't really feel the difference when I upgrade - it's the same thing.

Not too far into it but I'm provisionally enjoying Ragnarok more than the first game. I think it helps that it starts in a relatively less toxic place, while having more lols at the same time.

I'm playing a hell of a lot of Ragnarok now and I'm enjoying it way more than 2018 -- for instance, I didn't care enough about 2018 to fight more than a couple of the Valkyries, but I've beaten two of Ragnarok's version and am doing what I can to progress/level up enough to take on more.

That said, I have zero sense of space for any given level (I've definitely been using the accessibility option that points you towards your goal a lot, probably as a crutch), and I'm actually having difficulty catching the finer details of the story. For the latter, I think the gameplay narration is what trips me up -- when I'm moving my character around, I seem to have a pretty limited amount of mental bandwidth and that's largely devoted to where I'm going next and how I'm getting there and probably most crucially are there ravens to kill (i.e. collectibles), and so attention to dialogue gets very tenuous for me.

Been saving this one for a sale, since I know it'll be great and loved the last one. Just a lot on my game plate right now.

Just (barely) started "Ragnarok," and tying into our general PS5/console discussion, I can't imagine any game looking better than this one. Though it's kinda like the reverse of the uncanny valley, where the closer and closer it gets to looking "real," the less it really matters.

I'm actually having trouble getting my brain into gear for this one. I am still very, very very early, so I'm sure I will get used to it, but I feel like I am rustier than I should be, enough so that once or twice already I have appreciated some character going "you might want to hit that thing over there" or whatever.

You can change how quickly the hints come in the game settings, IIRC.

I think it feels balanced right now. I don't care too much about hints, because so many of the puzzles are less about real challenge and more about just finding the stupid thing to hit wit your axe. I do know the part I am at now just dumped a ton of favors and tasks to take care of.

I know this game is supposed to be long, so I think I'm still pretty early game, but I'm enjoying how funny the writing is, and starting to feel the stakes developing into something more compelling than this tentative start.

I've only been playing in fits and starts, so part of it is on me, but I just played a leisurely sequence involving riding a dream yak that made me think, nope, this game and its story still haven't kicked in yet.

I played a significant chunk of it and it felt that way for most of it.

The characters seemed to be ambling around doing "stuff" but the prime objective wasn't especially clear; it wasn't like they had to climb a mountain to bury Loki's mum, they were just sort of bimbling around, completing various tasks, arguing with each other and mostly doing stuff based on hunches.

But maybe that was down to me and my comprehension.

I got EXTREMELY hacked off when a major turning point was only explicable if one were to remember a piece of expository dialogue spoken hours before during one of those conversations they have while you're busy concentrating on climbing up a mountain.

To balance that, I will say its bloody gorgeous and the acting is fantastic and yeah maybe I'll just finish it, possibly on story mode so I can play it like a nice movie

I just hate that thing in games, and I guess movies and books too but it seems to be endemic in games (it happened a LOT in Baldur's Gate 3 too) where they're trying to solve a mysterious problem that no one can understand, and one character just goes:
"Hey, I have no idea why but it just came to me that we should ask the Great Wise Wizard about this, because he knows things. The problem is he's been missing ever since he went walking in the Shaded Woods twenty years ago. The path is long and treacherous, and he's probably dead by now, but if we could just find him I'm sure he'll give us some other quest to do until we figure out what this game is all about...."

I mean, I know that's how plots work to some extent, a sequence of problems and solutions, but this approach feels very tedious and gamey, with characters just working off hunches a lot of the time

This game is so pretty and full of wonders, but so far it's also very wheel-spinny and portentous without being particularly dramatic. That's why I keep assuming I am still pretty close to the start, relatively speaking. There's been so much talk of war, and choices, and prophecies, and there have been heavy moments and characters weighty with death and conflict, but so far just not much of anything moving forward at any particularly urgent pace. There's also a lot of that very YA gimmick of everyone full of secrets, creating problems that could be solved with just a conversation. But then there wouldn't be a story.

And yet, it is nice to look at and the acting is great, so I suppose I have no issues with the time I've been spending with it.

Yup

Checked in on a walkthrough, not for help but just to see what chapter I am on and confirm I have a ways to go. So far this game is pretty easy, but I just hit the first (fakeout) Valkyrie and thought, hmm, if the difficulty level spikes like this, maybe I should keep the settings where they are.

There was one optional area that involved having to fight a valkyrie in order to leave and she was so ridiculously fast and one-shot that after about 20 goes, I went back to an old save before I even went there

Don't really know what's going on, plot-wise, but the game does seem to be picking up. Or did, maybe, because now I'm hanging with Freya again, and they've thrown a ton of side quests at me that seem to be hindering the momentum. Which is not unique to this game, of course. "We have to get the magic amulet from Amfir before he destroys the world tonight! But first, can you help me find some lost chickens?"

OK, still puttering along, but I've got to concede, I just met the Norn, and the story remains intriguing, and the set pieces still surprising and compelling. So ... good things.