God Of War

It does seem that the journalists are singing the praises of it purely because they feel it is proof that "gaming has matured", and that this is want they want all games to be like, sort of like how they reacted to The Last of Us. Seriously, all you have to do is make an ultra-scripted cinematic game with a humorless story, and you get the gaming journalists drooling. I so hope that this doesn't end up turning all future action games into stuff like this, just because game journalists are so desperate to have the medium they cover be taken seriously.

Still, if this game did manage to make the combat feel less shallow and simplistic, then I'm game.

edited 12th Apr '18 1:53:09 AM by LDragon2

Different isn't inherently bad if done well enough, and it appears the new gameplay still got praise.

From what I've seen, they've done the exact opposite, you can't even jump for one thing. The violence is also incredibly toned down to bitch ass levels too.

I wouldn't trust gaming journalists on gameplay impressions either, better just to wait til the game actually comes out and gets some word of mouth for that.

But of course. After all, the extreme violence and mature content the series is known for only keeps gaming from being taken seriously and actually growing up, amirite? >_>

Not to mention that I am extremely dubious about the skills of many game journos, since they seem to always praise the games that are highly cinematic as that doesn't exactly require much in the way of actual skill. Heck, it's one of the reasons I simply didn't enjoy the original GOW as much as they did, as I felt it to be really shallow in comparison to other action games (even David Jaffe thought so), but of course, they were too busy being dazzled by the sheer spectacle of it all.

Guess history has repeated with this one.

edited 12th Apr '18 3:46:06 AM by LDragon2

You'd think the script would've been enough to carry what could've been such a violent game into all-star art status.

After all, it's not a "game" script, but a script.

That line always makes me roll my eyes, because it's still a game script, but the people attached don't want to call it that, because apparently admitting that your game is still a video game shows that it isn't "true art" or something.

Now I just hope that other developers also don't start catering the action games to these journalists who don't care for skill and gameplay as much as cinematic spectacle and "maturity". We don't need another repeat of DMC Devil May Cry after all.

Course, if the rumors are true of Sony actually funding DMCV, I dread to know how they might meddle with Capcom after seeing the success this game has had with the journos.

It should be stated that the game hasn't actually come out yet.

Like I get apprehensions but still I mean.

I wouldn't really say the original games were well-received beause "cinematics" alone, it paced them out pretty well and always knew how to make the player go to that one corner. Mechanically alone, it's not even close to a masterpiece, but the pacing combined with the combat animations resulted in a rather smooth experience. By changing things up once in a while it kept the players engaged, which is more likely to keep people going than a constant barrage of mechanically-focused one-note combat encounters. And I actually like those, too.

I also would rather not succumb to paranoia and rush to "Journalists don't like hard games" conclusion beause they praised Demon's Souls before it was cool to do so. The developers also talked about taking inspiration from games like Bloodborne in terms of designing levels, in addition to actually upgrading the AI. I'm holding judgement until the hype fog (or depending on what happens, the Hype Backlash too) clears out.

edited 12th Apr '18 10:42:57 AM by UltraWanker

The games became repetitive and stale after a while, and any attempts to give Kratos any sense of Gravitas were pretentious and shallow.

This is easily the best step in the right direction, and changing the gameplay to reflect that is fine by me.

I don't know. Most of the reviews seem to be gushing about how good it looks and how "deep" the story is. That's all well and good, but what about the combat? All I know is that one reviewer said it isn't a button masher like DMC or Bayo (a completely bogus statement, since those two games are far from button mashers).

For a game to be worthy of these kinds of scores in my eyes, it has to also be amazing in terms of gameplay. Such as titles like Breath of the Wild or The Witcher 3.

Again though, if they did make the combat less simplistic and more strategic, that's definitely a step up in my book.

edited 12th Apr '18 10:19:52 PM by LDragon2

Honestly, the combat doesn't even look that great. They're using a zoomed in over the shoulder camera, which means your field of vision is greatly limited. So much so that they need arrows to point where enemies are offscreen. You also have limited hitsparks or reactions. I've seen some enemies where they don't even react to hits. They're in an idle stance as little spurts of blood come out of them. One of the bosses they showed footage of had the player spamming the axe throw, chipping away at a huge spongy health bar, and it looked really dull.

There was also one boss I saw in leaked footage where one of it's attacks is to breath lightning, which strikes across the arena. But thanks to the camera, the lighting will strike outside your field of vision, or even behind you in some cases.

I don't think it's gonna be a BAD game per say, but everything i've seen looks like a far cry from the generation defining masterpiece these critics are claiming it as. Who i've long since stopped trusting with action game opinions after Dm C: Devil May Cry...

edited 12th Apr '18 10:35:01 PM by Emperordaein

What reviewers do you all trust when reviewing action games?

Cause yeah, reviewers like IGN & Gamestop are untrustworthy, so its better to find guys who know what their talking about.

The Witcher 3 didn't really have "amazing" gameplay per say. It gets the job done, but it overstays its welcome as you level up and eventually you just wanna get it over with. The bossfights were also pretty bad, they were essentially beefed up enemies. If it wasn't for the quests and writing the game wouldn't be getting any acclaim.

Perhaps this is also the case here if the gameplay isn't great, who knows. Or you could grab Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice I guess.

edited 13th Apr '18 1:23:06 AM by UltraWanker

That I'd argue was a definite limit of its game design. Puzzle bosses are trickier. However, they do encourage you to use the tools the game provides you with. The story related bosses are large health bars, but they have patterns and tricks to exploit, like any boss.

The larger enemies you fight can be beaten handily with the right gear and equipment and the game doesn't resort to cutscenes and quicktime events to beat them, creating an illusion of "ability". You can take on high level enemies with enough skill, prior planning and prep. But it does often devolve into QUEN ROLL of invulnerability and chipping away.

I quite enjoyed Dragon's Dogma and how that allowed you to climber over the larger enemies to fight them. gave it a definite feel of more interactivity.

Oh no definitely, there is some solid stuff about its gameplay, I was just arguing that it isn't some mechanical masterpiece. It's more about how the different elements of the game came together that helped elevate the entire product.

edited 13th Apr '18 2:28:13 AM by UltraWanker

Definitely agree. Individual segments would have felt underbaked (The Witcher senses thing was just Batman-o-vision / Far cry predator vision) and the combat couldn't have held up a single, linear game by itself.

I enjoyed the first GOW games and their over the tops style. This does seem to be just emulating TR, Last of Us etc. If only they'd done Darksiders and just committed to a bit of crazier combat?

Based on what has been talked about and what I said a bit earlier, along with the inspiration from the likes of Zelda and Bloodborne, I think what's gonna make or break this game is the writing and level design.

Pretty much all the reviewers are saying that the combat is still there,It starts slow and gets faster as you get more moves.

Just like the older games.

And a deeper story is not the only thing the reviewers are praising it for L Dragon, and even then, why do you feel like a series that was already one note and repetitive needs to be unchanged from before?

If you want good reviews that go into the game's combat, Easy Allies does a good job.

The people over at Giantbomb also go into some of the game's flaws.

If a series does need changing up, then I'm all for it. Just not quite sure this was the way to go. I was hoping that they'd make the combat less button mashy and more skill based. Course, if that did happen with this new one, then count me in.

Heh, all of the third-person action thrillers that came out after Resident Evil 4? I think that's a lost hope. That said, being like Resident Evil 4 wasn't a bad thing in every case, and being like The Last of Us doesn't have to be a bad thing.

If I never have to fight another enemy like the Satyrs again, I'm all for the combat getting toned down a bit. That stuff was ridiculous.

all the reviews, including the one above, said how the gameplay is more skill based.

Honestly looking at the game-play videos, I think the combat looks pretty great.

The camera doesn't appear as cumbersome as I'd thought it be.

Have they confirmed on whether the ax will be the only weapon we'll be getting?

Yes. You get runes to give it new effects, though.

Once again, I highly doubt the claims of reviewers as far as combat depth is concerned, especially since they give more or less every first party AAA game similar praise.