God Of War

I'm kinda hoping IV comes back from the mess that ended off 3. First half was great, then Pandora turns up and things get blatantly rushed and the characterisation gets stupidly garbled. And Athena's weird character derailment. What the hell was that?

I'm also really hoping we get a total Gotterdammerung situation going on. With Greece's spiritual collapse, other foreign gods come in to try and grab more power, reflecting the way that the Romans would absorb other culture's gods, giving IV a widened scope and more multi-cultural feel. Isis, Loki, Kali, plus the left over Greek gods, like Artemis.

Of course, if we're unlucky, it'll be just Ragnarok, Yggradsil and Thor. Snore.

I personally hope they avoid a Crossover Cosmology situation. It raises too many questions (how was the world created? If we see Atlas is still holding it up, where's the Midgard Serpent, or Geb?).

I've been getting into this series recently. Played through 1 a while ago, currently working through 2.

The gameplay, graphics, scenery, and soundtrack are good, but the story is just so amazingly bad. I just feel like I'm playing as a dick fighting a bunch of other dicks.

edited 5th Jan '12 10:55:07 PM by CTM

That's exactly how I felt about Bayonetta.

Welcome to OTT action games.

GOW 1's story is alright for what it is, though.

I found it surprisingly compelling, if you view it as a pastiche of epic narrative constructs and Greek Myth. The third one ruined it by trying to develop the characterisation, amongst other things.

And honestly, isn't a crossover cosmology the only way to go with things now? The alternative is cluttered timelines or worse retcons, or Kratos the supernatural janitor, mopping up Mount Olympus's sloppy seconds.

edited 6th Jan '12 12:56:55 AM by Nicknacks

The first game's Kratos had great characterization. Yeah Kratos is an unsympathetic irredeemable sociopath, but he's a well characterized one.

GOW 2 kinda flubbed his character, imo. He became less tragic and more generic. Not that his story really had anywhere to go after the first game.

GOW 3 was just pure WTF territory with trying to redeem Kratos. Hope is why we're here? He just had to forgive himself? Ugh, gag me with a spoon.

edited 6th Jan '12 1:06:34 AM by JotunofBoredom

Except he still turns Zeus to paste after his redemption hallucination. It's hard to justify a moral against hyper-violence and unthinking retribution and then almost immediately fill the screen with blood soaked quick-time event.

And don't get me started on Pandora. She's a)an expositionary plot device b)corny as hell — can she speak a language other than cliché? c)annoying. SAVE ME KRATOS? HEEEELP! Hey do that thing over there! d)disgustingly anti-woman.

Edit: 2 was probably better than 1, plotwise. I think they were right for not trying to plumb the depths of his characterisation any more, given how deliberately shallow the character was, and instead started to exploit that. He's deliberately unlikeable, and delivers pretty much the same narrative as 3 without the redemptive ending. It's genius (and I don't often say that about game narratives) is the way it recast the previously tragic Kratos with his determinator incarnation, and quite effectively set up a character arc for the ongoing series to deliver on. It's logical, clear and concise, and doesn't get in the way of what the series is really about (i.e. the gameplay). That it took most reviewers until 3 to notice the transition is remarkably dumb.

edited 6th Jan '12 1:18:49 AM by Nicknacks

I admit, I laughed out loud when "Hope and forgiveness and stuff!" was instantly followed by bashing Zeus's face against a large jagged rock for about three hours.

edited 6th Jan '12 1:32:27 AM by Vox

Despite what I hear in a bunch of places, GOW 1 suffered no delusions that Kratos was anything other than a horrible horrible person. His backstory actually makes him seem even worse.

Hell, I'd argue he was more deplorable in GOW 1 than in any other game in the series, but in a much less over the top way.

In GOW 2 he was just a generic "I'm angry at the gods right now. Oh no, Zeus betrayed me so I gotta shoot/slice him and anybody who gets in my way."

With GOW 1:

• It's established that Kratos was always a massive cock. No betrayals or anything to motivate him. He was a Blood Knight with delusions of grandeur who went around conquering everything just because, despite the protests of his wife.
  • When his hubris catches up with him and he is almost killed in battle, he takes the coward's way out and cheats by asking for help from a god.
  • Kratos had no problem killing civilians for no other reason than that said god told him to. Yeah, he can kill innocent muggles people in other parts of the series, but those times they were kind of in his way/got too close to him while he was flailing away at monsters. Here, he has no motive BUT to slautgher them all for the sake of slaughtering them all.
    • He had no problem killing children. This one is gonna take a bit to explain, since the only child we've seen him kill has caused him to feel guilty, but bear with me. Okay, so it's established that Kratos killed his wife and child while out slaughtering more innocent and defenseless people. The moment he actually kills them is portrayed by him cutting at their silhouettes through smoke. The only two scenarios here are that the smoke is symbolic for him being blinded by his bloodlust, or the smoke is literal and he just didn't see that he was killing his family. But in either case, he had to have known that one of those two people he murdered at that moment was a child(I mean she's, like, 2 feet tall). Yeah, he felt bad afterward when he found out said child was his daughter, but he didn't seem to have any problems while doing the deed. Another thing is the place he broke into was being used to hide women and presumably their(completely off-screen since we can't show this) children. And Kratos killed everyone in that room, every last person.
• Kratos is completely okay with erasing the memories of the only two people in the world that he gave a rat's ass about, just because he personally feels sorry for himself.

The best part of GOW 1's ending is that Kratos utterly fails. Yeah, he accomplished his task and got revenge, but what'd he get out of it all? An eternity reliving the nightmare of his greatest failure for the rest of eternity is what. Killing Ares certainly didn't leave any lasting satisfaction.

Yeah, he achieved godhood, but does so as a pathetic and broken man. He doesn't even yell or scream or anything once Athena tells him. He just sits on Ares throne completely silent, forever.

Edit: But yeah, Pandora was horrid. A cliche'd, heavy handed, thematically inconsistent with the rest of the story, annoying, useless, Macguffin Girl whose stated function doesn't at all fit with her fate.

edited 6th Jan '12 1:58:24 AM by JotunofBoredom

I agree, though not about the cowardice. Making deals with Gods seems to be a done thing, and considered a blessing more than the last ditch attempt of a death row appellant. Minor quibble, though.

I still think that 2 does a decent job in reorienting the character. It sacrifices character focus to do that, but Kratos was never really a strong character to begin with. Archetypal, yes, but never multi-layered. So it's not too much of a loss.

Ghost Of Sparta just muddies shit up. Who needed all that family gloss? It doesn't redeem the guy to say that life shat on him. It doesn't even create empathy.

I like how Go S made it so that the Gods literally screwed up his childhood. /sarcasm

They're trying too hard to make it seem like none of it was his fault, which really misses the entire point.

edited 6th Jan '12 10:19:46 AM by JotunofBoredom

They could just take a new approach and make the series about a new warrior in a new mythology. The Final Fantasy approach, if you will.

Also, its worth nothing all the God of War games have won BAFT As for writing.

How is that notable?

The PSP games actually help explain why Kratos became more of a generic dick in the second game onwards.

Plot isn't God of War's strong suit anyway.

And yet, said plot has been recognised by the BAFT As.

Good for them then.

Actually only GOW 2 has gotten an award for story(and,-snicker- character) from BAFTA. I'd debate that award, but then I realized that all awards are relative and 07 had an absolute dearth of acceptable game stories.

They don't even have anything for 2005 games(the year of the original GOW's release).

edited 6th Jan '12 3:07:48 PM by JotunofBoredom

I've watched enough British TV to know that "But I've won a BAFTA" is an acceptable punchline to any kind of actor gag.

The BAFTA's are a joke.

edited 6th Jan '12 5:08:23 PM by Nicknacks

It's not much of an argument regardless.

So I just finished 3. First things first, the game was holy fucking shit awesome. Dem graphics. Dat music. Dose boss fights. This series probably knows how to do epicness better than any other I know. I mean that Cronos battle. Holy shit man. Hell the first twenty minutes or so had more over the top badassery than a lot of games have in eight hours.

Though it was disappointing that the final fight ultimately amounted to some QT Es and ending with pressing circle for about 96 years. You have Zeus get all huge and glowy and shit, but we don't get a real genuine fight with him? Lame. The fight before hand inside Gaia was cool and shit, but it ultimately didn't make for a satisfying final battle, especially in a game that had such epic boss fights throughout the rest of it.

And dat story. It was crap. In all honesty I'm no sure if I love to hate or hate to love the plots of these games. That hope stuff. Pandora was entering Tastes Like Diabetes territory. Now I love me a good old cheesy "You just gotta belieeeeeeve" or Power of Friendship type story, but it's motherfucking God of War. Humanizing the protagonist sounds like a good idea in theory, but they were a day late and a dollar short. When you spend the past two games making the main character a ruthless cold blooded killer, tacking on redemption elements at the last minutes just doesn't work

Overall, fantastic game though. Are the PSP games any good? I might pick up the Origins collection one of these days once I can get it for cheap.

The PSP games are fine, and they actually do manage to humanize Kratos better than 3 did.

I just finished 3 too (and I haven't played the first two games…)

I agree that Pandora was kind of a lame addition. It might have worked if they had let the player spend a bit more time with her, but the whole Kratos-treats-her-like-a-daughter thing just seems… rushed. It's way too sudden and unexplained, even when you didn't play the other games.

And I understood nothing to the ending. What was Athena's goal exactly? She is a freaking ghost, what would she do with "the power of hope"? It's not like she is the last goddess either, there are a few left… although, admittedly, Aphrodite is not exactly the most reliable divinity around…

Gameplay-wise, well, it is decent and satisfying, a bit challenging even, with well-thought puzzles. But the fights are very, very repetitive. It may be because I played it on Easy though (yes, I'm not ashamed to play on Easy!) Out of four weapons, three are nearly identical (of the "chained blade" variety). The final battle is a bit disappointing too: I would have expected something a bit… bigger from Zeus. Poseidon was harder… and it took me 5 minutes and a thumb cramp to understand that the face-bashing QTE had no end, and that I was supposed to stop myself X)

Visually it's a treat. Epic from beginning to end, with non stop Scenery Porn, gorgeous animation and well detailed… head ripping and eye gouging… ugh *shudder* The musics are just as gorgeous.

The French voice acting is decent, except Kratos' voice which is hilariously over-acted. I'm redoing the game in English and, his English voice is just as bad

As for the QTEs, they are usually well used, but sometimes, well, this is just ridiculous. A 10 second button mashing QTE to open a freaking door, seriously…

edited 5th Feb '12 5:33:43 AM by Lyendith

I have never seen that before. It was amazing. Great find. And I largely agree with everything you're saying.

And Pandora, aside from having shitty dialogue, suffers from the cardinal sin of escort quests. She's fucking annoying. HELP ME KRATOS! HURRY! HELP ME KRATOS! AAAAAH!

I had no qualms about chucking her in a fire pit. None.