It’s been awhile since I last updated – almost a month – and I’d love to be able to say that I’ve spent that time lost in a magnificent, spectacular game. Unfortunately, I’ve actually spent that time putting off playing PoS… err, I mean, GoW.
In the last month I have managed to beat God of War and God of War II without smashing either my TV or my PS3 with my controller, a feat I truly should have gotten an Accomplishment (or Trophy) for. God of War and God of War II lack immersive storylines, have a shitty fixed camera that drove me insane the entire time that I was playing, and honestly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that when you want to stretch out a game that lacks any true content, you simply have to base a portion of your feats on luck rather than skill.
I started the first GoW with high hopes that it would prove a great game. It has, after all, gotten great reviews from a number of established sources, as well as from people I know in real life. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of my time playing either annoyed or pissed off. The developers seem to have taken the “lets copy ourselves” path to game design, in which you take something you’ve done once, make it “harder,” and then tout it as new material. The game progressed in the following manner:
-walking on a horizontal beam and not falling off
-walking on a horizontal beam and jumping across and not falling off
-walking on a horizontal beam while jumping over spikes and not falling off
-climbing up a rotating vertical beam covered with spikes and not falling off
-walking on a rotating horizontal beam covered with spikes while jumping across and not falling off
By the time I got to the last two brand spanking new game ideas, I was ready to use the game disc as a chew toy for my dogs. Climbing up the rotating vertical beam covered with spikes was a game of luck, based in the hope that nothing beyond my control glitched while I was climbing. There were times when I got right to the top just to fall back down when I had _cleared_ the spikes by a fair bit and can only surmise that a hair fell out as I was climbing and got clipped, causing my idiot anti-hero to dive after it like the moron he is. I’ve never been so relieved to never have to do something again as I was when I finally got to the top and saved… only to clear three packs of mobs and find ANOTHER FUCKING ROTATING VERTICAL BEAM COVERED WITH SPIKES behind them and a rotating horizontal beam covered with spikes and jumping bits not far beyond that. Finishing the game brought a sense of relief rather than accomplishment, followed soon by dismay and a sinking feeling as I realized that I still had the entirety of God of War II left to torture myself with.
I honestly wish that I had something positive to say about God of War II but the only semi-nice thing I can think of is that it wasn’t as bad as God of War – if only because I had done it all once before and knew what kind of nonsense to expect. The storyline was just as shoddy and under-crafted, the camera was just as fixed and annoyingly unhelpful, and the entire intent of the game seemed to be to see how far the game developers could push the envelope before someone blew up their cars in a fit of rage.
I’m going to end the review here because there is simply nothing else to say. In my, admittedly non-expert, opinion, the games sucked. As my intent had been to play the games and have fun doing so, it would have been nice to have actually enjoyed myself.
P.S. I failed to mention the quick time events in my review simply because people seem to love them and my own hatred of them owes more to my lack of dexterity than anything else. Having to hold the controller with my left hand while mashing the O button with my right index finger? Not fun.
