I didn't know any better - The Games I've Played

I'm going to do something a bit abnormal and hit both of these at the same time-

Now, let me explain.

I'm a sucker for a good deal. This box set was cheaper than most games on the shelf, and it came with TWO games instead of just one. I thought that if there were this many god of war games, I should give them a shot, because I had heard some semi-decent things about them while talking to people.

God of War has the potential to be everything that I want from a game. All of the problems that I've had with other games, should be fixed. Fighter games being too complex to learn, for this you only have to worry about one character and you have two buttons that you use to attack, one is light/fast attack and the other is heavy/slow. The problems I have with fighters not having a plot line? Solved! This has an angsty character, you know what you're trying to kill, and there's a reason for it.



The only problem?
CHOO CHOO!!!!

It's a hallway simulator where things occasionally get in the way and then you play a rhythm game to get rid of those things, just to get running again. Although it has a story line, and a slightly interesting one at that too, it's just not enough for me to really want to keep playing once the story is finished.

I got done with the first one, and had no urge or desire to try it on hard, or to do any of the optional quests. Why would I? Do I get anything new? No. Does anything change on my character? No. Is there any benefit to wasting my time on those things in game? Not at all.

Then I popped in the second game.

Know what is poor writing and poor development? Writing your first story and making your character quite literally a god. . . and then trying to make a series off of that now that he's already become a deity. Within the first few minutes of the game it takes an act of epic proportion to strip you of all of the cool stuff you picked up on your first trip to ascension, and the rest of the game is you trying to get it back. You then get it back, and the game stops, setting it up for a third game that I refuse to touch because it's going to be the exact same thing.

That brings me to the main problem that I have with all action games like God of War. I didn't know it at the time, but they're all the same. Run around, smash things apart, get a tool, beat a boss. Rinse and repeat that process until the developers are bored and can't come up with anything else to give you from any other mythical source within their story line, and then end the game where you don't have to use any of the toys that you just spent an entire game gathering. 

For example, god of war 2 gives you a nifty little upgrades like a huge hammer, nunchuks of doom, and even a good ol' fashion sword. You spend all your points to get the upgrades so you can press your two buttons more to deal a bit more damage, and then the final boss shows up and you. . . don't have to use them at all.

Now, I've seen some games where you try to challenge yourself by not using the upgrades or nerfing yourself against the game because it makes it more challenging (I'm looking at you no sphere grid FFX gamers!) but this isn't a challenge, it's simply how you play the game. The final areas are just as hard if you swap between weapons and use all of the tools that were given to you throughout the game as if you just stick to your swords attached to chains. The upgrades do nothing to make the game easier, they just give you a new way for Kratos to spin around and slash things to little pieces.

Remember in Mortal Combat, how you'd have fatalities and finishers?

It used to be a big deal if one of your friends knew the combination to make their fighter do a huge finishing move where blood and guts flew everywhere. God of War thinks that was fun, but a little too hard, so they took all difficulty away from finishing a major monster. First, you do your normal attacks, square, square, square, triangle, square, square, square, triangle. Then when you've finally spammed that enough times and the monster's health is somewhat low a gigantic circle (just like the one on your controller) will appear above their head. All you have to do is not be asleep, and hit the circle button. BAM! You're doing some crazy finishing move. No need to do any inputs, no need to worry about if your timing was right, just hit the circle button and finish a monster in the exact same fatality way every time that you run into them. The first time you do one of these finishers is powerful and memorable and you find yourself trying to point at the screen to say, "did you just see what I just did?" and then in the next few hours of gameplay, you find yourself doing that exact same thing every time you fight that monster, and it's no longer a cool finisher, it's just a way to move monsters off of the screen because if you don't do the right button input there's no other way to kill the stuff that gets in your way.

The difficulty of God of War (1 and 2) isn't found in the gameplay, it's found in fake difficulty. The only way the game gets hard is that you have to face more monsters, or that you don't get health for a while. Oh, you want a challenge? Okay, then we'll just multiply the damage this monster can take and deal by three, and if you really want a challenge we'll make you fight two of them instead of just one. 

The first game, worth a playthrough for a slightly interesting story and a character that is a pretty big BA. The second game, don't waste your time on it unless you played the first and found yourself itching for more to the point where you did everything on the hardest difficulty and just couldn't stop. There's nothing special about the second, there's no real story progression, and in fact the story just takes a back seat to Kratos trying to find the next new toy that he gets to carry around to kill more things in a flashy way. No matter what, be prepared to fight the same monsters over, and over, and over again with the only difference between one room and the next being how many you get to smash to bits. If you're looking for some mindless senseless violence (which is not a bad thing), then you've found the right place.