Pong and Beyond

581st played so far

Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

The last time we visited Kratos, in God of War 2, Peter probably played more of it than I did. It’s down to experience and familiarity with the controller, as well as general frustration tolerance.

Now that the blog has moved more towards me updating it (although in this case motivated by Peter wanting to play as well), this runthrough might be slightly more interesting – and because of that probably a more authentic ‘me’ experience.

Our Thoughts

I’ve had some sweary experiences during this game – not quite noticing the signposting for some pbattles, and some errors throwing you back a bit further than seems justified – but mostly being annoyed at my lack of skills. QTEs aren’t always my thing, while this series really relies on them.

Despite that, after all, I kept going. A large part of that was because there were a bunch of set pieces I wanted to get to. The series thrives on these, and doesn’t disappoint. Normal battles set you up for amazing setpieces, the big ones go over the top – but in a good way. The main disadvantage is that the attention on QTEs sometimes mean bosses don’t quite have the same battle setup, but it doesn’t really matter for them.

Exploration and puzzle solving is encouraged – the puzzles aren’t that difficult to solve, but exploring them leads to plenty of useful collectibles. Mostly, still, of the “make this bar longer” kind, but that’s most of what you need.

The settings themselves add to it – all (for the extent I played) based on Greek and Greek mythology environments, which helps the whole feeling. The enemies are mostly appropriately grotesque, with a lot of thought put into making them roughly respectable and matching the description while also making them feel ‘evil’.

Final Thoughts

God of War  isn’t difficult, but it’s challenging enough for me – I’m glad I’ve gotten more used to the controller, as that makes these games a lot better. Character advancement is fine, but this game interests me more than its partners in the genre like the Devil May Cry series.