God of War reboot - now on PC

[Roguey]

If it's a cinematic narrative experience, then why do those 5 hours of cutscenes come attached to additional 20 hours of gameplay?

A good portion of that is also traversal which may also have narrative attached to it.

But yeah, the reskins are very subtle and hard to notice:

I didn't even consider those things bosses, just minibosses.

 

[NJClaw]

A good portion of that is also traversal which may also have narrative attached to it.

I think that those 5 hours actually include most (if not all) the traversal portions with narrative attached to them. Most "God of War 4 full movie" videos on YouTube are 4-8 hours long and include A LOT of dialogued traversal (link, link).

I didn't even consider those things bosses, just minibosses.

We can call them whatever you want, but it won't change the fact that there are exactly three (mini)bosses (trolls, ancients, and Valkyries) recycled 8 times each throughout the game. Previously I also included ogres, but now that I think about it they probably never appear as named bosses with an health bar on the bottom of the screen. Apart from them, you only have a handful of glorified interactive cutscenes that this game tries to pass off as the "real" bosses.

 

[Roguey]

We can call them whatever you want, but it won't change the fact that there are exactly three (mini)bosses (trolls, ancients, and Valkyries) recycled 8 times each throughout the game. Previously I also included ogres, but now that I think about it they probably never appear as named bosses with an health bar on the bottom of the screen. Apart from them, you only have a handful of glorified interactive cutscenes that this game tries to pass off as the "real" bosses.

God of War never came across to me a boss-heavy series. I remember the opening segment and the incredibly annoying QTE-fest ending in the first game and the opening segment and the not-quite-as-annoying QTE- fest ending in the third game but the middle portions are largely blank. Killing regular enemies and solving basic puzzles is what it's about.

 

[toughasnails]

very small snippet of 4k, PC, mouse and keyboard gameplay. Pretty wild how graphically dated this looks after a relatively short amount of time

It looks legitimately good to me.

 

[Cassar]

very small snippet of 4k, PC, mouse and keyboard gameplay. Pretty wild how graphically dated this looks after a relatively short amount of time

It looks legitimately good to me.

I mean, sure, it looks allright. Im not saying it looks like crap. But the compromises and cuts made really stick especially if you've been dipping your toes in ray traced games over the last years. You don't necesarilly noticed more subtle visual features like RT AO or proper shadows, but those add depth to a scene. And once they're gone, it becomes very apparent.

For example look at the little rocks in the video after he stops moving. They're not properly shadowed, they're not grounded in the scene. Look at that ridiculous patch of grass. It looks like floating textures.

Now look how grass and light interact in Cyberpunk for example. Then look in Control, the little rocks and crevaces on the floor. How the light interacts with the scene and how shadows are cast. Every pebble and rock casts its own shadow, elongated and accurate




Now look at how detailed characters are in this year's Guardians of the Galaxy. Look at the fine details on his forehead, his nose, lips. You can see his pores, the little fine hairs on his cheecks. Look at the detail of his skin.




Its phenomenal how they rendered characters in that game. In comparison, Kratos looks decidedly old gen, by a large margin even.

 

[Cassar]

 

[Bigg Boss]

Open world game design is making me ill.

 

[RNGsus]

You mean "instead of a game let's make a big, empty space and filter it through a trash can".

 

[Roguey]

Open world game design is making me ill.

God of War isn't open world. It has wide corridors connected by a central hub.

 

[Ivan]

Had a solid time on the PS4. Hated the navigational bits on the boat, but the character work was very well done. In fact my two favorite bits of the game was one optional boss fight, and a story moment involving the Boy mid-way through the campaign (elevator bit). Not rushing to buy it, but will pick it up once it hits 75% off.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The best part about this game is how Sony shills bawled their eyes out when it was announced for PC.

Other than that, it's a very mediocre cinematic action game that takes itself way too seriously. Also 4 years old at this point, so any technical aspects that were mildly amusing at first don't apply anymore. Art direction isn't anything to write home about. Puzzles are of the braindead variety.

 

[Ezekiel]

The best part about this game is how Sony shills bawled their eyes out when it was announced for PC.

Other than that, it's a very mediocre cinematic action game that takes itself way too seriously. Also 4 years old at this point, so any technical aspects that were mildly amusing at first don't apply anymore. Art direction isn't anything to write home about. Puzzles are of the braindead variety.

I stopped playing the game in this big blueish room with a rotating sphere or something. A puzzle.

Spoiler

Some time after you get the Blades of Chaos.

Didn't know what the game wanted me to do, and my playthrough had already gone for months at that point because I was so bored. Never had that problem with the original trilogy. Its puzzles weren't obtuse.

 

[cruel]

Put your stuff in spoiler, you've just spoiled one of the best moments in the game to whoever is reading this thread.

Regarding the game - one of the best experiences i had in couple last years, better than 99% of shit we're getting on PC.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[Ezekiel]

Put your stuff in spoiler, you've just spoiled one of the best moments in the game to whoever is reading this thread.

Regarding the game - one of the best experiences i had in couple last years, better than 99% of shit we're getting on PC.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

I don't remember feeling any excitement at that point in the game. But, fine, spoiler-tagged.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The game came out three full years ago, I'm sure anyone interested in it already knows that by now.

I don't really get the kerfuffle around the game. The nice visual presentation aside it's just a shitty action game. And I don't mean that in the sense that it's a action game so it is shit, I mean it's a action game with shitty mechanics.

 

[cruel]

I don't know. I know that 'everything is shit' by Codex standards, but come on. The game looks beautiful, combat is great (very important in a game like this) - you can feel the impact, it's satisfying, it's not boring with skills variety and upgrades. Non-retarded / interesting plot, authentic characters, great voice acting, very good music & sound design, zero bugs. No SJW crap, strong lesbians or trannies ordering you around. Also, game is not stretched out - enough to have 40h of fun and not get bored. No generic, shitty Ubisoft-tier concepts like climbing towers, freeing camps or collecting stupid stuff. To be honest, the ONLY possible complaint somebody can have about the game is small Boss variety, and that's it. Everything else is either very good or excellent.

 

[Ezekiel]

I think I'm more forgiving of a lot of games than most Codexers. I haven't played most of the old PC games you're all known for; I was more a console gamer as a kid. But this game sucks.

It has an average story that takes itself too seriously, with a protagonist that never convinces you as the same man from the original trilogy. The personality they made for him is bland. The original character wasn't great either, but at least they kept any introspection to a minimum and focused first and foremost on the gameplay. The Greek myths it was inspired by didn't have characters talking and talking idly for hours on end, making quips, which makes the reboot such an odd fit. I'd puke if Clash of the Titans had that everyday Marvel dialogue. It's embarrassing how seriously the game takes itself while feeling so amateur as a story. In the original trilogy, it was more like the story was just there to move you along through the epic, so it was easier to forgive its shortcomings. The narrator and cutscenes moved the story along nicely. The new game being presented in a single camera shot just puts you through more nothing in the story. Cutscenes could have expedited some of the more boring parts.

About 80 percent of the game is without music, replaced by the talking and the ambient sounds, a stark contrast to the bombastic, atmospheric scores of the original trilogy. No music would work if it was a game that oozed atmosphere and had complex levels, like the Souls series, but here, because the level design and art direction aren't that good, the lack of music just makes it all more boring after a while. As does the lack of comical violence and nudity.

Placated Kratos can't even jump. Some fighter. I could defeat him by simply getting above him. Bitch won't even be able to see me half the time because the third person shooter camera gives him a terrible field of view. He can't turn his head separately. At least he can turn digitally instead of by slow analog now. That's something. The fixed cameras of the original trilogy worked much better. You could handle more enemies faster and traverse the levels more easily without constantly flicking at the camera. Didn't need those artificial danger indicators. There aren't many exploration-focused 3D action-adventure games without jumping. Zelda didn't have it for the longest time, but it made up for that with better level design, and it still built platforms for the auto-jump. If the platforms were too far, Link would grab them. In God of War, the auto-jump is just there to get you to the next part of the room, and it doesn't even feel like a part of the gameplay. Makes the areas more one-dimensional than they used to be. Also gives you fewer ways to dodge, which means the enemies have fewer types of attacks. But yeah, if you can't jump, then you better have really good level design to compensate, and God of War just doesn't. Some people call it Metroidvania, but how well are most areas designed? Being interconnected doesn't make one area good.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The combat is not great, it's not even good, which is precisely the problem with the game. It's got that modern shit western action gameplay thing where attacks aren't set to specific fixed ranges anymore, so you can't tell the precise parameters of anything like you can a well made action game. The offscreen attacks combined with the close camera were also a really poorly thought out choice given the style of game they were making. Like NieR: Atuomata does this offscreen from behind attack thing too, but the camera is also out enough that you can see incoming attacks; God of War 2018 instead has this crappy indicator thing around the character telling you when to block. Funnily I'd say Resident Evil 6 (which is technically a third person shooter, but you're going to have a lot of melee combat) does melee combat and that kind of third person view better...Resident Evil 4 gets brought up as an inspiration for GoW'18 but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually RE6 and they say RE4 because of the optics of it.

The God of War series was never particularly good to begin with. It was always the crappy simple version of Devil May Cry that got by more on presentation than anything else, even the creator of the GoW series has said as much, but 2018 is even a step down from the simple mindless gameplay it once had.

Devil May Cry 5 was a pretty fantastic game. Looks great too.

 

[DemonKing]

The game should be played for the atmosphere, music (has Bear McCreary ever done a soundtrack that wasn't memorable?) and story really. The combat is rarely challenging (except the optional Valkyries) and there are too many enemies which are just reskinned/recoloured versions of the same opponent. I can't remember a challenging puzzle and the level design is pretty bland (albeit pretty).

It's not a terrible game though and you'll probably get some enjoyment out of it. I'll definitely be giving the sequel a spin if they address some of the above issues but I'll admit I have a soft spot for 3rd person adventure games...

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

They got sucked off so much for this game I'd be pretty surprised if they even tried to improve the gameplay.

 

[Cassar]

The offscreen attacks combined with the close camera were also a really poorly thought out choice given the style of game they were making. Like NieR: Atuomata does this offscreen from behind attack thing too, but the camera is also out enough that you can see incoming attacks; God of War 2018 instead has this crappy indicator thing around the character telling you when to block. Funnily I'd say Resident Evil 6 (which is technically a third person shooter, but you're going to have a lot of melee combat) does melee combat and that kind of third person view better...Resident Evil 4 gets brought up as an inspiration for GoW'18 but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually RE6 and they say RE4 because of the optics of it.

Barlog is responsible for most of the dumb ideas in the game. He insisted on the no cut camera, while no one on the team wanted this - and this ended up being the most nothingburger in the history of games. Zero things would be lost if that crap didnt exist in the game. He is the reason kratos cant jump, due to the camera. And he is the reason the camera is so close and affects the combat the way it does. The whole team wanted the perspective to be back, like AC or Batman and he insisted it being like this. Seems he was fixated on his cinematic ideas while everyone else told him no at every idea of his.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hkK2A8i6hM

At least mouse and keyboard change the game entirely and you can actually play it instead of being handicaped by the input and rellying on assists. Ultra wide also increases the fov. We'll have to wait a bit for some mods on PC to increase it on regular displays

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

From a marketing position the no cut camera was a good thing for them given how that became the big talking point of the game like it's some kind of achievement in something that's completely animated. What I find so funny about that though, and reviewers and articles about the game talking about there not being any cuts, is there are cuts. I mean I know Barlog said that was a goal they set out to do, but they failed at that goal given how your inventory and fast travel menus work...it's like they came up with some big idea and then just kind of forgot about it, (fucked it up anyways) told everyone they did it when they didn't, and reviewers just went along with it. Although the no cut thing I would say isn't as much of a problem as how they went about implementing the camera, because there's no reason the camera needs to be like it is to still pull off this no cuts single shot looking thing.

I find a lot of what it's doing gameplay wise more odd than the camera stuff. Especially for something that's said to be inspired for RE4; even if I don't really buy that completely.

 

[Ezekiel]

I think my ineptness with the puzzle that stopped my playthrough of the God of War reboot after four weeks of mostly boredom goes back to the lack of jumping and the limited field of view. They had to think of other ways to do puzzles, so you throw your axe at stuff in sometimes pretty obtuse situations. Like I said, I never had that problem with the old games.

 

[Villagkouras]

I don't know. I know that 'everything is shit' by Codex standards, but come on. The game looks beautiful, combat is great (very important in a game like this) - you can feel the impact, it's satisfying, it's not boring with skills variety and upgrades. Non-retarded / interesting plot, authentic characters, great voice acting, very good music & sound design, zero bugs. No SJW crap, strong lesbians or trannies ordering you around. Also, game is not stretched out - enough to have 40h of fun and not get bored. No generic, shitty Ubisoft-tier concepts like climbing towers, freeing camps or collecting stupid stuff. To be honest, the ONLY possible complaint somebody can have about the game is small Boss variety, and that's it. Everything else is either very good or excellent.

Preach. It's a solid game, some flaws, but overall a very fun experience.

 

[Cassar]

They were just supposed to inject raw input for m/kb in this game, yet they emulated sticks instead. We hve some copious amounts of negative mouse acceleration here