Inside of you are two wolves
+One of them enjoys a game at face value and tries to find things to appreciate about a product
-The other is a wanna-be critic who thinks he's smart for knowing what ludonarrative dissonance means, while also being a massive hater just because liking less things makes you seem more professional

I can't deny that I enjoyed this game. A lot of the things I'm about to pick on are pretty minor in theory, but they make up something about this game that I kind of hate

+A story that in all honesty is pretty compelling and entertaining. Its not the deepest thing you'll ever see, but I'd be lying if I said that I never felt anything in my playtime
+Has incredible acting performances and every important cutscene has the characters moving dynamically adding even more of a "real" feeling to these characters
+Why is this game actually pretty funny, I thought this would be filled with millenial-esque Josh Whedon humor
+Beautiful Art Direction
+Holy shit the fight cutscenes are so wacky I love them
-At the same time, this is one of the most obvious cases of videogame oscar bait I've seen (Can videogame writers please develop a new original idea beyond Dad-Son videogames)
-A rushed and tacked on conflict between Kratos and Boy near the 3rd act like this is some mid 2000s animated kids movie

+Combat is actually pretty satisfying. Every hit feels so crunchy and the animations are brutal
+Give me a Challenge difficulty felt pretty good for the most part
+Its no DMC, but I think that there's enough tools at your disposal to be able to pull off some pretty cool shit if you want to
-Obnoxious lite-RPG mechanics and a convoluted upgrade system
-The game wants to be the Last of Us so bad that it even uses an over the shoulder camera that does not work for a game like this
-A dodge roll that gives so many i-frames and costs no resources so that you can mash dodge and get away with it 99% of the time
-Every boss in the main game is extremely gimmicky and forgettable
- Every boss in the main game is extremely gimmicky and forgettable (Yes I know I wrote this statement twice, much like how the game also loves to reuse its bosses)
-Spartan rage is one of the lamest installs (in game, not in cutscenes)
-Weapon specific enemies
-Like a third of the game is going through boring walking segments where nothing goes on for the sake of "le cinematic feeling"
-Hold forward and occasionally press B to climb. We're going to make sure that you'll do this every 3 seconds
-My entire perspective of this game changed even more once I learned that they designed the game with people like DSP in mind

God of War to me is far from hollow corporate slop. There was clearly a lot of passion from individual devs and writers to make this game and there is a somewhat compotent vision that I respect. At the same time, its so obscured by the way that it tries to homogenize itself into the grey blob of AAA action games. Who knows, maybe when Ragnarok comes to PC, I might play it and see things differently. But for now, I think I'll forget I ever played this game and possibly forget I even wrote this review as well.

After putting multiple long ass RPGs on my backlog, I felt that there was no better way to start than by ignoring them all and instead replaying New Vegas again. I thought it was pretty great the first time around, but there was something magical missing. I couldn't pinpoint what exactly, but replaying it again, I realize that this game does have some pretty monotonous shit.

This game is a prime example of why graphics actually DO matter in videogames. I don't mean this in the sense that every game needs to do the Rockstar approach where you put hundreds of artists in a meat grinder and force them to program horse testicles and horse shitting animations. What I mean is that a game does need to look visually engaging. New Vegas doesn't just look worse than some games that came out a generation prior to it, it also just looks so god damn dull. I get that this is a post-apocalyptic shit hole, but my god, every thing just blends into this forgettable and disgusting mush that you look at for dozens of hours.

But you know what's even more boring than ugly mutated colors that give a very poor sense of atmosphere? The traversal. I'm not asking for the game to give me a whole ass car to ride around in (which would probably be worse narrative wise), I just want something more interesting than walking very slowly across a massive map. Give me a sprint, or some mutated horse to ride around in, literally anything please.

And of course, because this technically a Bethesda game, you are gonna need some tough ass luck running this on PC without mods. When I first played the game, I couldn't even do the DLC because it would always crash, and I couldn't install any mods since I was using Gamepass. But even after getting the game on Steam and following a guide to fix a lot of bugs, I ended up encountering EVEN MORE BUGS. Now doors will randomly not work properly some times and will literally not let me through even if I open them. I've also encountered several occasions where bodies will ragdoll like its Gary's Mod, but at least this one is kinda funny when it happens.

That's pretty much all of my negatives, because I actually enjoyed the game even more this time. What makes the story of this game so compelling isn't just that its a really cool piece of speculative fiction, but rather that the game plops you down into the world and lets you pick up the pieces and solve issues in your own way. Its not trying to dictate morality itself and make sure you understand like a good boy. Rather, it uses game design to let the player choose for themselves, and it dares to challenge the morals of the player. There is no good ending in Fallout, nor a bad ending or a true ending. The ending is just that, the results of your action. Its shocking how a game is able to make even a blatantly evil group of facist larpers interesting, because if it was any other game made around this time, the question would've been "Wow, isnt killing, enslaving, crucifying, torturing, and enslaving people bad?" New Vegas knows that there's not even a question here. They instead use it to create a stupidly excessive yet oddly understandable critique of Democracy, also helped by the fact that Caesar is funny as shit. The 3 other factions, despite being much better, are still pretty questionable and shit, but the game doesn't say it in a way that feels like an insufferable self entitled centrist saying "yeah, all sides suck and are kinda bad if you think about it".

Beyond story, New Vegas also has great gameplay despite the jankiness. New Vegas quite possibly has the best open world I've seen in a game. Every corner of the map has something that will catch your attention and lead you on a 10 minute tangent. Its not only so easy to find something new, but never does anything feel like padding. Even in games as acclaimed as Elden Ring or Zelda, at least half of your exploration will be finding near identical structures. In Fallout, every location, even something as small as a shack, can tell a unique tale. And unlike Red Dead Redemption or GTA, what you discover and invest in feels essential to your progression. The game isn't really difficult on standard mode, but you still do have to work to become really powerful. Deathclaws in this game do not fuck around. Even with power armor and level 30 (though with 4 Endurance), they will maul you faster than a pitbull will a toddler. You have an actual reason to go fuck around in the world, and your stats contribute even further importance. One of my favorite weapons in the game is a plasma rifle that has a bonus crit chance, and you find it in the random corner of a room that you need to have a high Science skill to access. And man, even if the shooting does kinda suck, you have so many wacky ass weapons and perks and builds that are so fun to use. New Vegas' world is quantity, quality, and liberating all at the same time.

I shouldn't be giving New Vegas such a high score. It has so many issues that feel frustrating, but it gives an experience that no other open world game has ever given to me. Its just a joy to play, and made me realize that RPGs might be the ultimate genre of videogames, one that is both high entertainment and profound at the same time. It also has Yes Man, who's probably one of the best characters in fiction and automatically makes up for all the whack shit in this game. I give this game a big iron/5.