Feels like there's a decent enough narrative-focused game in here constantly getting distracted by what a prestige game should be. I feel like I'm shovelling sad dad story beats out from under a pile of AAA features that distract from the core experience. I don't want loot, I don't want to pick my axe moves and my axe handle and the enchantments on my axe handle and the material of my son's shirt, I don't want a faux single-shot gimmick (it's all rendered! it doesn't matter if it's a "single shot"!). It's all so overwhelmingly "game design by committee" that even things I wouldn't normally mind (puzzles, moveset customization) start to wear on me as well, because none of it matters. None of the gimmicks contribute to the story/setting, none of the customization matters because enemies aren't diverse enough to provide a meaningful test of your own skills/your Kratos' abilities.
Not sure Kratos would've put so much emphasis on the boy "not being ready" in the prologue if he had known just how much his own son was going to babysit him during this adventure.
I don't think less of people for enjoying this thing but I grow weary every time one of these movie games wins an award.
Not sure Kratos would've put so much emphasis on the boy "not being ready" in the prologue if he had known just how much his own son was going to babysit him during this adventure.
5 Comments
That was always the thing that irked me the most upon seeing this game discussed on twitter. In a videogame you can stop rendering something whenever you want, so it's not impressive from a technical standpoint. It's also not used for anything I find artistically interesting or meaningful, so I'm kinda left guessing that they did it to give the game its own unique style, which would be interesting if they found a way to keep it from clashing with the gameplay, but that's not what happened here.
That being said, if I'm talking out of my ass and someone is able to point out why this is interesting for reasons other than "style points" I'm definitely intrigued
Apparently they did it again in the new one!!
I like having numbers in the menu. When I pressed the button to kill the enemy and it made the number go up, it felt good.
The graphics are good. I like all of the polygons. Lots of polygons. Games with less polygons look bad. That's what makes something look good. It's pretty.
If I was asked to guide Atreus while he was acting as his character would, I would feel turned off, because games aren't supposed to have struggle. I don't like feeling bad when I play a game. I would rather the game show me that through a cutscene, or pretend it's showing me that through the gameplay by having a walking section.
I find it difficult to allocate time out of my day to play games since games are hard to play. You have to like sit down and press lots of buttons and be actively paying attention. Darn I don't like that! Think about it: I could either put on Disney+ to watch a Marvel movie with characters I know, if I'm an old person I can watch a movie with an actor I remember the name of on Amazon Prime, if I'm a young person I can turn on my phone and watch lots of TikToks, OR I can sit down and engage with a computer game for hours. So, because of that, the game needs to make sure I experience the things that make it special without struggle.
The game has movie scenes of characters saying serious things so I like it. I enjoy movies, so I like games that are like them.
I am a consumer.
In all seriousness, I understand why Consumer and Person Who Likes Playing Games That Make Them Feel Like A Mature Discerning Adult Who Likes A Game Which Wants To Be A Movie About A Man Who Screams While Hitting Fantasy Monsters With A Magical Axe like this game... that sounded more backhanded then I meant it to. I get it! It's just like... if this game did do the things that could've made it great, nobody would play it! Well, you might play it. Other people on backloggd.com might play it. Unfortunately, the people who run The Game Awards aren't backloggd.com. They don't care about actually worthwhile games, or at least they won't unless the games appeal to a very broad audience. I suppose anyone on backloggd.com (at least anyone who actually cares about games) already know this but god dammit it fucking gets to me. Since this game came out, I've been worried about the future of the games industry. I'm scared of games becoming things that don't want to be games! I've wrestled with this by telling myself that "games are young, by the time I'm dead they'll have moved out of this phase," and "this is just big-budget lowest common denominator shlock, the creative indies can do the great stuff." But god dammit this game got a sequel! And it seems to be no different! I'm starting to think my brimming enthusiasm for the future of computer games was completely misplaced all along because I don't see this changing. I just can't anymore. This is what games are becoming.
The indies? They're much less likely to grow up on and thus aspire to make more niche, genuinely great games, No, they are much more likely to play this. I mean, those fucking sales numbers. Think about the amount of people you could feed on the kind of money these games have made. This is going to become the baseline for games from now on, THIS is going to be the medium's future. Right? I can't be the only person who has this same fear? The games that gave me faith in the idea of The Computer Game were challenging arcade-style games and imaginative platformers, exciting adventure games and addictive puzzle games. Games that taught me what games can do. That's why I care about games. Not movies, games. And only games. The children playing this game are not interested in those games, they are interested in games that want to be movies. They'll make this. This is the future of games. At this point I just want to stop playing games if this is what they'll all become.
I'm complaining here on backloggd.com, but think about if I wasn't. Imagine if I was some big YouTube person or social media personality and I put a message on my Twitter saying this. I would be kicked off the internet. It would haunt me. People would tell my how terrible of a person I am for disliking this game. That's for a reason: people like this game! People want more of this. And I suppose if we're the only people who don't like it, we're the ones in the wrong. The game industry does need changing, we do! We're diseased. People want this, not arcade games! Not stupid fucking "art" games! Oh, we want art games. Just not those art games. The art games that challenge us. We want art games that make us feel like we're being challenged, without really doing it. GAMES! GAMES! GAMES! This is what games are! And if you don't like it, tough shit.
my apologies for the long comment, this just really gets to me. There might be something actually really good beyond the initial portion of the game that makes people actually like it. I'm never going to play that, of course. If there's anyone who likes this game for legitimate reasons and feels offended by my dismissal of the game as... well, what I think it is, than I'm sorry. No, I'm serious, I really am. This game is just so emblematic of my AAA-game phobia that I can't see it as anything else.
The graphics are good. I like all of the polygons. Lots of polygons. Games with less polygons look bad. That's what makes something look good. It's pretty.
If I was asked to guide Atreus while he was acting as his character would, I would feel turned off, because games aren't supposed to have struggle. I don't like feeling bad when I play a game. I would rather the game show me that through a cutscene, or pretend it's showing me that through the gameplay by having a walking section.
I find it difficult to allocate time out of my day to play games since games are hard to play. You have to like sit down and press lots of buttons and be actively paying attention. Darn I don't like that! Think about it: I could either put on Disney+ to watch a Marvel movie with characters I know, if I'm an old person I can watch a movie with an actor I remember the name of on Amazon Prime, if I'm a young person I can turn on my phone and watch lots of TikToks, OR I can sit down and engage with a computer game for hours. So, because of that, the game needs to make sure I experience the things that make it special without struggle.
The game has movie scenes of characters saying serious things so I like it. I enjoy movies, so I like games that are like them.
I am a consumer.
In all seriousness, I understand why Consumer and Person Who Likes Playing Games That Make Them Feel Like A Mature Discerning Adult Who Likes A Game Which Wants To Be A Movie About A Man Who Screams While Hitting Fantasy Monsters With A Magical Axe like this game... that sounded more backhanded then I meant it to. I get it! It's just like... if this game did do the things that could've made it great, nobody would play it! Well, you might play it. Other people on backloggd.com might play it. Unfortunately, the people who run The Game Awards aren't backloggd.com. They don't care about actually worthwhile games, or at least they won't unless the games appeal to a very broad audience. I suppose anyone on backloggd.com (at least anyone who actually cares about games) already know this but god dammit it fucking gets to me. Since this game came out, I've been worried about the future of the games industry. I'm scared of games becoming things that don't want to be games! I've wrestled with this by telling myself that "games are young, by the time I'm dead they'll have moved out of this phase," and "this is just big-budget lowest common denominator shlock, the creative indies can do the great stuff." But god dammit this game got a sequel! And it seems to be no different! I'm starting to think my brimming enthusiasm for the future of computer games was completely misplaced all along because I don't see this changing. I just can't anymore. This is what games are becoming.
The indies? They're much less likely to grow up on and thus aspire to make more niche, genuinely great games, No, they are much more likely to play this. I mean, those fucking sales numbers. Think about the amount of people you could feed on the kind of money these games have made. This is going to become the baseline for games from now on, THIS is going to be the medium's future. Right? I can't be the only person who has this same fear? The games that gave me faith in the idea of The Computer Game were challenging arcade-style games and imaginative platformers, exciting adventure games and addictive puzzle games. Games that taught me what games can do. That's why I care about games. Not movies, games. And only games. The children playing this game are not interested in those games, they are interested in games that want to be movies. They'll make this. This is the future of games. At this point I just want to stop playing games if this is what they'll all become.
I'm complaining here on backloggd.com, but think about if I wasn't. Imagine if I was some big YouTube person or social media personality and I put a message on my Twitter saying this. I would be kicked off the internet. It would haunt me. People would tell my how terrible of a person I am for disliking this game. That's for a reason: people like this game! People want more of this. And I suppose if we're the only people who don't like it, we're the ones in the wrong. The game industry does need changing, we do! We're diseased. People want this, not arcade games! Not stupid fucking "art" games! Oh, we want art games. Just not those art games. The art games that challenge us. We want art games that make us feel like we're being challenged, without really doing it. GAMES! GAMES! GAMES! This is what games are! And if you don't like it, tough shit.
my apologies for the long comment, this just really gets to me. There might be something actually really good beyond the initial portion of the game that makes people actually like it. I'm never going to play that, of course. If there's anyone who likes this game for legitimate reasons and feels offended by my dismissal of the game as... well, what I think it is, than I'm sorry. No, I'm serious, I really am. This game is just so emblematic of my AAA-game phobia that I can't see it as anything else.
This comment was deleted
This comment was deleted
DJSCheddar
1 year ago