It was, in a single word, amazing.
It was, in a single word, amazing.
I have a couple of friends that absolutely love having over when I play video games. I love them as an audience.
I played through the first Dead Space, which is a fantastic game, by myself, but then I played through it again, with an audience and it is still a great game. In fact, it is my opinion that the audience made it better.
I played Heavy Rain entirely in this manner, and the experience was harrowing, to say the least. There are times in that experience where I had to repeat difficult sections with an audience member screaming or gripping my arm. Overall, there was an additional level of tension not unlike performance anxiety.
But we all got through and my friends, who normally would never play video games, got to enjoy the storyline.
I’m thinking about starting up Uncharted with the same folks, as well as possibly Dead Space 2. I think it will be a good time.
I finished Heavy Rain back in April and my experience was pretty amazing overall. I’m still sorting out all of the emotions that I went through.
See what I did there? Ahem.
Kratos, Ghost of Sparta, God of War, Slayer of Ares, Sex Minigame Enthusiast, Climber of Long Ass Chains, Sole Employee of Mythological Creature Extermination Services Inc., and most importantly, Collector of Red Orbs, returns in the third and possibly final installment of the God of War series.
Odds were, I really wasn’t going to be surprised by anything that I encountered in playing God of War ]|[. I enjoyed the first two and played them to completion. I played through both on hard difficulty, which I felt was just the right level of difficulty. Each time I saw the “restart from last checkpoint screen” I felt I might be able to make it if that next time, if I really just got my game on and just brought it.
Or just got luckier.
Probably the latter.
In my defense whenever I got to a point where I seemed to hit a dead end, (Usually around the nth restart. I never really count.) I would really rethink how I was playing and start playing differently, trying new moves or strategies. So part of it may have been skill, but I’m not going to discount luck entirely.
But beat them I did, and seemingly before I knew it, (amazing how fast sequels get here when you’re not watching them obsessively) God of War III arrived. I’m not going to say it was worth the wait, since I wasn’t really anticipating it. However, when I remembered it was out, I picked it up right away. (Maybe because my 360 was dead, but that’s another issue, altogether. Everyone: MAYBE BECAUSE MY 360 WAS DEAD.)
But on to God of War III
The God of War games are guilty pleasures that I just can’t say no to. They have been consistently fun, well produced, and I can’t fault a game for being both of those things. The third is also fun and well produced, only this time it has the added visual punch of being on the PS3. So visually it’s way ahead of the previous two games.
Kratos is not a nice guy. He just kills people. That’s his thing. He accidentally killed his wife and daughter and wears their ashes for eternity as his burden. He’s killed more than a few gods and demigods in his lifetime. He is a killing machine. His motivations are simple. Get vengeance. On whoever. Or is it whomever? Either way, people are dying.
In fact, if you’re a civilian in a God of War game, you might as well arm yourself with whatever you have laying around and at least go out fighting because Kratos is going to kill you and he’s going to kill you so hard that red orbs come out of your mauled corpse.
Not surprising so far:
It’s a God of War game. So you’ll kill lots of creatures with the Blades of Chaos Exile, collect red orbs and upgrade your various items and weapons.
Kratos’s quest for vengeance is pretty much all there is in terms of story. I mean, a lot of it could have just been cutscenes of Kratos yelling, “ZEUUUUUUUUUUUS!” and shaking his fist at Mount Olympus. In fact, I’d like to see someone do this.
Blood. Everywhere.
Still working my way through, but the game is basically a very pretty God of War game. If you liked the previous ones there’s nothing stopping you from getting this one. However, there have been some surprises: (Spoilers ahoy.) Continue reading
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is out.
It’s the third piece of downloadable content for this game and I really want them to make more. The game is just fun. At least it is for me. I’m trying to figure out what makes it work for me, what magic combination of RPG Leveling lite with First Person Shooter and offbeat humor that has enthralled me for this long.
Full Disclosure:Â I’ve bought the game twice, on two different platforms so I could play with two different groups of people.