The Weekend Hangover: God of War 2018
/
The Weekend Hangover is Too Much Gaming's Monday rumination of the games or game we played over the weekend. Sometimes there is alcohol involved in the hangover we’re nursing, but most other times there’s just too much gaming.
One of the games I took a pass on last year was God of War, last year’s reboot of the venerable series of anger smash em ups that many named as their Game of The Year. While I have no experience with the previous games – I might have played the 2005 original for a hot second – I was very excited in the months leading up to its release due to the new creative direction.
From the beginning, God of War tells you this ain’t the God of War you know, trading in the bombast and noise of the first gamings for a more contemplative and mournful tone. We meet an older, grayer, more weathered Kratos, with the kind of worn muscles of a tired dad bod, and a much more melancholy disposition, trying to reconnect with his young son Atreus.
The moving nature of God of War’s storytelling is fairly well known by now, but what’s impressive about it is how much it fundamentally retains the hyperviolent character of its predecessors while relinquishing their perversity and tackiness. In many ways, its hard to believe this game is a follow up to a series that featured some rather edge lord narrative beats and weird sex-based minigames.
The word epic is overused these days, but that’s precisely what God of War is, a modern epic that aspires to loftier emotions than we’re accustomed to in triple A videogames, backed by the kind of polish and tightness of controls that is becoming increasingly rare, confined to the most polished top tier console exclusives.
Yeah, take just about any old franchise and sell me on a reinvention that promises new themes and stark reimaginings of familiar characters and I’m all over that. It’s why I ate up 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot. I was almost on review duty for this for Too Much Gaming, but I quickly deferred the and asked Carlos to take point on this. (He gave it a 9/10 in his review.
And here’s the thing that people don’t tell you about doing videogame reviews: it can be a lot of pressure, especially if you want to do more than just bang out several hundred random words and slap a number on it and call it a day. You want to do right by the game, giving careful consideration to your critique and doing justice in representing the best and worst bits of it.
That’s right, what I’m saying is that all the way back in April, as I considered the responsibility of reviewing God of War, a few hours into it, I was like, “Okay, this game deserves a better reviewer than me.”
Anything is viable in Elder Scrolls Online, which is great to see after level 50. But I’m overwhelmed on what to do. I have no interest in buying any expansions because the base game is filled with content that it feels like I have another month worth of content available to me.