God of War Ragnarok

[Kromeo]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

killing giants

 

pissing mead

 

and shilling for mediocre entertainment

[Quest]

I'm nearing the end. I like some of the characters and performances enough to see it through but I doubt it'll get anywhere near my top ten for the year.

 

[Stanley]

9 hours ago, CrichStand said:

Game clock is now saying 37hrs and am just wandering the Lake of the Nines, before heading to the next story part. It looks amazing, it sounds amazing but the area just hasn’t progressed anything on at all. It’s all incredibly simple and I mean INCREDIBLY simple and feels by the numbers, more so than earlier parts of the game. It’s almost like I’m on auto pilot whilst playing. Yet the game is now telling me what to do and prompting me with stuff, way more than it was at the start. The whole area is pretty big, yet feels like it has about 5mins of wafer thin gameplay in it.
 

Bizarrely, the combat encounters have just got easier and easier too.  I’m not even having to mix stuff up like earlier in the game, hammering buttons now feels like auto-win. Just done another Hateful encounter against a single Hateful enemy, and it was a piece of piss, whilst the very first one I encountered , near the start of the game, was rock hard and involved multiple enemies. Also did a nearby mini-boss that looked like it was going to slap my arse all over the shop. I just stood still and spammed throwing the axe at his head for 5mins and it didn’t bother to attack me up close. Job done. 

Looks like Edge were right with their score then 

[Majora]

I'm really enjoying The Crater, the level design is a significant notch above all the other open areas in the game. Dare I say it feels a little From-esque. 

[Stanley]

8 minutes ago, Majora said:

I'm really enjoying The Crater, the level design is a significant notch above all the other open areas in the game. Dare I say it feels a little From-esque. 

Reminded me a bit of Uncharted Lost Legacy. 

[macosx]

Between the story bits, I’m bored. It’s an amazing game but probably 50% bigger than it needed to be. The previous game is far superior. Just want it to end now.

[macosx]

Finished it last night, as didn’t power through it as was playing other stuff and this has peaks and troughs that didn’t compel me to play. It would have made a great 10 part episodic experience rather than a multithreaded tale spun out too long. Kratos despite repeated goading by his cohorts will not be doing any postgame quests. I, like Kratos, am done with fighting.
 

The longer I played the less engaged I was with the actual ‘game’ bits of it. Chests became boring and rote smashing pots for hacksilver etc. I even gave up on upgrading my armour and weapons after a while and pretty much ignored the skill trees. They just felt superfluous although I remember needing and engaging with mechanics in the 2918 version. 
 

Combat was just perfunctory and eventually a tedious slog as another group of enemies drop in to halt your progress walking down a path before you get to another fantastic cutscene or story beat. The production, presentation and animation is off the charts and a real benchmark but for me it just cast a shadow on the gameplay. For me it’s like the mirror of Elden Ring, where there the main meat of it is the gameplay and you are just dropped hints of story and lore.

 

I loved the hub structure of the world tree in GoW as it felt like real progress unlocking entering another realm, but the doors thing here just felt like a level loading device.

 

Just seen the Edge score so will pick that up to see what they made of it.

[HarryBizzle]

I just got the:

 

Spoiler

Dropnir spear and am about to potter around Svartelheim a bit.

 

This feels a lot like Arkham City to GoW 2018's Arkham Asylum. More is better, right? We better flesh out all of the side characters! 

 

I think a lot of the writing for Kratos is quite poor. They try to keep him restrained and then go overboard. I nearly puked when:

 

Spoiler

He asked Brok for a blessing, got down on one knee and repeated his line about the nature of a thing back to him verbatim. Nice that they showed some restraint by not making them kiss at that point.

 

The later line, when he's talking to Freya and says that being a killer of his Gods might be his form but not his nature, was a much more subtle and better way of carrying that motif through the game.

 

[Kevvy Metal]

It clicked with me early on that this game is far more episodically structured, but it doesn't really tell you, and is made especially less obvious with the infamous no-camera-cuts. 
When you enter a very obviously different area, it's basically the start of it's own wee episode, and the episode itself is paced as such, a self contained thing. So there's often a bit of vista-tour, a bit of narrative "cut-scenes" and a build up to the encounters, as it's builds to some crecendo event, and there's unually an optional area. 

 

I've found playing it in chunks that follow along with these "episode" makes for a really good time. It's much like Half-Life 2 in that regard where it's split into these obvious chunks that apparently different team within Valve worked on in semi-isolation. 

[Kayin Amoh]

So I finished this. 

 

I'm assuming this isn't a big spoiler given the whole valkyrie thing from the previous game, but there's a replacement for them in the form of optional bosses Kratos can choose to take on or not. I came across one in particular that has three bosses attacking at the same time, and I was hugely underleveled. Two hits would kill me, and if an ice element was attached to one of them it was a one shot kill as I'd be unable to defend from the next attack.

 

This encounter shows what can go wrong with the combat system. If you lock on, it's tough to single out or pivot to other enemies - or even easily swerve around the arena to pick items up or avoid attacks from other enemiesw without rolling around haphazardly. Many of these attacks were projectiles mixed in with occasional melee and the indicators do an insanely poor job of telling you what kind of attack it is. Is it fast? Slow? Near? Far? No idea, and switching targets to look could be fatal.

 

It took me about an hour I think, because getting clipped by an offscreen attack was almost guaranteed during this fight. Rage barely scratched them, so I used it as an interrupt for incoming attacks and I had to parry basically everything or die. And even though it was clearly intended for a stronger Kratos, it showed up how clumsy Kratos actually controls when he needs to be nimble on his feet.

 

It's an ineptly designed encounter, and boards seem to be full of players at a more appropriate power level spitting blood at it  - and yet it's probably the most fun I had with the game. I wasn't being funneled along some path with assholes blathering about every single thing that crossed their minds. The fight wasn't pointlessly easy. There wasn't a myriad of simplistic puzzles that companions would talk you through before you'd even started them - multiple times they'd try to help out with a puzzle solution even after I'd done the bloody thing. I wasn't constantly being shuttled away from my original goal down a mandatory sidepath, or learning about massively uninteresting characters who were kept out of the main story loop for obvious reasons.

 

I think in its current form it's a pretty weak game absolutely full of AAA bloat and excess, but if they ever dropped the shackles of the guided narrative experience and let players head off on their own it could possibly make for a pretty decent adventure.

[HarryBizzle]

Those berserkers feel really cheap. The more DPS you do initially, the fewer health drops you get and then for the last 1-2 chunks of health they take less damage. I did Hardrefill last night and you can unleash Rage plus 4 L1+R1/2 attacks on his last bit of health and not take him out - the game wants you to do it "properly". The GoW version of rubber banding in racing games.

[Majora]

41 minutes ago, Kayin Amoh said:

If they ever dropped the shackles of the guided narrative experience and let players head off on their own it could possibly make for a pretty decent adventure.

 

I think this is why I like The Crater area so much. It feels very much shackles-off, go explore. I still haven't finished Ragnarok yet so I have no idea if it's setting up a third game or not but assuming a third game is planned, they should definitely use The Crater as a template to work from and ditch the twisty, tight corridors with an occasional fork in the road formula.

[Thor]

22 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

Those berserkers feel really cheap. The more DPS you do initially, the fewer health drops you get and then for the last 1-2 chunks of health they take less damage. I did Hardrefill last night and you can unleash Rage plus 4 L1+R1/2 attacks on his last bit of health and not take him out - the game wants you to do it "properly". The GoW version of rubber banding in racing games.

I'm not on board with a lot of the critisicms in here, but this one is bang on.  I had to drop the difficulty for the final Beserker, because twice I had him with a just a sliver of health and my attacks were doing fuck all, meanwhile he can wipe you out while your mid-animation to make the attack that should kill him. It's total bullshit, and wildly out of step with the rest of the game. 

[Girth Certificate]

the 3 on 1 fight was rough. I did it (after completing the story) by locking on to one of the left and spamming EVERYTHING (ie all 6 runic attacks then a realmshift with lots of spear flailing) into her stupid face which left only the other guy who isn't too tough on his own.

 

The Bifrost heavy one is a bastard as well. The Berserker King and Gnu I dropped it down to super easy like a biiiitch  

 

 

[Benny]

I was considering getting this just from how much I enjoyed the last game, but after reading Our Nathan's little bit about the game in his Hitpoints blog it's put me off it for now. I don't like the sound of being robbed of those kinds of "quiet" moments, that for me are some of the greatest things in videogames. Nearly all my favourite games have them in some form or another:

 

The moments of awe as you crest a hill and see something new in Elden Ring and stop to gape at it, sitting in a forest in Breath of the Wild and listening to the birds chirping and wind through the trees, the subtle rumble of your engine in Elite Dangerous as you wait to reach your destination, the slow groan of zombies deep in the caves of Quake, the shuffling footsteps and blessed silence in the church of Pentiment...

 

I think the previous God of War game did have some moments like that, when you were boating through the lake in particular, but from the sounds of it they've programmed it so that in exactly those sorts of sections it will trigger long dialogue sequences?

[stir fry]

I didn't notice less damage in later phases of fights but they do get more aggressive. Instead of one divebomb and recovery it's now three divebombs and you don't have as many openings, and your cooldowns and abilities get out of alignment. It's hard to pass those last few segments in any case. Sometimes I just throw the kitchen sink at it a bit, spamming the rage wrath move and companion cooldowns.

 

One thing the berserks do is they have this weird 'shield' buff thing which I think either makes them immune to moves which would normally hitstun them, or to runics in particular. Not sure. It's weird and feels like a bandaid to prevent some sort of cheese strats which involve layering a bunch of runics together, but of course people find the cheese eventually anyway (it involves phase shift I think)

[HarryBizzle]

19 minutes ago, Benny said:

I was considering getting this just from how much I enjoyed the last game, but after reading Our Nathan's little bit about the game in his Hitpoints blog it's put me off it for now. I don't like the sound of being robbed of those kinds of "quiet" moments, that for me are some of the greatest things in videogames. Nearly all my favourite games have them in some form or another:

 

The moments of awe as you crest a hill and see something new in Elden Ring and stop to gape at it, sitting in a forest in Breath of the Wild and listening to the birds chirping and wind through the trees, the subtle rumble of your engine in Elite Dangerous as you wait to reach your destination, the slow groan of zombies deep in the caves of Quake, the shuffling footsteps and blessed silence in the church of Pentiment...

 

I think the previous God of War game did have some moments like that, when you were boating through the lake in particular, but from the sounds of it they've programmed it so that in exactly those sorts of sections it will trigger long dialogue sequences?

 

The game feels much less solitary than the first. That was you and your son on a journey in a very barren world. This feels very Disney like in comparison - everything feels more cartoonish and for me a lot of it falls a bit flat. There are loads of characters and everyone gets their own time to shine as per the "episode" model Kevvy suggests.

 

It's still keeping me playing but it's nowhere near as good as 2018.

 

It's really, really long, so there's plenty more to come and it may yet convince but I think the "more is more" approach is a poor one and it almost makes me think of Halo where they explained all the fascinating stuff from the first game and ruined most of it. Nowhere near as badly, but this doesn't feel restrained in any way.

[Kayin Amoh]

Elden Ring could have done with a lot of the mournful pieces removed from the OST as well while you're out in the overworld.

 

Quiet can be very, very good when out in the field.

[Benny]

I personally felt the location music in Elden Ring was great, and set a specific mood that I liked, and didn't mess with that "quiet" contemplation too much. I do prefer the more slight notes and barely perceptible little bits that play in Breath of the Wild though.

[Thor]

Alright, despite the lack of photo mode I have managed to take some nice shots, mostly of the cinematics, and these go right up to the end (and in no particular order) so if you have not finished the game, do NOT click the spoiler below. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The game is stunning, and it's amazing it runs on a normal PS4. On PS5 at 120hz it is genuinely sen-fucking-sational.  I can actually understand a lot of the criticisms regarding this game. After finishing Ragnarok, I went back through the original trilogy (II is still the best) and GoW 2018 again. 2018 is actually quite lean if you stick rigidly to the main story and ignore the side stuff (but you miss out on some nice character development between the main trio). I'm back playing Ragnarok for the second time now, and not only is it more story-focussed than 2018, but there is more actual story than 2018. That's amazing for me (and others) but isn't going to be for everyone, so I can see why some were playing wishing for it to end.

 

But then I have to wonder, if you're at that point of tiring and wishing it to end, then you're clearly not enjoying it. Why not just stop? I was sort of enjoying Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but I got fucking bored of it. People complain about bloat in Ragnarok, but compared to Valhalla it's fucking streamlined. AC Valhalla is "Excessive bloat: The Game". So I stopped and have not looked back.  

[Djx]

4 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

I think a lot of the writing for Kratos is quite poor. They try to keep him restrained and then go overboard. I nearly puked when:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

He asked Brok for a blessing, got down on one knee and repeated his line about the nature of a thing back to him verbatim. Nice that they showed some restraint by not making them kiss at that point.

 

The later line, when he's talking to Freya and says that being a killer of his Gods might be his form but not his nature, was a much more subtle and better way of carrying that motif through the game.

 

What? Totally have to disagree with your statement.

The very reason he says that back to Brok is because of what you just saw happen in the same cutscene.

I'd consider this game to be exceptionally well written.

[Thor]

3 minutes ago, Djx said:

I'd consider this game to be exceptionally well written.

Because it is.

[thesnwmn]

23 minutes ago, Thor said:

But then I have to wonder, if you're at that point of tiring and wishing it to end, then you're clearly not enjoying it. Why not just stop? I was sort of enjoying Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but I got fucking bored of it. People complain about bloat in Ragnarok, but compared to Valhalla it's fucking streamlined. AC Valhalla is "Excessive bloat: The Game". So I stopped and have not looked back.  

 

It feels a bit gatekeep-y? Like people might prefer it was more streamlined. Or that the writing was to them better or more to the point or whatever (I get that you think it's incredibly well written, but others don't necessarily agree wholeheartedly). Or that puzzles were less prompted (whether a bug or not). Or that there was less/more combat. Or that it was easier/harder. But they might still overall enjoy having the experience both for the experience itself and then getting to discuss it.

 

It's classic Rllmuk isn't it? The first few days of big popular games are normally glowing about a new game. After a few days that changes to mixed. Doesn't matter if it's an excellent/good game (which this undoubtedly is based on general opinion in here and elsewhere) but some people are going to find things that don't love and want to mention/discuss.

 

Isn't the point of somewhere like this to get to read the opinion of others. And appreciate those. To compare other's experience to our own. Then you can use that to determine if their opinions elsewhere are likely to guide your future purchases or playtime.

 

Whether people agree or disagree on a game from personal experience, or (like me in this case) or are just sat on the fence enjoying reading, it's fascinating and enjoyable to read about those loving something, hating it, or even just being ambivalent about it. Even the fact that some people keep going and others give up is interesting.

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, Benny said:

I personally felt the location music in Elden Ring was great, and set a specific mood that I liked, and didn't mess with that "quiet" contemplation too much. I do prefer the more slight notes and barely perceptible little bits that play in Breath of the Wild though.

Breath of The Wild is so perfect in that sense, and when you look at the inspiration behind the soundtrack it all ties in with gameplay and sense of solitude, the gaps between the notes and the quiet time between the gamey bits. Negative space, less is more etc. 
 

I’d say Ragnarok never really lets up until you have completed it, and actually it works that way because it too ties that into the story. I think it’s a great game, and I enjoyed it completely, still am enjoying it 

[footle]

2 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

 

It feels a bit gatekeep-y?

 

That's Thor for you. if you don't unconditionally like what he likes, and have the gall to say so...

 

On 26/11/2022 at 23:05, Thor said:

Oh just fuck off. 

[CrichStand]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

Breath of The Wild is so perfect in that sense, and when you look at the inspiration behind the soundtrack it all ties in with gameplay and sense of solitude, the gaps between the notes and the quiet time between the gamey bits. Negative space, less is more etc. 
 

I’d say Ragnarok never really lets up until you have completed it, and actually it works that way because it too ties that into the story. I think it’s a great game, and I enjoyed it completely, still am enjoying it 

The best example of that and also the game that does it best is Tomb Raider. The originals not the reboot shite. I’ve recently played through the first game again and it’s use of audio is incredible and the polar opposite of modern games. It’s mainly just ambient sound effects, or at times total silence as you traverse the levels. It’s incredibly atmospheric because of this. Then every now and again, when triggering something important, the score kicks in and it sounds fucking unreal and has a massive impact because it’s used sparingly. Game is still incredible.......so I’ve now bought TR2 and Last Revelation for 80p and I’m playing them over this. They wipe the floor with it in terms of gameplay and quality design.

[Uncle Nasty]

Eurogamer published a retrospective TR2 love-in recently, @CrichStand - worth a read: https://www.eurogamer.net/25-years-on-tomb-raider-2-is-still-as-good-as-it-gets

[Stanley]

The first Tomb Raider was the first proper 3D game I played, even before Mario 64, and it was indeed a magical experience. And yeah as @CrichStand says it’s incredibly atmospheric with its use of space and sound. I remember experiencing real vertigo in that game because the fear of falling is real, not like in most modern games where the path is literally marked out and the jumping and climbing is all automated; it removes any such fear and these grand mountainous levels they make nowadays are nothing more than pretty scenery. 
 

I remember playing it at Christmas time, and you know how some games just embed themselves into that whole festive period and leave lovely memories? Ocarina of Time  was another game a couple of years later, and every time hear I hear that Deku Tree dungeon music now I’m overcome by a wave of warmth and nostalgia. 
 

Games huh 

[Number 28]

3 hours ago, CrichStand said:

The best example of that and also the game that does it best is Tomb Raider. The originals not the reboot shite. I’ve recently played through the first game again and it’s use of audio is incredible and the polar opposite of modern games. It’s mainly just ambient sound effects, or at times total silence as you traverse the levels. It’s incredibly atmospheric because of this. Then every now and again, when triggering something important, the score kicks in and it sounds fucking unreal and has a massive impact because it’s used sparingly. Game is still incredible.......so I’ve now bought TR2 and Last Revelation for 80p and I’m playing them over this. They wipe the floor with it in terms of gameplay and quality design.

Funny enough, the PC version didn't have the brilliant incidental music you trigger. I actually sent a handwritten letter to Core Design back in the day and they feigned ignorance and sent me a Lara t-shirt.  (I think you can add it manually these days)

[CrichStand]

20 minutes ago, Uncle Nasty said:

Eurogamer published a retrospective TR2 love-in recently, @CrichStand - worth a read: https://www.eurogamer.net/25-years-on-tomb-raider-2-is-still-as-good-as-it-gets

Cheers for that mate! Really good read and I agree with pretty much everything he says. Been a real eye opener to go back to the original TR games all this time on and experience them almost as if they’re new. They’ve always been some of my all time fav games but I assumed going back to them would reveal they’re ropey as anything. Couldn’t be further from the truth!

 

Right across the board they’re still just as good now as they’ve always been. They also show that whilst graphics and audio and production values have increased massively over the years, a lot of magic has been lost. Crazy that games from the 90s totally show up most new releases.
 

@Stanley You’ve mentioned something there that I’ve noticed whilst playing these old games.........

 

In say Uncharted or God of War or take ya pick from any modern title, the game often portrays you as being in danger or in a precarious situation but, you very rarely actually are. For example, when you climb the wall in God of War.......it’s nothing but empty spectacle. You know you can’t fall, you can’t even really make a mistake and it all feels totally flat and lifeless. Whilst the game is trying to portray this epic sense of danger and adventure, you just feel bored and know it’s all on rails.
 

On the other hand I got to the bit with the Chandeliers on TR2 last night and whilst just making my way across the rafters of a room (which I had to actually figure out how to do), I was getting vertigo in real life. Literally, leaning and flinching away from the edge of platforms or leaning towards them when making jumps. There were moments of genuine anxiety I could feel in my stomach. There was a huge sense of danger and threat, because there was an actual danger of fucking up. That’s been lost in so many games now, where they just put you on a theme park ride instead. 
 

The bit I got to on God of War was just bollocks. I “explored” an area but it didn’t feel like I was actually discovering anything at all. Another 3 urn things to light or hit, just like all the others. Another predictable fight with the same 3-4 enemies in a similar looking area. Another collectible hunt to go on, along with all the other 100s of collectible hunts I’ve already unlocked. Another “thing” plonked into the world to increase percentage completion.
 

Then after clearing out the whole area the game took me back to all the same areas I’d just been to for the next story part, yet the NPCs are suddenly discovering shit they walked past 5mins ago and never said anything about. Really shoddy design.