Patreon Letter - 21st April, 2018 (Patreon)

I'm playing God of War. I didn't intend to play God of War as a thing, but then friend of the show Amr Al-Aaser asked me and several others to play the game to write takes from people who aren't the blandest dads on earth to counter the seemingly universal narrative from game sites that God of War is the best game since Mass Effect 2 (in itself a dubious claim to fame, if you ask me). I didn't enjoy God of War back when it was an action game, I'm pretty uninterested in God of War as a tragic dad story, but here I am, playing God of War. I'll have a better, more formal piece coming in two or three weeks when I'm actually done with the game. 

I wish I had hot takes, because everyone loves hot takes, but that seems impossible with God of War. For all its flaunted fresh ideas and bold new trailblazing in the realm of AAA games, God of War for the first five hours seems to entirely be a game made up of the thoroughly-chewed and bland refuse of better games we're all already tired of. Let's break it down.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice: this is the most damning one, because Hellblade is a terrible game, but looking at it and God of War side by side I wonder if Ninja Theory didn't see God of War coming and polished up the 20% of a full release they had and sent it out to try to cut God of War off at the pass. These games are stunningly similar in presentation and combat-feel, grim nordic treks through a bunch of hamfisted psychological bullshit. I assume God of War won't win BAFTAs, but it'll surely do that all the way to the bank.

Resident Evil 4: oh hey, a good game! God of War's new over the shoulder combat perspective basically turns Kratos into rookie-cop-turned-secret-agent Leon S Kennedy in movement and framing. You lumber forward, turning is a pain, and you even have the quick 180 because the game's movement is so damn bad. Even beyond that, many of the rune-sealed chests so far involve walking around the immediate environment and shooting (with your ax, but whatever) down medallions from the trees and high rock spires to get a prize. It's shameless.

The Witcher 3: much of the crafting and side quests in a big open world feel inspired by The Witcher 3, but with little of the thematic weight and context of Geralt being tasked to go around helping people as his job. Kratos just lumbers into people's lives and offers his aid because that's what video games do, and your reward is a bevy of crafting materials for a game where you mostly just mash on some buttons to kill guys. All of the RPG systems here seem lifted out of games like The Witcher 3, and all of it is bad. Loot doesn't make your game better!

the Souls series: putting combat on the triggers is cool. A lot of people would agree, given the popularity of Souls. But along with that comes the idea that when you swing your weapon in a Souls game it carries with it a weight and commitment that makes it feel powerful. God of War doesn't feel powerful, it mostly feels tedious as you jam R1 R1 R1 R2 against wave after wave of the same four enemy types. If you get fancy you can have your son stun them so can do a lengthy execution, but it's boring after the first one and takes even longer than the flaccid attack spam the game asks of you, so...

Skyrim: God of War didn't need to be an open world. It didn't need side quests. It didn't need it's kitsch, lifeless version of Nordic settings. But you know what sold a bazillion copies in the past decade? The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. God of War ends up, in many ways, feeling like it fell out of the ugliest HD texture pack for Skyrim you could find on Nexus Mods, a game where you go through lovingly over-detailed but relentlessly monotonous nordic tombs with pots and barrels to crash through and endless waves of Draugr to fight. Nobody ever wants to fight a draugr ever again, we all played Skyrim! It's strange to look at this game and feel like it is so shamelessly riffing on a popular game from 7 years ago, but God of War has also been in development for supposedly 5 years, so that makes sense.

There are more games I could list, obviously. The Last of Us is clearly a huge influence in the realm of dad feels, but everyone will write about that. The open world and item systems reek vaguely of mid-period Assassin's Creed, but every game is like that now so it's hard to put your finger on it and I think The Witcher 3 distilled those ideas in a way similar enough to this game that I'd believe the pull was from that direction over AC. You could make arguments for Batman, Tomb Raider, the list goes on.

Weirdly enough, the game that feels least represented when I look at God of War (2018) is God of War (2005). This Kratos is supposedly the same Kratos, playing off of the same story, but past that everything feels so different that the game feels as if it's deliberately trying to avoid the actual legacy of God of War as hyper-masculine, misogynistic trash action games with a deep lack of self-awareness about themselves. In fact, for a game about 'redeeming' Kratos and offering a more mature view, it seems to do zero work so far in actually addressing what Kratos used to be in favor of just telling us what he is now as if the lack of gross things somehow makes up for the fact he's still a shit character in a grimmer situation with no other signs of progress.

I'm not even a third in, by all accounts, but God of War seems dire. I would not recommend any of you spend $60 on this, I don't care what the reviews say. Go play Yakuza. Go get a Labo. Go play the Witcher 3 or Skyrim. Resident Evil 4 is there for you on every platform if you've never played it! Leave Kratos in the forgotten past, where he belongs, with the rest of this myth nobody thinks about too much these days.

Until next week, sorry for the unfocused letter, I'm stuck playing this and mad,

Em