God of War- 2018's Horizon Zero Dawn-tier game? (Gaming)

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Thursday, April 12, 2018, 06:56 (2422 days ago) @ Korny

I am a fan. Despite never having owned a PS2, I had a couple of roommates just after college (so, 2005-2010 period probably) who both did and who both were big God of War fans. So I played GoW 1 and 2 quite a bit, and actually pooled money with one of those roommates to buy a used PS3 primarily to play GoW 3 (bought used so I could get the original, fully hardware back-compat model, which at that time could also run alternate operating systems). Then after Chains of Olympus came out on PSP, I bought that and borrowed a friend's PSP to play it. BTW, read the reviews for Chains of Olympus sometime - it was an amazing game at the time. They managed to really make something that felt like a full console game.

I think what struck me about the original game was 2 things:

1. The way sound and movement was combined with the character of Kratos. Kratos is a being of pure rage, a mortal who defies death and kills a god purely because of his all-consuming hatred for Ares. And it's hard to define exactly why GoW did this so well, but I just felt that every time Kratos swung his blades or crushed something's skull, the combination of the animations and the voice acting REALLY sold that this was a man who'd been tricked into murdering his family.

2. The way they did quick-time events. GoW 1 was the first game I remember doing things like that. It probably wasn't ACTUALLY new, but I can't remember noticing it previously. GoW did a good job making their QTEs feel like they ALMOST directly translated the physical action. Having to tap a button VERY rapidly to lift a door wasn't actually the same as lifting, of course. But it felt like you actually had to put physical effort into it. Twisting off a Gorgon's head required actually circling the analog sticks, and so on. It made an already visceral game feel more physical and (nearly) real.