2020/4/5: Playstation 3: God of War: Ascension, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14

[VideoGameCritic]

Clearing out some of my backlog with these latest PS3 reviews. Feedback welcome.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

I'm sure God of War's game mechanics and level design earned that grade.

I'll never know.

Because God of War 3 was the first console game to make me feel sick. Not because of the violence, or the nudity. It's because Kratos stops being a force for redemption, or even justifiable violence.

At one point, you win an achievement for using a terrified rape survivor as a door key. (Poseidon's "princess".) She will not survive the process. It's not a quick action button press, either. The player must drag her to her death, while she reacts realistically - first to thinking she's been freed, then to losing that hope.

The way it's handled by the developer, it's clear someone has a fetish.

Anyways, the player is rewarded for not having sex with her.

[I didn't do it...But I wish I did!]

The developer leers.

And I've immediately lost interest.

Number one, it's trying too hard.

Especially obvious if you know the real ideas for the God of War series that Sony was afraid to allow; they weren't about to risk offending modern religions.

Number 2, it's out of character. At least before, whenever Kratos killed someone, they were either trying to kill him, or belonged to a faction trying to kill him. Yeah, I feel bad for the caged soldiers, but they'd probably be canon fodder if they weren't caged.

The third group were NPCs who had zero AI or character or self-preservation skills. Nobody responds to their deaths, either. It was impossible to feel anything for them, because the developer couldn't be bothered to make any of this canon. Whether they live or die changes nothing.

But the premeditated murder of a helpless victim? I'm not buying it from the guy haunted by the ashes of his wife and daughter.

It's certainly not the same guy appearing in the live action trailer for the game.

So yeah, it all disgusted me. And I'm saying this as someone trained to be a sadistic Dom by industry professionals, who has seen way better torture porn.

There's good reasons why this achievement never appears in later versions of the game.

[Stalvern]

There's good reasons why this achievement never appears in later versions of the game.

I looked Ascension up on Wikipedia, and...

Controversy [edit]

Some reviewers disliked the title of one of the game's trophies, "Bros before Hos", which is received after graphically face-stomping a female villain. In response to the criticisms of misogyny, Santa Monica released a patch changing the name of the trophy to "Bros before Foes".[131]

Pretty good.

[Ozzybear]

I liked ascension as much as I did the previous god of war games. The latest just couldn't hold my attention, a great game and story yes , but was still missing something that the older games had to keep me coming back for more

[velcrozombie]

Because God of War 3 was the first console game to make me feel sick. Not because of the violence, or the nudity. It's because Kratos stops being a force for redemption, or even justifiable violence.

At one point, you win an achievement for using a terrified rape survivor as a door key. (Poseidon's "princess".) She will not survive the process. It's not a quick action button press, either. The player must drag her to her death, while she reacts realistically - first to thinking she's been freed, then to losing that hope.

I finished the game (I burned through the remastered GoW 1&2 about a month before it came out and was hooked - 2 especially is still pretty high on my all-time list) and had actually enjoyed it a great deal until then, but I agree that it's the moment the game lost me - and, based on conversations with a few other people, I wasn't alone. I did go back and play Chains of Olympus a few months later but I still haven't played Ghost of Sparta or Ascension, although it's been long enough that I wouldn't have a problem going back at this point.

[Retro STrife]

Only played one God of War - God of War II on PS2. Amazing game for the first 6-8 hours.. and then it just dragged on and on and on. It took me something like 15-20 hours to beat it. And by then, I had started to hate it. That's what happens when developers don't know when to wrap up a great game and feel pressured to drag it out to 15+ hours for better reviews. I'm probably in the minority on that, since the game is beloved. But for me, I'll never play another God of War game again.

Still enjoyed both reviews though.

[velcrozombie]

Only played one God of War - God of War II on PS2. Amazing game for the first 6-8 hours.. and then it just dragged on and on and on. It took me something like 15-20 hours to beat it. And by then, I had started to hate it. That's what happens when developers don't know when to wrap up a great game and feel pressured to drag it out to 15+ hours for better reviews. I'm probably in the minority on that, since the game is beloved. But for me, I'll never play another God of War game again.

Still enjoyed both reviews though.

Maybe consider giving the original game a try? It's a lot closer to the 6-8 hour mark (https://howlongtobeat.com puts the main story at 9 hours), gets better as it goes along (although the final boss IS a bit routine) and it has a simple but satisfying character arc for Kratos that feels complete on its own instead of ending on a cliffhanger. I'll admit that I like GoW2 because it's an inexhaustible well of cool stuff, but I'll also admit that I probably enjoyed the first few hours more than the final few. GoW3 is a technical marvel and it has a bunch of cool setpieces and boss battles, but it's the first game (even before the aforementioned moment) that Kratos comes across as a spoiled child and it becomes grating even as the game attempts to redeem him near the end. Chains of Olympus is a prequel originally for the PSP (now available with Ghost of Sparta as part of the God of War: Origins Collection for the PS3) and it's the shortest of all along with being a very solid game in its own right.

[Tron]

I got excited for this thread until I saw the golf game had to be shared with GOW. I knew this thread would be all about GOW and not golf. I played the original GOW and felt the pacing was too fast for me. I like a more slower paced deliberate beat-em-up like Double Dragon.

I stopped playing the Tiger golf when they cut out the 3-click swing and fixed players to use the stick. I never like stick shooting. Rory McIlroy had a really nice 3 click swing. Too bad the career mode was boring with absolutely no frills.

[VideoGameCritic]

Tron -
You bring up an interesting topic. Should I continue posting two reviews at a time? Maybe I should do one at a time to give each some time in the sun? Then I could post more often too.

[Tron]

Tron -
You bring up an interesting topic. Should I continue posting two reviews at a time? Maybe I should do one at a time to give each some time in the sun? Then I could post more often too.

Perhaps. Do what you want. Are more threads good or bad. I don’t know. I don’t think if Tiger PS3 golf had its own thread it would’ve gotten any more attention anyway. Soooooo.