The God of War

Sometimes, The Gaming Desk wonders why they post these updates at all. The Gaming Desk has even less of a clue why others might read these updates, but then looking at the web statistics and view counts, The Gaming Desk realizes that no one, in fact, actually reads these. So there's that.

And after that inauspicious intro, let me say that after finally completing the two Plague Tale games (Innocence and Requiem), I started playing God of War.  The 2018 game is the sequel to 2010's God of War III and the eighth installment in the God of War series. I hadn't played any of the previous games because I used to be an adult, but I didn't find it all that difficult to figure out the back story, although I'm sure I missed some nuances.

The game was challenging although not so difficult that it became annoying or a chore.  The challenge was that in combat, you actually had to time and select your fighting moves - both offensive and defensive - against your antagonist. Which is to say that unlike some other games, you didn't simply mash the left mouse to "strike," but have to select the appropriate weapon based on the enemy, use one or more of a combination of strikes (e.g., "Q + LM," "E + LM," or even "Q + E + LM"), and then time that move to strike when your foe is most vulnerable, like right after one of their strikes. You have to similarly employ one of several defensive moves based on the situation. The fights became a sort of puzzle in themselves - what combination of moves are required for this particular beast? You would lose at least once before you won, and then die and respawn to fight again.  In combination with some beautiful scenery and ominous settings, a fairly complex story line, and interesting characters, it made for a pretty good game - much more enjoyable than those Plague Tale episodes. 

The game follows Kratos, the titular God of War, who, after exiling himself from his blood-soaked past on Mount Olympus, hangs up his weapons forever in the Norse realm of Midgard. When his beloved wife dies, Kratos sets off on a dangerous journey with his estranged son Atreus to spread her ashes from the highest peak — his wife’s final wish. The journey turns out to be an epic quest, which tests the bonds between father and son and forces Kratos to battle gods and monsters for the fate of the world. 

Full disclosure: I finished the game - the storyline and side missions - but didn't complete 100% of the content. Toward the end of the game, there are a series of battles against eight or so separate Valkyries, supernatural warrioresses with incredible strength. In each battle, the Valkyrie would initially kill me within seconds of first encounter before I could figure out some weakness or vulnerability, and then maybe - maybe - I would last 60 seconds or so before dying. By the time I finally figured out how to defeat one, I felt a real sense of satisfaction but whatever lesson I learned from one fight was completely useless in the next, as each Valkyrie had a different style of fighting, different weapons, and different vulnerabilities. And each one was stronger and tougher than the next.

Except for one initial Valkyrie, the fights are fortunately optional and not required to complete the game.  As I recall, I finally beat five or six of them, but the last couple of fights were so difficult and frustrating that they weren't "fun" anymore.  And then I saw online that after you beat the eighth and final Valkyrie, you had to fight the final Queen Valkyrie, and that fight was so challenging that it made the ones against the other Valkyries look like fights against random NPCs. I had absolutely no appetite for that particular experience and didn't feel any regret when I moved on to the next game.  I kept God of War loaded on my computer for a while just in case I ever got the urge to drop back in and try my hand at those final Valkyries again, but that desire never arose. After I had finally moved on to the second or third subsequent games, I deleted GoW from my hard drive without any regret, but still say that overall, I enjoyed the game very much.      

A sequel - God of War - Ragnarök - was released on Play Station but isn't available yet on PC and isn't expected to be available for another year or so. I expect to play it when it finally is released, but don't mind the breather and rest period between games.   I also heard that Amazon Prime has ordered a television series based on the game, but between the writers' strike and the actors' strike, it might be quite a while before we see anything (if at all).