Dispatches

Dispatches, Part Two; Or: Nothing Like Stormclouds Over Manhattan To Get You In The Mood For Armageddon

Herein lies a continuation of my “God of War” game diary. I’ll keep on adding whenever I play, to give you guys a glimpse of what’s been going through my head during the initial gameplay process, instead of it being filtered by retrospection. This time, I’ve made it through a few sections of the Athens chapter. I can’t tell at the moment, but it feels as though it might be halfway through. I won’t know until I reach the end, but for the moment let’s just ballpark it that I’ve finished “Gates of Athens,” “Road to Athens” and “Athens Town Square.”

Gates of Athens

Initially, more of the same– creative level presentation, if not exactly creative level design, not like I’d expect that much– I feel a significant amount of Double Dragon style beat-em-up here, so it wouldn’t make much sense to complicate matters with too many branching paths. I do enjoy some of the knotting paths, and can see a fairly limited Ico influence upon Jaffe. Puzzles are handled very admirably, especially those involving rather Chekovian set-ups– once we see the huge-ass cross-bow in front of Kratos in act one, we know it’s going to become an essential tool to getting through the level sometime by act three. Atmosphere is very nicely conveyed throughout, and I like the use of foreground imagery, like the soldier’s corpse on a wooden beam, in this section especially, which is very effective at communicating the initial havoc wreaked in the city by the undead forces.

Not so good– while I like the combat systems you learn fighting creatures like minotaurs and gorgons, especially in how blocking is implemented as a clever little additional strike, I don’t particularly like how minotaurs and gorgons are treated here, from a mythological standpoint. First there’s the nitpicker in me, of course, complaining that you can’t have more than one minotaur in Greek mythology– after all, not that many queens had sex with bulls (unless you count the times Zeus impersonated livestock). I understand that the minotaur is a fairly recognizable creature from antiquity, but I’d have preffered we eventually faced it under different circumstances, as its own level’s boss, prefferably where you’re supposed to find the minotaur. I’m not just complaining as a myth buff there– there’s a reason I believe making a game set in the Labyrinth is a good idea, after all, so I think that it’s a missed-out on creative opportunity to just plop the minotaurs down wherever you like as some all pupose baddie. Then again, this just gives me the chance to make my own game with the territory unexplored, eventually, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all…

My bigger gripe is with the gorgons, and no, it’s not just because Kratos fights Medusa even though Perseus is the one who’s supposed to do it. I can understand using the recognizable name for gamers to know what they’re up against– being turned into stone– I just wish that Jaffe hadn’t made the same mistake everybody else does when thinking about Medusa and gorgons in general. Here, the gorgon’s stare is kinda a petrifying version of Cyclops’ optic blast. Sure, it eventually makes for a good gameplay effect when you’ve got Medusa’s power, but it turns out to be a completely lopsided gameplay tactic when it comes to telling the story of the actual myth itself.

The gorgons turned people into stone not because their eyes shot laser beams, but because they were really, really ugly. That’s why Perseus needed to cut off Medusa’s head while looking into a mirror. It’s not that if a gorgon saw somebody they’d turn into stone– it’s that if you saw one you’d turn into stone. Again, I understand how this method works into the fabric of gaining a new ability in the game, and I like how it’s used as a puzzle tactic in a few subtle areas, but the traditional idea of trying-to-catch-Medusa-while-not-actually-looking-at-her would’ve made for a really interesting bit of inverted stealth gameplay if they’d tried a little harder. Granted, it probably wouldn’t have worked too well in a button-masher context like this. I’ll keep it in mind for myself, though. Just maybe…

(Also a missed opportunity– Aphrodite vs. Medusa? Beauty vs. Ugliness? Jeez, that could’ve been exploited in a line of dialogue from the goddess, at least)

Road to Athens

Ares’ introduction is perfect. In fact, background elements in this section are all pretty spectacular. Jaffe’s got a real knack for using the game’s screen to the fullest extent possible, filling the canvas’ space as much as he can without distracting the player from the tasks at hand. This was also present in the Hydra level, though now it’s a whole lot more apparent. One thing I’ll definitely give Jaffe is he’s done a good job of doing a game translation of the Ridley Scott cinematic style of “layering.” No matter what the player’s doing in the foreground, there’s always something going on in the back.

This brings up an interesting point, though– doesn’t this kind of layering kind of necesitate the sometimes stilted two-dimensionalization of the gameplay? Granted, I like how the information is conveyed as to the epic scale of battle and destruction while Kratos is climbing around walls and ropes, and during sections like those it makes sense that the controls would necessarily turn 2D all of a sudden. I get the impression, though, that those moments become less about level design itself and more about showcasing the setpieces, either the ones you’ve been inhabiting (the way the rope lets you survey all the areas you’ve knotted your way through as you fight the undead things) or areas you’re going to inhabit (climbing the walls and seeing the hellish destruction up to the horizon). It’s a good trick of stitching in some old-school gameplay and making it effective on its own terms of narrative display, but there’s sometimes so little to do in terms of range during those sections that it does kinda feel like a big, long theatrical tableau.

Athens Town Square

Two stand-out moments here caught my attention, one of which was already covered in the N’Gai/Stephen article. The Oracle section was a very nicely designed bit of empty space in terms of gameplay, as all you really do is run towards her until she jumps from her balcony. I thought it an effective bit of gameplay narrative– Kratos is so scary he doesn’t even need to attack her to kill her– but what really brought it out was the section which precedes it, in the town square where you fight the cave trolls (yes, that’s what they are, and you all know it– can we please stop cramming everything in games with LOTR crap, already?). What made the section fascinating was how Kratos has no way of blocking the trolls’ attacks, so the only way to survive is to replenish energy throughout the fight, and the only way to replenish energy throughout the fight is to slaughter innocent townspeople as they run away through the ruins. This was a great moment, though strangely unsubtle and peripheral at the same time– somehow simultaneously an asterisk and an underlined piece of gameplay. It’s not stressed, but impossible to ignore, and while the morality of what’s going on isn’t even raised directly in the game it’s hard not to read into that moment when the Oracle backs away in terror from Kratos and “what he’s done”: haphazardly slaughtering the innocents. Even if I didn’t already know the secret of the game it wouldn’t be hard to guess– right there, we get to live through a moment of hubris similar to Hercules’ accidental killings which spurned his own Olympian labors. Jaffe might not get the details of Greek myths right all the time in terms of the content of the game, but he definitely captures the spirit in the gameplay itself.

Minor Quibbles

I hate learning combos. I hate how it aims to turn almost any quality game into the latest iteration of Street Fighter II. I don’t want to learn button combinations– I just want to play the game without strange arcana. It’s especially annoying when seemingly obvious, and essential things like long-distance jumps require really obscure button combinations to be pulled off. Also, my patience is wearing thin with some of the mini-boss DDR button-presses, though I still find it satisfying when it’s pulled off correctly. I will continue to stress, however, that I really don’t like the interruption-instructions, nor the text expositions at certain moments, especially when they specifically adress “You,” and not Kratos. This is not a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Besides which, the design of the text is a bit hard to read at times. Or maybe I just need to finally get my eyes checked again…

Finally, there was a moment early in the Athens section, right before you fight Medusa, that reminded me of a not-too-well-designed portion of MPO. In GoW, you’ve got an obscure little nest of a jumping puzzle out of nowhere, which is a bit frustrating, and in MPO you’ve got a very frustrating rolling puzzle out of nowhere. Both force you to use abilities you don’t use too often in this way in order to get ahead, though granted that jumping in GoW is far more useful than rolling in MPO, most of the time. Still, they’re comparable moments, and the frustration that sets in at these areas point out the same thing for both– Neither GoW or MPO are platformers, and they shouldn’t pretend to be. Oren once said that you can tell designers ran out of ideas when crates started appearing. I think it’s safe to say the same thing when platform puzzles appear in non-platformer games.

That’s it for now. Hang on your cliffs until next time, pleasant dreamers…