I agree that the outrage is getting out of hand, but I do wish that someone on that team would have had the sense (and good taste) to say something like "we should rename this trophy." It's certainly not as bad as the achievement you get for killing black people in Call of Juarez The Cartel

@mcghee:

My thoughts exactly.

Sessler probably overreacted but it's still a dumb trophy.

Also, holy shit that cutscene is horrible. Who wrote this shit?

I like how, just because a woman named it, we're all supposed to be alright with it now.

I think the entire God of War series since 1 has been really gross and this is no exception. Also how is this a joke? Jokes are funny, this is just violent.

@mcghee: i knew this gif will pop up i'm just amazed it's in the first reply

..Thats's it? I gotta say, after watching the review by Sess, I was expecting something a lot worse. But this seems normal for on a God of War standard anyways. I've seen worse on a GoW game, esp in GoW 3. Anyhow, The trophy naming could've been better I guess. I'm okay with it *Shrugs*

Yeah, Hercules gets a noticeably severe thrashing in GoW3, where his entire face is hilariously smashed into a pile of bloody pudding. The trophy name is still really stupid, though, but the scene itself was surprisingly pedestrian.

If the trophy had nothing to do with her then it wouldn't have the word "hoe" in it. Let's not deny the obvious here.

My gifoo is quite strong.

Now that you've mentioned it, the Hercules scene was bloody gory. I was actually thinking back to the Helios scene. The whole thing made me pause for a bit.

I've always thought it really pushed it a little too far with that particular scene's resulting trophy title. But yeah, after now watching the whole Ascension scene after the Fury fight, none of the furies even died and, contrary to what's been said, you don't have a trophy ding right after Kratos was attacking her either. It dings after the cutscene, when Kratos was then saved by a male ally. ''Bros before hoes'' is still a really stupid phrase, but it's also a commonly used one, often as irony for how stupid it is, across a lot of media. It was just a bad joke and should be viewed as such.

Dumb, tasteless name for a trophy, but the violence wasn't so shocking considering some of the stuff that's been in GoW before (that scene where Kratos tears off Helios' god damn head in GoW3 for example). God of War has always been kinda gross and pretty sadistic, and Kratos is pretty much the biggest asshole of a protagonist ever so I dunno why this got quite the reaction it did.

But yeah, wow, maybe shoulda thought twice about that trophy name.

That was the one I always thought was kinda messed up.

@anwar: Yeah exactly...the women in the scene are being referred to as hoes. So, the trophy does have to do with her, which is what I just said.

Hey guys, are video games art?

yeah, I'm surprised this is getting a reaction considering how over the top the series has always been.

But hey, gotta be careful we don't hurt them ladies' feelings.

@anwar: what the fuck....

Okay, whatever.

Or maybe we should've been alright with it in the first place. I'm guessing that saying a woman wrote it was a way to put out the fire to the overly sensitive, even if it shouldn't matter and there shouldn't be a fire to begin with.

This statement is completely unfair, that's like saying that the House of the Dead movie makes Schindler's List not art anymore just because it's the same medium.

There are shitty video games and there are games that are artistic masterpieces, just like every other medium in existence

are you fucking kidding me? are you fucking kidding me?

THAT is what is getting people upset and causing another misogyny witch hunt when god of war has had much more graphic beatdowns?

lets take gender out of this in terms of the beatdown, these are arguably worse in terms of graphical beatdowns.

and if you want to drag gender into this, then here you go i think even these are more gruesome (even the god of war 2 ones that have less fidelity)

you people that complain about this trophy are ridiculous. especially now that there is context that A FEMALE (key word FEMALE) PRODUCER NAMED THE TROPHY. (the director of god of war ascension tweeted out that it was a female producer that named the trophy

https://twitter.com/ToddPapy/status/309746549125152768)

this witch hunt over misogyny is really getting to amazing levels of ridiculousness.

Many of you are completely missing the point of Sessler's issue. He says that in context and given the history the series, the violence is perfectly acceptable, man or woman. His problem was with the trophy, which turns a standard gory God of War kill into a misogynist frat house joke. Bringing up other brutal God of War kills doesn't work because it wasn't the violence he had a problem with, it was the immature sexist humor of the trophy name.

The whole issue aside; am I trippin', or did it seem like that cut scene was really conspicuously missing audio elements? Sound effects, music, etc. It felt like an early run through cut or something.

@mrsignerman44: As far as "Games that are artistic masterpieces" go I think it's limited to games that cease being games and become solely spectacles; there's certainly a handful of games that are masterpieces but they aren't precisely artistic for the most part, maybe a few elements of said games are but overall gameplay supersedes art design in every game that's actually a game.

Sessler overreacted, dumb trophy name, God of War can be called excessively brutal (and for a lot of people that's the appeal) but misogynistic is a stretch; Kratos is an equal opportunity brutalizer.

But none of the furies were killed, and the trophy was specifically named as such because Kratos was saved by his male ally. Calling the furies 'hoes' shouldn't be an issue either. They're the antagonists for starters, and anyone who has issues over it being a gender-specific insult needs to remember that calling guys ''dicks'' is awfully common in this day and age, and I'm pretty sure nobody makes a fuss about that. I'm not going to deny that the 'bros before hoes' phrase is stupid, but it's not sexist nor is it related to any of the violence in the scene either.

Hmm, I was in Sessler's camp before I actually saw that clip. Now I honestly don't see how that was too offensive. I have a feeling Kratos has done far worse things in his previous games.

@animasta said:

This times a million. If anything, the fact that a woman named it should get it even more hate.

This exactly. I'm surprised to see so many people missing the idea. I wonder how many watched and listened to the video. Adam very clearly describes his problem with it and it is what you wrote.

Though the poseidon princess trophy from GoW3 is worse in this regard but that doesn't make this any less stupid.

yeah, when that bro used his power to get kratos away from them hos, it seems like there should've been a sound effect.

If Ninja Theory ever make a DMC game where they let you control Dante and destroy Kratos, it will be a day one buy for me.

However awful Dante or the rest of the game are.

tagging @patrickklepek to this thread, no matter where he stands on this debate, im sure he would at least want to see the clip in question.

That's a good point since Journey and TWD would fall into that "spectacle" category, but what I'm saying is that a lot of work goes into the art assets like character design, level design and in some cases excellent writing that It's a bit stupid to completely belittle all of the work put into an excellent game by pointing at this and saying "Hey guise, games are art amirite? :D" when the industry as a whole is trying to shift in the opposite direction.

I still don't see the problem. Its a dumb joke but to imply all of this underlying misogyny behind the trophy is utterly stupid.

Posting Sessler's review (which really should have been in the OP to begin with) because people in this thread clearly have no idea what he was actually upset about.

It's a stupid and misogynistic joke. I don't give two shits who made it. It's stupid. Also that cutscenes felt like it was missing sound effects and music. Weird.

@mrsignerman44: Ah fair enough, I certainly have a ton of respect for those that make excellent games that have impressive art design. Metroid Prime is probably the closest to being inbetween something like Journey and Resident Evil 4 (gameplay is awesome, storyline is ludicrous and self aware silliness), and if someone wanted to call Metroid Prime art I'd be hard pressed to argue with them.

I'm so tired of all these claims of alleged misogyny in every odd numbered release of a game that's been coming out recently. Just... Stop. Please. I mean this isn't even the first time Kratos has brutally murdered a mythical creature in the shape of a woman. And the trophy name, while dumb, shouldn't elicit this sort of overblown reaction.

@fredchuckdave: Metroid Prime is an excellent game, no arguing with that hahaha, there's some pretty great art design in that one.

Sure they are, just not the majority. Just like I wouldn't consider the majority of the movies Hollywood makes to be art.

God Of War Ascension does not use the latest in bro-getter tech.

I'm curious. Does the fact that the person that named the trophy is female mean that it's automatically not sexist or misogynistic? There are plenty of females that demean other females out there and not just in the videogame industry.