Giant Bomb Presents: God of God of War

Cool, I take this is spoiler free?

I would like to know if this contains spoilers, because I would like to listen.

I was kinda hoping this would be the spoilercast, but I guess it's too early for that. Hopefully there'll still be one in the future.

Can anyone confirm the presence/lack of spoilers?

Cory Barlog's video of his emotional reaction to the God of War reviews is worth watching if anyone's not seen it yet

I haven't played since the first night but watching the bombcast yesterday made me so excited to get back in to it. Brad talking about all the different loot and side stuff sounds so incredibly appealing to me.

I love all the systems and I've had no complaints. Jeff seemed to be totally down on it despite not making it past the first hub area. I don't know what he wants from this game but it's weird he doesn't want a god of war game (which this isnt comparatively) yet can't find the joy in this game without picking apart minor things such as how there are so many currencies early on so he ends up wasting resources on green vendor items which is kind of rpg no no 101.

I just don't know what more he wants. The combat clearly takes a while to open up so not feeling it ever changes when still in tutorial areas or enemies requiring more is like yeah obviously that won't change until later. I just don't understand why someone can dislike the start of a game so much for incredibly minor reasons. Jason and Brad seemed to be more into it but the whole tone around this game from giant bomb has been a strange thing to witness no one but Dan seems to be in love with it.

@axersia: Multiple outlets have already done a spoilercast.

This guy is a man to my hearth, talking about immersion and hating the waypoint indicators. Really enjoying their game.

Just finished it and it's spoiler-free.

@nicotn: I'm sure there are, but those outlets don't have Dan and Vinny working for them. I'd like to hear them talk about the game start to finish at some point.

I find it difficult to reconcile a person having the passion to stay till 3 AM to burn gold masters while also having a child that is exhibiting behavioral issues due to them not being around.

Aww yeah, developer interviews! More, more!

Cory seems like an incredibly thoughtful and passionate guy. I'm so happy for his and the entire team's success. God of War is an incredible game and you can tell a lot of hard work went into it.

Also, I loved how he mentioned Mega64's Marcus' Corner when talking about leaving Sony hahaha.

Here's the hilariously uncomfortable interview he referred to:

@steveurkel: The go-to method of discussing any big game on the Bombcast is to say it's good, and then immediately start complaining about details, while occasionally coming back to say "still a great game though, yes yes".

It's a pattern with pretty much every big game they have discussed over the past year. Game of the Year often descends into the same thing. If you measured "time to complaint" from the start of a discussion I reckon it would be sub 2 minutes in most cases.

I think the podcast setting they have just lends itself to a critical complaint circle. It is much much easier to articulate what's wrong with specific details in a game than to examine what makes it good, and it can spiral really easily to just start trading complaints. It's like a negative feedback loop.

Interestingly, it doesn't happen as much when only one person has played the game, then they often find a much better way to articulate the good stuff.

Cory and God of War are both super great. I was quite happy to see him return to the fold and the results are spectacular.

With that being said, I wanna start seeing some AAA games with mother-child dynamics. I'm a dude but think that would be a really neat and unique story to tell in a blockbuster game. Is Bayonetta 1 the closest to that?

@axersia: Thanks.

@steveurkel: Totally agree. Jeff just seems down on most big budget games these days. Or if someone if hot for a game he finds ways to pick it apart or tear it down for what most would consider minor issues. He then proceeds on the Bombcast to talk about a game that is basically a clone of Zelda:LTTP whereas God of War is a fresh take on a tired franchise.

I think that's just because those type of games aren't really what Jeff is into, and what is a minor issue to someone else might be a bigger deal to him.

To be honest I find these comments coming off a bit 8.8-ish.

This game is highly over rated. Repeatative with pretty decent characterization. The cliffhanger was uncalled for and a huge let down.

Oh good, Ben "I'm 16% excited about the new God of War" Pack is here for the Cory Barlog interview.

@axersia: yes same, I hope they do one at some point

I thought Barlog's answer to Brad's question about crunch and employee work hours was pretty clueless and misses the point raised by people like Josh Sawyer in his talk at Reboot Develop this month.

If team leaders or a significant chunk of a team decide to work crazy hours, everyone is going to feel pressured to work crazy hours. From a game director's perspective, it's in his interest to just believe that "everyone is so enthusiastic and committed to the game they're willing to kill themselves", rather than what is probably the truth. That is, a large chunk of people are afraid to speak up about the crazy hours for fear of it impacting their careers. This is the kind of thinking that leads to burnout and people leaving the industry.

@arjann: I'll just pretend I know what 8.8 ish means...

They wanted that fresh perspective of someone that has never played a God of War game and could ask all the right questions, like what is God of War.

Love conversations with folks in the industry. Thanks for doing this.

People being super salty and fanboyish over Jeff giving Zelda an 8.8 back in the day:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EightPointEight

https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/blast-from-the-past-the-crazy-reactions-to-88-523214/

@arjann: Ah I see. I would argue that his comments on the Bombcast are a little more critical than 0.2 points to a score. Seems people were raging back then due to Zelda not getting a 9 or 10. He made comments about possibly not even finishing God of War but has spent zero time exploring and doing any side content. Those old comments are quite harsh. What I'm saying here is he doesn't seem excited about much anymore.

@robpigott: Ahh, ya beat me to it! I remember watching this gosh, a decade ago now.

@steveurkel: I agree. Like, I don’t need Jeff to like the game to validate my opinion or anything. I don’t care. It’s just like you said, listening to him, it’s like... So what do you want? Like what would make this game better for you?

Jeff and a few of the others feel the need for whatever reason to demonstrate just how much they don’t care about God of War as a franchise, they don’t remember what happened in the previous games, etc. They mention it over and over and over throughout the discussion, and every discussion about the game. It’s like, holy shit guys, I get it. You weren’t a fan. It’s annoying to hear somebody continually perform their distaste for a game as though they think it makes them better than it or something. I don’t get it. It just sucks that like you said, it colors the discussion into a negative spiral where nobody can mention something positive about the game without Jeff or somebody jumping in to shit on it as well.

Plus, man, when jason talks about how the combat is overwhelming and isn’t built properly for the camera, I really have to disagree. I was VERY skeptical of that as a long-time fan, but the combat is so good in this game and the new camera is surprisingly cool. You have so many tools in this game to manage enemies that I only feel overwhelmed or remotely not in control when I try to fight enemies far above my level, and even those guys can be taken down if you’re patient and considered.

Luckily GB East is still around. Once Vinny and Dan both left, I unsubscribed from the Bombcast. I’ll listen on occasion if I’m interested in the topic but honestly they’re too negative and serious for me these days while GB East is actually fun to listen to.

@recaliber: Yep. Agreed. It’s crazy to hear him go from “yeah it’s actually really exciting” in one episode to “eh fuck this I only played two hours of it and that’s indicative of it being uninspiring because I play fantastic games for 10 hours at a time.” Like what happened in those two hours that completely soiled your opinion? It’s a long game and they do a good job with the slow build.

But yeah, you’re right that he gets excited about very few things anymore. It seems like if there’s a popular thing, be it game, movie, show, whatever, Jeff not only hasn’t experienced it but doesn’t care to and wants you to know that.

He’s been my favorite games media dude for like literally over a decade, but honestly over time I’m totally starting to disconnect from him. He’s still a top notch performer and critic, but he needs to take a vacation from games for like a month or something.

@frytup: The crunch topic wasn't my favorite part of the interview. Early on, he said he didn't really want to direct other people's story cinematics. But people lower on the totem pole are basically working on someone else's vision like that. There was talk of other people being frustrated by his decisions, and then expecting them to be as passionate about the project, sacrificing family and personal time... I dunno. There's something problematic with that line of thinking.

While that old Zelda stuff was more over the top obviously, the similarity was more in Jeff saying it's a good game he has some issues with and then people getting upset he doesn't like it as much as them.

Both the type of game God of War was and the type of game the new GOW is were never really Jeff's bag, there's nothing really surprising about that. Some of this criticism really does comes off as people just being mad their opinions aren't being validated to me.

@saddlebrown:

I just don't think there's that much unique about God of War. It's again, an insanely polished AAA experience, but it doesn't offer anything new. It's an open world action RPG with decent sidequests and a shoehorned equipment system. The story is not very compelling, it really isn't. It lacks a lot of the fun and gratuitous spectacle of previous entries. The scope is impressive. The combat is fun, but a mess of overstuffed systems.

I could see why Jeff would be like, eh, I'm not that interested. It's very much a Ubisoft game with Sony studio polish.

I enjoy the game, but it does nothing unique, except that it's very impressive in scope and production values. Sometimes it has good pacing, other times it derails itself. It has a lot of content.

Is it unique? Not at all.

Jeff just isn't someone that gushes about anything very often. He still likes things. He's just not going to hail this as a 10/10 or speak with hushed, reverent tones like Dan does. And it really doesn't deserve that anyway.

@subscryber: I think the reverence for the game is that what they are doing is new for the franchise by borrowing from other successful games (Tomb Raider, Last of Us). I don't know if you're a Zelda fan but other than removing icons from an over world map what did BOTW do that was unique compared to every other open world action game? Combat is simplistic, equipment degradation is a chore, story wasn't all that exciting. I enjoyed BOTW but is it unique? Not at all. See it's easy to knock a game!

@saddlebrown: Yeah I found Jason's comment about the combat feeling overwhelming funny considering his bread and butter is fighting games that rely on combo memorization and laser tight input commands.

@subscryber: I never said it was unique though. I think some elements of it are unique, like the camera, but overall it’s God of War meets Last of Us. It’s very good, but if you want to boil it down, there it is. It doesn’t have the same spectacle of the previous games because it’s telling a different kind of story. It ramps up the spectacle a lot as you go on, but it’s more muted for sure. I get why that could turn people off but personally I enjoy it and find the story very compelling. Again though, if the story doesn’t connect with you, that’s fine. It’s not for everyone. Like I like Logan way more than the regular X-Men movies because of the change in tone and less spectacle, but if you were an X-Men fan I’d get if it didn’t strike the same chord for you.

Again, I don’t care if my opinion is shared. I don’t need validation. If Jeff doesn’t like it, that’s fine by me. What I personally have a problem with is the way he asserts JUST HOW MUCH he doesn’t care about the franchise, the story, criticizes every aspect, etc. I listen to that and it’s just tiresome and boring and needlessly negative after the first or second mention. Like c’mon man, we all know you’re not a fan. You don’t need to keep reasserting it. It just derails the discussion and creates a negative feedback loop. It reminds me of why Vinny said he doesn’t like game of the year discussions when they focus on the minor flaws of otherwise great games.

Like when my friends are all getting hyped about Avengers, I don’t jump in over and over to reiterate that I rarely watch marvel movies, I’m not caught up, I think they’re very boring, etc. What’s the point in that? They all know my feelings on marvel so why perform it over and over? It’s just negative for no reason.

I really enjoyed listening to this interview, and God of War music is pretty good, but having like 4 minutes of it after the podcast ended just felt... odd?

I assume your friends don't shove a mic in your face and ask you to talk about Marvel movies. Jeff is expected to spend multiple hours per week discussing video games. It's a bit silly to expect him to suppress his honest reaction when a big release comes around.

@subscryber: I agree that it's not breaking that much ground, and if anyone has played the past two Crystal Dynamics made Tomb Raider games then this is basically that, exactly, except with a stronger focus on melee combat - which is not all that surprising as Cory Barlog worked on that original reboot. IF anything I think it's surprising that for such a grounded setting, Lara seemed to have a lot more interesting tools and abilities in Tomb Raider than Kratos does in this fantastical world of myths and magic.

That said I wouldn't be so dismissive about it being a forgettable triple A experience. God of War does some thing extremely well and that shouldn't be taken for granted in a time where we've gotten plenty of weirdly unambitious games from similarly large studios. The story to me is engaging, but several major revelations in I am getting a little exhausted by the son asking questions and Kratos refusing to answer them. The distanced father and cold shoulder motif was great at the start but it's quickly overstaying it's welcome and seemingly there just to extend the game. Still I'm invested in seeing where this story goes. As for Jeff, I dunno. I'm not in the camp that thinks he hates everything but I do think he tends to be overly critical about games that don't resonate with him. I've seen him gush about stuff just as effusively as Dan in the past, but he tends to have a mean streak to his comments when a games isn't his jam which is what probably sets some people off. No one likes to hear that the thing they like isn't good.

@subscryber: The setting is what is unique and the enemies that you fight are unique. You're really comparing God of War to Ubisoft soldier/gun game #231?

Listening to him talk about the combat pretty much cements my feelings about it being a half step short of good. They had an idea of making it more deliberate and strategic (which is very in for melee combat games these days), and they did a decent job at designing the encounters that way, but they completely missed the mark on the player moveset. It's still very much a GoW repertoire (which is fairly limited and basic) that doesn't jive with the new encounter design very well.

It's stuck in this middle ground limbo where you only have the murder spectacle you had in the old games when you face non-threatening fodder enemies, but when you're put to the test it becomes very one-note and boring since it lacks any interesting mechanics beyond the basics and you're forced to play super defensively while only doing minor pokes and punishes.

@deadstar: The enemies are unique until you've seen the single canned execution move for each of them and realize all of the enemies are mostly reskins

@deadstar: The enemies are unique until you've seen the single canned execution move for each of them and realize all of them are mostly reskins

@deadstar said:

It's sure a lot like AC: Origins from a mechanical and systems standpoint. It's the AAA movement to open-world ARPGs with overstuffed systems.

@subscryber: I agree yes, but a fantasy setting, to me, is MUCH more interesting than any modern military or real world setting.

Would someone who listened let me know how much time is spent discussing the activities between the ending of GoW3 and the beginning of the latest game?

@steveurkel: he said he started to love it in one of the podcasts already but admitted hating it initially. He definitely kept bringing up annoying quipy shit like dissing the original series complete and thinking the premise sucked etc. Whatever. To each their own. He also complained about some shaky cam during the cut scenes... Like nobody else cares at all and I thought all those scenes we're brilliantly done. I guess he didn't know you could adjust the shaky cam settings as well which was neat.

Great interview Brad

Wow, lots of haters up in here. Just finished the game yesterday, outstanding experience. The only thing I want is more. I wanted to kick all the Norse gods' asses a la God of War III, especially with all the foreshadowing for an eventual showdown with Thor. I'm really looking forward to DLC and sequels.