Zero Punctuation: God of War: Chains of Olympus
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
so, he liked it, he liked it not - wonder when they're gonna let Yahtzee loose on some yet [http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2008/04/adult-games.html].
And now you have a transcript sticking out of your bonce:
Chains of Olympus is a PSP-exclusive prequel installment in the God of War series, a bunch of games that combine an (at best) loose understanding of Greek mythology, with a level of violence that hovers somewhere between "excessive" and "completely off its tits". If nothing else, there's no better series for working off frustration, which is handy, because I certainly have a lot to work off after I've been playing with a PSP for a while, when my index fingers are locked into hideous hook shapes, fit only for picking out the crumbs of filth that gather in the stupid analog pad thing that my thumb keeps slipping off, like I'm trying to clumsily finger a robot prostitute, but I digress. There'll be plenty of time to beat on the PSP when I'm capable of making a fist again.
This review is probably going to end up as a general retrospective of the entire God of War series, because frankly, review one game, you've reviewed them all. You play pasty historical misery-guts Kratos, a Spartan warrior with a preposterous jawline, who works as a sort of independent contractor for the Olympian gods, specializing in killing things that would need to go on a starvation diet for years before they could be classified as humongous. You're hurled into a pitched battle right from the start, just in case you thought you were playing something with a modicum of restraint, and before long it's revealed that one or more gods have gone off the straight-and-narrow, and it's up to you brutalize them back into line. On the way, you'll kill enough blameless innocents to fill a decent-sized Parthenon, meet a few mythological creatures and tear their limbs off, and chances are good you'll die and go to Hades at some point, but it's OK, you generally just walk out again. In fact, Kratos does that with such reliability they might as well install a revolving door.
There's some variation early on, but sooner or later, every God of War game goes through the same motions. You always end up at the Temple of Such-and-Such, having to Prove Your Worth, which is another thing Kratos has to do with anomalous frequency; makes me wonder why he didn't ask for a signed certificate after the first time. I'm not really sure how I feel about the rigidly unchanging formula, though, because while forcing the same minotaur to give your dagger a terminal blowjob does get old after a while, I'm always the first to cry foul when developers wipe their dicks all over a good thing just for innovation's sake. And there's nothing about God of War that really needs changing. It all fits quite nicely together, like furious blood-stained Stickle Bricks.
Well, OK, there are certainly more than a few nitpicks I could make, and I wouldn't be the critic I like to think I am if I didn't furiously pick nits like an amphetamine-fueled chimp. The fixed camera gets annoying when there are enemies off screen, at least half the spells and attacks you get loaded down with throughout the game generally prove to be bloody useless (around weaker enemies there's really no reason to use anything other than the instant-kill grab attack, or as I like to call it, the "Fuck You" button), and there's a terrible habit of having unskippable cutscenes just before really hard boss fights, because obviously after getting our gonads shoved down our throats watching the same tedious dialogue play out a sixth time, it's just the kind of respite we need.
I've just realized I haven't even mentioned what kind of game it is yet, because I assume most viewers already know, but if you're one of those girlfriends of viewers, who don't actually play games, but likes watching these videos anyway, because they secretly want to fuck me, God of War is basically Devil May Cry meets Ray Harryhausen, but with less of the stop-motion plasticine of the latter, or the smirking buggercunts of the former, and like Devil May Cry, what we're really here for is the combat which, as I've already said, is satisfying to the point of eroticism. There's something almost balletic about Kratos swinging his chains around, disemboweling a succession of gurgling dance partners, and there's actually skill to it. Mashing square and triangle will serve up to a point, but sooner or later you'll have to start learning how to get around attack patterns, you know, like you've actually got a brain and shit.
But I think what I like most about the combat is that it fits the character so well. It's like after they finished animating a sequence in which the player bites off a minotaur's face, they thought to themselves, "Well, there's really no way we can characterize this guy as anything other than a brutal psychotic," so they just rolled with it. He's not particularly deep, and he's not particularly congruous, especially when he starts whining about his poor mistreated family while cutting green healing blobs out of wailing bystanders, but Kratos' sheer unbridled horribleness offers an appealing holiday from our namby-pamby civilised selves which, along with most of us unwittingly living in an emasculated conformist nightmare world, is nice to have now and then, if only to stave off suicide for another few hours by running around in our pants, mangling passersby like a human smoothie-maker. In a game, I mean.
So after all that, let's return to our tissue-thin veneer of consumer advice, and talk about whether Chains of Olympus is worth getting. Well, if you felt God of War needed to be about four or five hours longer, then go for it, but you wouldn't be missing much if you held out for a PS2 port. Don't expect anything new, but it's still fun, especially if you picture all the monsters as your childhood bullies. Yes, how do you like that, Brian Paine? We'll see how many dead legs you can give me when you've got a priceless historical artifact sticking out of your bonce!
Chains of Olympus is a PSP-exclusive prequel installment in the God of War series, a bunch of games that combine an (at best) loose understanding of Greek mythology, with a level of violence that hovers somewhere between "excessive" and "completely off its tits". If nothing else, there's no better series for working off frustration, which is handy, because I certainly have a lot to work off after I've been playing with a PSP for a while, when my index fingers are locked into hideous hook shapes, fit only for picking out the crumbs of filth that gather in the stupid analog pad thing that my thumb keeps slipping off, like I'm trying to clumsily finger a robot prostitute, but I digress. There'll be plenty of time to beat on the PSP when I'm capable of making a fist again.
This review is probably going to end up as a general retrospective of the entire God of War series, because frankly, review one game, you've reviewed them all. You play pasty historical misery-guts Kratos, a Spartan warrior with a preposterous jawline, who works as a sort of independent contractor for the Olympian gods, specializing in killing things that would need to go on a starvation diet for years before they could be classified as humongous. You're hurled into a pitched battle right from the start, just in case you thought you were playing something with a modicum of restraint, and before long it's revealed that one or more gods have gone off the straight-and-narrow, and it's up to you brutalize them back into line. On the way, you'll kill enough blameless innocents to fill a decent-sized Parthenon, meet a few mythological creatures and tear their limbs off, and chances are good you'll die and go to Hades at some point, but it's OK, you generally just walk out again. In fact, Kratos does that with such reliability they might as well install a revolving door.
There's some variation early on, but sooner or later, every God of War game goes through the same motions. You always end up at the Temple of Such-and-Such, having to Prove Your Worth, which is another thing Kratos has to do with anomalous frequency; makes me wonder why he didn't ask for a signed certificate after the first time. I'm not really sure how I feel about the rigidly unchanging formula, though, because while forcing the same minotaur to give your dagger a terminal blowjob does get old after a while, I'm always the first to cry foul when developers wipe their dicks all over a good thing just for innovation's sake. And there's nothing about God of War that really needs changing. It all fits quite nicely together, like furious blood-stained Stickle Bricks.
Well, OK, there are certainly more than a few nitpicks I could make, and I wouldn't be the critic I like to think I am if I didn't furiously pick nits like an amphetamine-fueled chimp. The fixed camera gets annoying when there are enemies off screen, at least half the spells and attacks you get loaded down with throughout the game generally prove to be bloody useless (around weaker enemies there's really no reason to use anything other than the instant-kill grab attack, or as I like to call it, the "Fuck You" button), and there's a terrible habit of having unskippable cutscenes just before really hard boss fights, because obviously after getting our gonads shoved down our throats watching the same tedious dialogue play out a sixth time, it's just the kind of respite we need.
I've just realized I haven't even mentioned what kind of game it is yet, because I assume most viewers already know, but if you're one of those girlfriends of viewers, who don't actually play games, but likes watching these videos anyway, because they secretly want to fuck me, God of War is basically Devil May Cry meets Ray Harryhausen, but with less of the stop-motion plasticine of the latter, or the smirking buggercunts of the former, and like Devil May Cry, what we're really here for is the combat which, as I've already said, is satisfying to the point of eroticism. There's something almost balletic about Kratos swinging his chains around, disemboweling a succession of gurgling dance partners, and there's actually skill to it. Mashing square and triangle will serve up to a point, but sooner or later you'll have to start learning how to get around attack patterns, you know, like you've actually got a brain and shit.
But I think what I like most about the combat is that it fits the character so well. It's like after they finished animating a sequence in which the player bites off a minotaur's face, they thought to themselves, "Well, there's really no way we can characterize this guy as anything other than a brutal psychotic," so they just rolled with it. He's not particularly deep, and he's not particularly congruous, especially when he starts whining about his poor mistreated family while cutting green healing blobs out of wailing bystanders, but Kratos' sheer unbridled horribleness offers an appealing holiday from our namby-pamby civilised selves which, along with most of us unwittingly living in an emasculated conformist nightmare world, is nice to have now and then, if only to stave off suicide for another few hours by running around in our pants, mangling passersby like a human smoothie-maker. In a game, I mean.
So after all that, let's return to our tissue-thin veneer of consumer advice, and talk about whether Chains of Olympus is worth getting. Well, if you felt God of War needed to be about four or five hours longer, then go for it, but you wouldn't be missing much if you held out for a PS2 port. Don't expect anything new, but it's still fun, especially if you picture all the monsters as your childhood bullies. Yes, how do you like that, Brian Paine? We'll see how many dead legs you can give me when you've got a priceless historical artifact sticking out of your bonce!
Yep, good review - GoW:CoO is exactly what you'd expect it to be - a pint-sized version of any GoW sans epic huge bosses all over the place because they didn't fit on the UMD. Considering the depth of combat, it's something of a Devil May Cry For Beginners, but even a simplified version of the DMC battle concept is a lot of fun to play.
To be honest, while playing it, I pretty much had the same feeling I had while playing Silent Hill: Origins (also a "prequel) - "deja vu all over by the fans, for the fans".
Oh, and "Damn, that's purdy and some fun!" too
To be honest, while playing it, I pretty much had the same feeling I had while playing Silent Hill: Origins (also a "prequel) - "deja vu all over by the fans, for the fans".
Oh, and "Damn, that's purdy and some fun!" too
Excuse the n00b question but why would someone get banned for being a bit trigger fingered and writing a thread comment that quickly?Red Shadow said:
ZP, Your a god, You have managed to ease my girlfriend through that unhappy state of gaming uneasiness that I got rid of pre-Sonic II and I sit here now after watching your review, listening happily as she murders the entire city of people on the new GTA, while pondering whether or not it is worth dragging out my ps2 to play GoW 1&2 again...
Is it truly reasonable to expect a PS2 port of the PSP game?
Well the part about the review one review them all is very very true since they have the same type of gameplay. But it was really smart and funny. And to the point as always cause the camera does suck and it doesn't offer anything brand new, except the story which was great. And I was kinda bummed about the sex scenes too. But I guess Yahtzee had his reasons.
a review that was funny but as usual got the point across.
not a game of the year, but a game of the hour after your boss chews you out? i think so.
good job Yahtzee.
Magnus.
not a game of the year, but a game of the hour after your boss chews you out? i think so.
good job Yahtzee.
Magnus.
"Brawl is still shit?" Nice.
When are people going to realize this is one person's opinion? A person you will likely never meet? If Yahtzee were to come out and say the Kingdom Hearts series was for emo, fanfic writing pussies I wouldn't feel compelled to defend it. (I'd probably agree with him to an extent.) Taking personal offense to someone's criticism on something you like is just retarded.
That being said, I played the first God of War but haven't felt the need to play any of the other games. I have a friend who is a die-hard Spartan wannabe (GoW, Halo, 300), and he highly recommend I pick up the sequels, but then again he's the kind of guy who gets sexually aroused when his fists hit something that feels pain.
When are people going to realize this is one person's opinion? A person you will likely never meet? If Yahtzee were to come out and say the Kingdom Hearts series was for emo, fanfic writing pussies I wouldn't feel compelled to defend it. (I'd probably agree with him to an extent.) Taking personal offense to someone's criticism on something you like is just retarded.
That being said, I played the first God of War but haven't felt the need to play any of the other games. I have a friend who is a die-hard Spartan wannabe (GoW, Halo, 300), and he highly recommend I pick up the sequels, but then again he's the kind of guy who gets sexually aroused when his fists hit something that feels pain.
Very nice review,
Last one was a bit slower then usual, but this one is quick and snappy.
Thanks.
Last one was a bit slower then usual, but this one is quick and snappy.
Thanks.
dont think that there were QTE's in this 1 form what i know of. Anyway good review and yes brawl does suck.
you know i would've bet dollars to dimes yahtzee wouldv'e trashed this game, infact i think this is one of his most positive reveiws yet, not complaining just pointing it out. i enjoyed gow2 and i was curious about this game because when not on the psp it seems like it's brutal fun.
i will admit i am surprised that yahtzee has now reveiwed a game on every console thats , it seems a little odd he's kind of randomly peppering the market, i know the escapist pays for the individual games he buys but do they also pay for consoles to play them on? especially something like the psp i imagine the people who might actually buy the game is a relativley small group considering the psps somewhat shitty sales.
but overall really good review and funny as almost always
i will admit i am surprised that yahtzee has now reveiwed a game on every console thats , it seems a little odd he's kind of randomly peppering the market, i know the escapist pays for the individual games he buys but do they also pay for consoles to play them on? especially something like the psp i imagine the people who might actually buy the game is a relativley small group considering the psps somewhat shitty sales.
but overall really good review and funny as almost always
dude, you could totally illustrate congruous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congruence_(geometry)
oh, and I LOVED STICKO BRICKS!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congruence_(geometry)
oh, and I LOVED STICKO BRICKS!
I posted this in the SSBB forum, but I've got time (not really, I'm procrastinating) so I'll post it here too:
I think Yahtzee added that last line just to get us riled up again, mostly because the reaction would be entertaining. And also to tell those that email him to stop, because his opinion won't change even if people email him for the next 5 years, since the only real way for an opinion to change is if you decide so yourself. Either way, let's not talk about whether or not brawl is good or bad here. There's another forum for that already (yes, I know this sounds hypocritical after what I just said, and I'm sorry).
But yeah, GoW seems interesting...never played it but I'll try now, soon as I have access to a PSP...
I think Yahtzee added that last line just to get us riled up again, mostly because the reaction would be entertaining. And also to tell those that email him to stop, because his opinion won't change even if people email him for the next 5 years, since the only real way for an opinion to change is if you decide so yourself. Either way, let's not talk about whether or not brawl is good or bad here. There's another forum for that already (yes, I know this sounds hypocritical after what I just said, and I'm sorry).
But yeah, GoW seems interesting...never played it but I'll try now, soon as I have access to a PSP...