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God of War: Ascension reviews

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Didn't Zelda:TP get 8.8? So, not really 7-8/10.




I'm indifferent to it to be honest. He did give the game a 3/5 and the only noteworthy dislike that he had was the trophy name. He sort of back-pedalled and quickly scrapped together some nonsensical negatives afterwards but it says a lot. Let's also not forget his Sly 4 review. 2/5 for being more Sly? Yeah....

Er, what? He clearly detailed the camera issues in both SP and MP pulling out too far losing the impact of the action and losing Kratos in the shuffle, difficulty imbalances that showed weakenesses within the game's combat that he was banging his head on for hours, puzzles that had an odd logic to figure out. He had many complaints, the issue he seems to have with the segment relating to getting this trophy just appeared to be the cherry on top.
 

nib95

Banned
Because that is not exception but has been the rule in god of war series

kratos_headr2ild.gif


tumblr_lr4p3yB4mp1qdpdzzo1_500.gif


tumblr_lyylswdZ1A1qdc8j6o1_500.gif


What part of this is NOT cheap?

I think the difference here is that he's beating the shit out of a women. Now I'm not saying that's intrinsically wrong, not when the women happens to be a Fury who will wreck your shit and is evil personified anyway, but a little bit of tact after having smashed in her face (curb stomping) might be in order. Bros before Hos being the trophy you win for the death might have just been a touch too far.
 
Kratos alway seems to rustle peoples jimmies with his actions. I still love him though, one of the most colourful characters Sony produced. From what I hear SSM has succeeded in making Kratos more human so I can't wait to see how the story unfolds but definitely will be playing on hard for added challenge.

That's brave, considering how many people say that section at the end is brutal (I'm assuming these reviewers played on Normal), and you can't switch difficulty mid-game.

I'm sort of dreading that part myself, but maybe I'm taking these reviewers too seriously.
 
I'm a little shocked by the outrage. It seems that if there was no trophy associated with that event or if the trophy had a different name it'd be OK. Neither of those would change what actually occurs. GOW has crass elements and over the top violence. This is no different. Some were bound to be offended but I'm far from surprised to see something like this in a GOW title.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I think the difference here is that he's beating the shit out of a women. Now I'm not saying that's intrinsically wrong, not when the women happens to be a Fury who will wreck your shit and is evil personified anyway, but a little bit of tact after having smashed in her face (curb stomping) might be in order. Bros before Hos being the trophy you win for the death might have just been a touch too far.

A Fury is another creature. They look kind of humanlike but still very monstery. I guess I'll have to see it in context but I doubt it'll bother me as much given what I know about those creatures in mythology.
 
I too am interested in this big gauntlet the reviews seem to be struggling with. Even the DTOID guy, who loved the game, gave it a 9/10, said he found himself screaming at the TV at that section.

I LOVE the Gauntlet before the big Sister of Fate in GoW2, but it's a properly paced batch of encounters. Challenging, but with health/magic/titan chests/orbs you can ration, and with a bit of experience and memorization, it's a fun challenge. Loved tricking the enemies I don't want to deal with behind the blue walls.

Don't like the similar onslaught in GoW3. Hated how it was compact to one room. In GoW2, you got that sense of progression going down the path, but in GoW3 it's so cramp, it felt tedious. Blargh.
 

HoJu

Member
ok, so we have Sessler who enjoys the hyper-violence and sexy parts of God of War, yet he still has a problem with the trophy.

Sessler said in his review that those aspects keeps it within a context of Greek mythology.
So the violence and sex are in service of transporting the players into the crazy shit the Greeks thought up. Also Kratos is kind of angry in the series, so him ripping people apart goes with his whole persona.

By having a trophy saying "Bros Before Hos", one might get the impression that the developers are essentially saying "fuck yeah you bashed her face in VIOLENCE MOTHERFUCKERS". It also doesn't help that they use a tired and pandering phrase.

You know how people groan at the attendees of e3 who cheer when someone's face gets blown apart or when they egg on the guy playing skyrim to kill something? The same type of thing is happening, but this time it's the developers themselves who are doing the cheering.
 

Veelk

Banned
I think the difference here is that he's beating the shit out of a women. Now I'm not saying that's intrinsically wrong, not when the women happens to be a Fury who will wreck your shit and is evil personified anyway, but a little bit of tact after having smashed in her face (curb stomping) might be in order. Bros before Hos being the trophy you win for the death might have just been a touch too far.

Apply the same to the men he beats up. If your upset about this, what about "Totally baked" after completing the human sacrifice ritual in GoW1, or "Shoe Delivery" after mutilating and killing hermes?

Unless you take the same issue with those, I don't think that's a valid argument. Your Kratos. You are a reprehensible human being. It's your thing. Man or woman, you are doing horrible things to everyone within your vicinity. You can either take that in stride and laugh at the post mortem quips in the trophy list, or you can find them distasteful, but I don't think you should pick and choose, especially if it's only based on gender.
 
The "bros before hos" thing is just immature. I know the franchise has never been about maturity of any kind, but I can understand "bros before hos" irking someone in context. It's definitely a phrase that could undermine any sort of dramatic intent in the moment. Let's not lose track that he still gave the game a 3/5 and had a long list of gameplay/narrative related criticisms before speaking on this.
 

Spinluck

Member
God of War IV shall feature a female protagonist, and take place in Egyptian mythos. So I guess it'd be called Goddess of War.

In this game, she shall curb stomp the fuck out of one of the main MALE VILLAINS face, thus prompting the trophy; "Chicks before dicks".

Thus the balance shall be restored, and people can stop crying and overeating to a joke.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
God of War IV shall feature a female protagonist, and take place in Egyptian mythos. So I guess it'd be called Goddess of War.

In this game, she shall curb stomp the fuck out of one of the main MALE VILLAINS face, thus prompting the trophy; "Chicks before dicks".

Thus the balance shall be restored, and people can stop crying and overeating to a joke.

This would be hilarious.
 

Jigolo

Member
Ok, can they NOW do something different with the series? I mean it really needs something fresh.

Honestly I hope this is the last GOW game. Although I would have room for one more because of the ending of GOW3. But ABSOLUTELY no more prequels. Finish the series with GOW4 on PS4 or make GOW:A the last one. Just please move the fuck on SSM. They are just so talented, I want to see what new kinds of games they could come up with.
 

nib95

Banned

I like Machinima reviews, but my personal take from this is rather negative. Things I'm not liking that I'm hearing about this game.

- Shorter campaign than GOW3 (GOW3 was too short, GOW2 was the sweet spot).
- Fewer boss fights (Boss fights are one of the best things about GOW games).
- No different unique weapons (different elements are nice, but not as diverse as different weapons).
- Not as consistently large scale as GOW3

Little bit disappointed.


Apply the same to the men he beats up. If your upset about this, what about "Totally baked" after completing the human sacrifice ritual in GoW1, or "Shoe Delivery" after mutilating and killing hermes?

Unless you take the same issue with those, I don't think that's a valid argument. Your Kratos. You are a reprehensible human being. It's your thing. Man or woman, you are doing horrible things to everyone within your vicinity. You can either take that in stride and laugh at the post mortem quips in the trophy list, or you can find them distasteful, but I don't think you should pick and choose, especially if it's only based on gender.

Are you seriously trying to imply that beating up a man is as bad as beating up a women in the same way? I get that the violence is grotesque either way (that's GOW), but some tact could be reserved when he's destroying a female. Not saying take out the violence, just do away with the immature frat boy trophy. I say this as a huge GOW fan mind you.
 

moolhy

Banned
This is one of the best trailers this generation. Seriously. What a way to explain the game's core mechanics and its premise.

Death is in my blood. Fate has brought me here. I hope for nothing. I fear nothing.
- Kratos

That's about as deep as the character will ever get, and I'm OK with that. And on that note, I feel Ascension is fluff is what is otherwise an impeccable saga.
But I'll be there day 1.
:(

BTW, does anyone know the name of the track playing in the trailer? It's so effing epic!
 

Stillmatic

Member
ok, so we have Sessler who enjoys the hyper-violence and sexy parts of God of War, yet he still has a problem with the trophy.

Sessler said in his review that those aspects keeps it within a context of Greek mythology.
So the violence and sex are in service of transporting the players into the crazy shit the Greeks thought up. Also Kratos is kind of angry in the series, so him ripping people apart goes with his whole persona.

By having a trophy saying "Bros Before Hos", one might get the impression that the developers are essentially saying "fuck yeah you bashed her face in VIOLENCE MOTHERFUCKERS". It also doesn't help that they use a tired and pandering phrase.

You know how people groan at the attendees of e3 who cheer when someone's face gets blown apart or when they egg on the guy playing skyrim to kill something? The same type of thing is happening, but this time it's the developers themselves who are doing the cheering.
TLOU? When his head got blown off the demo ended, people were cheering because the new game they just demoed looked fantastic.
 
God of War IV shall feature a female protagonist, and take place in Egyptian mythos. So I guess it'd be called Goddess of War.

In this game, she shall curb stomp the fuck out of one of the main MALE VILLAINS face, thus prompting the trophy; "Chicks before dicks".

Thus the balance shall be restored, and people can stop crying and overeating to a joke.

I want this to happen. I'd buy 2 copies day 1
 
This is fucking stupid, the argument is now that violence involving women is a moral hazard but if it's against a male you're totally fine? Some of you need to chill out, some people seem to be going out of their ways to generate outrage. If it's guys saying something snarky or joking about a brutal kill against a male how is that radically different from a female employee coming up with that joke involving kratos killing a "female" creature?
 

AZUMIKE

Member
Having a trophy called "Bros before Hos" is silly. Didn't need to be there. IMO neither did Totally baked" or "Shoe Delivery". Lol its just outta place. Why these design choices in a Greek mythos, idk. Maybe it was to "lighten" up the mood. If thats the case, Santa Monica failed miserably.
 

nib95

Banned
This is fucking stupid, the argument is now that violence involving women is a moral hazard but if it's against a male you're totally fine? Some of you need to chill out, some people seem to be going out of their ways to generate outrage.

Has anyone said that? This is about the immature trophy, not the violence towards the fury.

EDIT: I should add, if it was me reviewing the game, the trophy would not have changed my score in any way (I don't think). It would just be something I would think was especially immature and unnecessary.

2nd EDIT: I do think these reviews might affect the sales of the game. A few big games have reviewed much better than I think many were expecting, prompting impulse buys with MGS R and Tomb Raider, that coupled with the slightly less than expected critical reception for Ascension might impact it somewhat. I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of the worse selling GOW games.
 

Veelk

Banned
Has anyone said that? This is about the immature trophy, not the violence towards the fury.

Like I asked in my previous post, do other immature trophy names elicit the same reaction from you? I don't mean that as a challenge or anything, I'm honestly just curiosity.
 

Draper

Member
Has anyone said that? This is about the immature trophy, not the violence towards the fury.

I'm perplexed by the outrage. 'Bros before hoes' i.e. friends before women when applied to the killing of some demonic female creature thing does not seem the least bit offensive to me.
 

HoJu

Member
TLOU? When his head got blown off the demo ended, people were cheering because the new game they just demoed looked fantastic.
I agree with that for TLOU, but I am pretty sure there have been some other instances where the crowd reacted that way.
Either way, hopefully you understand what I'm getting at. :p
 

Spinluck

Member
This is one of the best trailers this generation. Seriously. What a way to explain the game's core mechanics and its premise.

Death is in my blood. Fate has brought me here. I hope for nothing. I fear nothing.
- Kratos

That's about as deep as the character will ever get, and I'm OK with that. And on that note, I feel Ascension is fluff is what is otherwise an impeccable saga.
But I'll be there day 1.
:(

BTW, does anyone know the name of the track playing in the trailer? It's so effing epic!

Wow.

Now that is a VIDEO GAME trailer.

Not to say we don't like the occasional pre-rendered or CGI stuff.

But more games should take note from that. I can't believe I don't remember seeing this before. That would skyrocketed have my GoW3 hype.
 

nib95

Banned
Like I asked in my previous post, do other immature trophy names elicit the same reaction from you? I don't mean that as a challenge or anything, I'm honestly just curiosity.

The others weren't as sensitive or potentially misogynistic. I like a good laugh, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't used the term many times before, but in response to smashing a women's face in? Too much. Not funny.
 

libregkd

Member
Are you seriously trying to imply that beating up a man is as bad as beating up a women in the same way?
If I were to personally witness something on the scale of what happens in the GoW franchise in real life, I'd say its equally fucked up. Doesn't matter if the victim was a man or a woman.
 

Veelk

Banned
Are you seriously trying to imply that beating up a man is as bad as beating up a women in the same way? I get that the violence is grotesque either way (that's GOW), but some tact could be reserved when he's destroying a female. Not saying take out the violence, just do away with the immature frat boy trophy. I say this as a huge GOW fan mind you.

I missed this response, so I'll reply to it now.

I wouldn't imply it, I'll say it outright. There is nothing more or less reprehensible in beating up a man than there is beating up a woman. Both are human beings and both have the same basic rights.

Now, I can understand reacting with greater discomfort to seeing a woman beaten up than a man because society and biological instincts tell us it's worse because they've been re-enforced for hundreds of years.

But on a morally intellectual level (which is the level that actually matters in deciding if something is right or wrong), no, no there isn't any difference in how wrong it is to do harm to a person based on gender and I'd argue that it is sexist to say there is.

If you can justify the quips for men, the same justification applies for women. It may still be distasteful for you personally, but I don't think you could say it's distasteful in general. Or you could argue that it is distasteful in general, but for both men and women.
 

Domino792

Member
The others weren't as sensitive or potentially misogynistic. I like a good laugh, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't used the term many times before, but in response to smashing a women's face in? Too much. Not funny.

FeaturedMediaFury1.jpg


strange that this is considered a women over a monster.
 

adelante

Member
http://blog.godofwar.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/FeaturedMediaFury1.jpg[//IMG]

strange that this is considered a women over a monster.[/QUOTE]

Maybe the issue here is that "hoes" is widely accepted as derogatory, so a trophy encouraging its use bothered Sessler? I can see how it's a tad much on the dev's part in this case..
 

AZUMIKE

Member
The arguemnt is this: there is a problem when game developers flippantly handle brutal death. Sure it was a monster Fury. Sure its a mythos. Thats all fine. But adding "Bros before Hos" as a cherry on top to the experience was a MISTAKE.

Thats like playing a WWII game, and adding a provocative trophy...(not gonna give examples). Its uncalled for.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
FeaturedMediaFury1.jpg


strange that this is considered a women over a monster.

She has a human female's face, human female's voice, and speaks human language. She has human female breasts (although a tad porous for my taste) and a skimpy outfit. She's meant to evoke human femaleness even if she's part creature. The in-game model even looks more human than that concept art.

So is there an Online Pass with this one or

do I even need to ask

Pretty sure yes.
 

vg260

Member
But on a morally intellectual level (which is the level that actually matters in deciding if something is right or wrong), no, no there isn't any difference in how wrong it is to do harm to a person based on gender and I'd argue that it is sexist to say there is.

Sure, but the trophy then relates it to a common phrase that is meant to differentiate between genders, and to prioritize one over the other in a sense. It removes any gender-neutralty. So to correlate that violence to gender preference (i.e guys rule, girls suck) is what is disturbing to people with this. Make sense?
 

libregkd

Member
The arguemnt is this: there is a problem when game developers flippantly handle brutal death. Sure it was a monster Fury. Sure its a mythos. Thats all fine. But adding "Bros before Hos" as a cherry on top to the experience was a MISTAKE.

Thats like playing a WWII game, and adding a provocative trophy...(not gonna give examples). Its uncalled for.
I don't think that's the argument though. People seemed fined with these kind of trophies in the past GoW games. (Coming to mind atm are the trophies related to Helios and Poseidon Princess from GoW3)

Though I'll say given this whole controversy, I would have loved to see what reactions would be if the Amazons were ever introduced in the GoW series given their misandric tendencies lol.
 

adelante

Member
The arguemnt is this: there is a problem when game developers flippantly handle brutal death. Sure it was a monster Fury. Sure its a mythos. Thats all fine. But adding "Bros before Hos" as a cherry on top to the experience was a MISTAKE.

Thats like playing a WWII game, and adding a provocative trophy...(not gonna give examples). Its uncalled for.

Yep, he even said as much, saying he had always liked the adult-fantasy in the GoW games, but to encourage the use of a derogatory slur is needless. Sad that many people here can't even grasp that, and resort to childish whining or laughing it off.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
He also noted that there would be a “new game plus mode that changes things when you play through a second time,” but he didn’t go into any further detail, so that could just be the ability to wear different outfits on a replay.

Hope you can skip the cutscenes this time around. That was one of the main reasons that killed my desire to replay GoW3 much after I got the Platinum.

A new game+ that alters SOMETHING interesting would go a long way for me.

In case no one answered this already, the demo had the option to skip a cutscene. Not all the little short ones, but the boss introduction scene offered a skip option when I paused.
 
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