Board 8 > God of War review from IGN- 10/10

(+) Yeah! (+)

GameSpot's review does a pretty good job. The other ones I looked at didn't do much for me (a few mentioned literally none of the mechanics of combat). I do have high standards for action game combat though.
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Maybe this will be the first good one!

Really couldn't care less about the "baby's first character action game" button masher that is this series, but maybe this new direction will click with me. Gamefly LOCKED IN.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Are there really no reviewers who will give you the sort of nuts and bolts dissection of the action you want?

General audience review sites have never been about giving you intricate details of a video game like the specific mechanics of an action game or which character is top tier in a fighting game. They are about telling a widespread type of audience what this game is and what it's like - and that's always going to skew towards high-level discussion and the reviewer's experience instead of "under-the-hood" information like that.

It drives me nuts when people, especially people who have read video game reviews for years, get mad about these general review sites not going into such intricate detail of a video game - you should be well aware of what reviews are and who they're targeted at by now.
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swirIdude posted...

They are about telling a widespread type of audience what this game is and what it's like - and that's always going to skew towards high-level discussion and the reviewer's experience instead of "under-the-hood" information like that.

That's not the problem, there's a reason we're having this topic about this game and not the dozens of other AAA games the enthusiast press reviews at a high level like you're describing. These reviews feel weirdly empty and disingenuous. It's like they all copied vlado's review style.
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LapisLazuli posted...

Really couldn't care less about the "baby's first character action game" button masher that is this series

Hey at least the hard mode required repeating the same 3 button combo and dodging very precisely
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KamikazePotato posted...

Nothing about hitstun, input buffering, air time, animation canceling. You know, the fucking basics of what makes an action game interesting.

I have never ever seen a mainstream site's game review mention these things, not even for a fighting game. Whoever complained about this is being kinda dumb tbh. The reviews are meant for any gamer, and most gamers don't necessarily care about all the specifics, the numbers, the exact mechanics. They care about is this game fun or is this game interesting, which I can tell the reviewers obviously think the game is either one of those or both of those.
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foolm0r0n posted...

These reviews feel weirdly empty and disingenuous. It's like they all copied vlado's review style.

As someone who once didn't hate Vlado and put reviews of games on his website, I can say that Vlado's review style is definitely not empty or disingenuous. It's over-opinionated and filled with so much of him that no one but him could fully relate to or understand them (except maybe Ulti because they're not too far off from each other).
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Let's Name other games that IGN have given that 10/10 too.
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Regarding Uncharted 3, that game got worse scores than 2 and 4 and rightly so. If somebody thinks it's a 10 though, it's just an opinion. There have also been plenty of big budget, cinematic games that have reviewed poorly. Remember The Order?

foolm0r0n posted...

swirIdude posted...

They are about telling a widespread type of audience what this game is and what it's like - and that's always going to skew towards high-level discussion and the reviewer's experience instead of "under-the-hood" information like that.

That's not the problem, there's a reason we're having this topic about this game and not the dozens of other AAA games the enthusiast press reviews at a high level like you're describing. These reviews feel weirdly empty and disingenuous. It's like they all copied vlado's review style.

The only major high scoring review I can remember that felt truly empty was Gamespot's review of MGSV. The reason for this was that Konami only allowed pre-release reviews to be from a review event where press got 30 hours with the game, so it was not a full review of the full game. Review events are bad. They rarely happen nowadays though.
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Solioxrz362 posted...

foolm0r0n posted...

These reviews feel weirdly empty and disingenuous. It's like they all copied vlado's review style.

As someone who once didn't hate Vlado and put reviews of games on his website, I can say that Vlado's review style is definitely not empty or disingenuous. It's over-opinionated and filled with so much of him that no one but him could fully relate to or understand them (except maybe Ulti because they're not too far off from each other).

I didnt know you had turned on Vlado! What caused you to do that?
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His brain probably

The reviews do remind me of MGSV though. Highly praising but still empty in a way that suggests they are hiding something. In MGSV it was the lack of story, in this game is might be the gameplay or something else. We'll see I guess.
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the new Beastcast spends the first 50 minutes talking about God of War

https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/the-giant-beastcast-episode-151/1600-2301/
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foolm0r0n posted...

KamikazePotato posted...

I'm saying that these reviews were decided long ago more on principles by the games journos than on anything related to the game's quality

Eh I don't know if that really happens. It's really clear in these cases that it's pure marketing. You can tell because they don't mention the senseless violence and objectification and outdated gamer power fantasy that defined the previous GoWs, even as they emphasize how THIS GoW is different and justifies all those things. They only mention praise for the GoW series, as if they are contractually obligated to not say anything that could hurt the brand.

Also worth noting is that gaming journalists normally love to talk at length about senseless violence, objectification and outdated gamer power fantasies, so that they would pass up a golden opportunity to do so here is rather out of character for them.

tazzyboyishere posted...

When I saw Nate stumbling around and dying in the desert like a bitch, I thought, "Wow, maybe this guy isn't the badass sociopath I thought he was". It was important for the writers to establish that fear of wasting your time on three games playing as a soyboy, only to rip that mentality out of your mind with some good, old-fashioned manslaughter. That moment alone makes the game worthy of straight 10s from dudes who'd rather be writing movie reviews.

I'll pay more attention to your posts from now on
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https://kotaku.com/six-reasons-why-god-of-war-totally-owns-1825252561

Tim Rogers said he liked it so I will agree with him. Still too vague though...
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tim rodgers review seems to imply no one wants to ruin the surprise
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I've seen literally nothing of this game outside of the first few looks at gameplay we've had but I'm going to spoiler bar my speculation just in case people don't want any outside influence on their thinking before they pick this up.

I'll be completely honest, the gameplay looked so rough to me during the first couple of looks that I instantly started pondering if there would be a big twist and Kratos would die super early in the game and you play as the kid the rest of the time. Kind of like how Roxas handles pretty poorly in KH2's intro and then when you switch to Sora the gameplay becomes buttery smooth.

I'd be very surprised if they actually did that, though! Could potentially be a really sweet move.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Solioxrz362 posted...

foolm0r0n posted...

These reviews feel weirdly empty and disingenuous. It's like they all copied vlado's review style.

As someone who once didn't hate Vlado and put reviews of games on his website, I can say that Vlado's review style is definitely not empty or disingenuous. It's over-opinionated and filled with so much of him that no one but him could fully relate to or understand them (except maybe Ulti because they're not too far off from each other).

I didnt know you had turned on Vlado! What caused you to do that?

the same thing that causes anyone to not like either him or Ulti

Impossibly bad at talking to other people because they're so brash with their opinions. And they actively go out of their way to be rude about things they believe. They literally post topics just to shit on things other people might like. You know how it is.

I think it was after he said he loved Trump's Pocahontas joke at the Navaho veterans' event and called it hilarious or something that I asked him to pull all my reviews from his site. Like why. That was actively offensive and poorly-timed and it's funny because people are mad? I'm cool with other opinions but not okay with providing content to an asshole's dead website.
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