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Patrick Klepek: I Really Like 'God of War,' But Reserve The Right to Change My Mind
- Thread starter Vimes
- Start date
All of these games have achievements and/or collectibles. So they are gamey trash in your opinion.
if this is the quality of criticism from Waypoint on God of War, especially the supposed misogyny (an amazing stretch)
makes me think how there going to respond to this
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I don't believe they've accused the game of misogyny? Isn't it that the past games in the series have inarguable misogyny and they feel this game doesn't do enough to correct and address those past mistakes by lacking a prominent female presence that exists outside of how her life impacted the men around her? It's very obvious that much of the new God of War is intended to address criticisms of its lineage, and if it does not directly confront and address one of the most prominent aspects of the past games, isn't it worth saying so?
Your position feels a little reductive. Can someone point me to the part in the podcast where they explicitly say it's a misogynist game?
It's a collectible. Most games have collectibles. Your suspension of disbelief should be adequate enough that game-related aspects like that wouldn't take you out of the experience. Does entering a menu screen make the game tonally dissonant to you? Besides, aren't the toy ships objects Atreus played with in the area surrounding their cabin? So they have some in-universe explanation for existing and for Kratos to be interested enough to pick them up, even if you end up selling them later to buy upgrades.
The Witch of the Woods is the best character in the game. She's the most fully realized, most understandable character in the game as well. For you to say that a strong female character does not exist in this game is simply not true. Her VO and general caring about everyone is at odds with Kratos, his son and the rest of the world.
It's almost like Atreus is a 10 year old kid or something. And they don't bury Faye so not sure what you mean.
Imagine thinking that saying you could potentially change your mind on something eliciting a response like this.
See my previous response. It's not about collectibles, it's about what the games do with them and when they do it (thus why I called them precepts that don't follow the logical flow of events).
Just because there's an in-universe reason for something existing doesn't mean it's justified. An in-universe reason for sexism doesn't excuse it. For purposes of storytelling, there's no reason to introduce these goofy things right after a serious moment. Maybe after they meet Brok or something it would be fine, but that's a different moment with a different tone about it; one that, in particular, is more justified in exploring and expanding on collectibles.
Yep. My son watches videos on YouTube and starts taking opinions as facts and starts to question his own. That shit spreads through schoolyards, forums, YouTube etc. It's like people don't trust there own opinions anymore or are scared to speak there own. Even on this site it happens all the time. Everyone seems positive about a game or a movie but some random YouTuber has some criticisms about it and all of a sudden they agree with him/her, like they have a special opinion. I see this everywhere now.
I think Austin is so highly regarded because he understands who he is, and always takes time to explain his viewpoint. Even when he doesn't know or gets something wrong, he explains the thought-process behind all that as well. He's also humorous.
Outside of the real basic combat with no synergy between systems especially compared to the two games that proceeded it, its biggest fault, for me, was its story. They set up the majority being corrupt, racist, assholes, you fight them for a bit, but now the minority are even more fucked up. So you fight both sides for awhile, and then all of a sudden they drop the story with no resolution for some metaverse shenanigans. There's no nuance as to why the city is in ruins, and they make no attempt to make a resolution to that story because ultimately none of it mattered.
There's always been misogyny in God of War. Maybe not the new one but to say that the shit with Aphrodite in 3 wasn't misogynistic is some real Galaxy Brain shit.
Austin Walker criticized the new GoW for not addressing the previous games' issues with misogyny. He contextualized this by saying that the mother doesn't have a VO. I find that argument to be specious.
And I don't find the collectibles tonally dissonant in GoW. You find those toys because Atreus left them around the woods around his home over the years. They fit fine in the world and by no means detract, let alone cause tonal dissonance.
God of War actually addresses collecting stuff and sidequesting in game dialogue multiple times. It is thematically consistent with Atreuses need to help people and sets up the dialectic framework of how the the parenting of the Kratos and Laufey have influenced him. The dialectic in particular is pragmatism vs humanism.
Austin is educatedand well spoken, but i think his well spokeness sometimes charms you guys which allows him to get away with poor quality arguments
It's in the full post PUBG was their GOTY and a lot of people fought against that idea they dismissed Fortnite as just a clone (yes but it's style and free entry price won the masses)
They do a story every podcast about wow fortnite is huge umm I still don't like it
But man PUBG is trying and I tried to get back into it ..
It's that man we screwed up tone
I love the bombcast listen every week
Huge fan can't wait for E3 coverage it's my favorite
its completely wrong
if you played God of War you would see that it's wrong
This is what Atreus writes when you pick up the toy boat:
"We found this little toy near the house. I used to have one like it..."
Maybe it's tonally dissonant for you, but in my opinion the game does give full justification for the collectibles, it's a trend with the game, it goes out of it's way to justify why Kratos and Atreus would even bother with these menial sidequests at every step of the way and the collectibles are no different.
Ok. I've pretty much already explained where they would be appropriate and where they wouldn't be, but if that's not enough, about all I can say is you've normalized game-y things far more than I have.
Goofy stuff like this and people not realizing it's goofy is probably the problem with a lot of criticism (and development!) in video games though.
I only played a couple of hours, and I really like it don't get me wrong, but I sincerely doubt it. Even mentioning the word "women" in front of a bunch of gaming dudes would set them off in a defensive fit.
Kratos did some awful shift in the past and he regrets as shown by playing the game, their entire journey is to fulfil the mother's wish, I don't really see what else they could do.
I mean have you played the game? If you haven't, I'm kind of amazed that you can make a claim like that. If you have, do tell, because you learn about Faye on the journey and there is a good reason she has no VO.
And this is where I wonder why people can argue about things when they simply do not have the information in which to make a valid argument. It's really frustrating.
Her angry speech at of the game is probably the best acting and dialogue in the whole thing.
So?
Doesn't change the fact there were tons of people there calling the game out as the guilded terd it was at launch, and plenty more in the months that followed.
Mere months, weeks after launch tje game dropped off the face of the earth mindshare wise, except for when there were numerous threads made about how the game was all hype and flash and no substance.
It didn't take years. It was more like the morning after, and that' just for the people who didnt see through it right away.
Your opinion is not absolute or somehow superior to anyone elses. I don't find that stuff goofy, out of place or tonally dissonant any more than collecting glowing floating orbs in Journey to make my scarf longer. It sounds like you're just making some rather arbitrary choices about when collectibles and other gamey elements are "goofy" and out of place.
Justification is not the issue here.
I understand perfectly what they are and why they're there. They are out of place in the flow of the game. It is the transition of one event to the next that is the issue.
I would hope that this is obvious?
Someone who unironically uses a Game Grumps video to convey their criticism doesn't get to then complain about the "problem with video game criticism".
1) What makes it "goofy" to you?
2) Toys that Atreus played with throughout his years growing up in the woods is a perfectly reasonable and logical reason for there to be such items around that area. In fact, it's the only appropriate place for them to be placed and collected.
If anything, it would make sense for Kratos to gather such items, so Atreus wouldn't be distracted during their training and hunting in the woods
I have, though I'm not deep into the game. As of right now, there's only one female character in the game, but in regards to the wife, the very notion of that Kratos ever had another relationship after numerous games of him being extremely violent against women (coupled with the game's brazenly objectifying view of them in any instance outside of that) going uncommented feels completely disingenuous.
Do we know anything about her character, like at all? To me they kind of side stepped that specific issue and clumped it together with "oh Kratos did some bad shit in the past."
You're exaggerating. It wouldn't have rated that high in GOTYs if it was the general consensus that year.
I always thought the perceived misogyny was about the sex and not the women murder.
Hell, I saw the women murder as pretty progressive back then. Was a great way to avoid the Men are the more expendable gender trope and show that there's absolutely no discrimination in Kratos' unapologetic rage. That goes a long way toward equality imo.
He's extremely violent against everyone. There are certainly sexist issues with the depiction of women in the original games but Kratos treats everyone and everything with violence and anger. Its how interacts with the world around him be they man or woman.
You learn quite a bit about her character as the game goes on.
Using Game Grumps as legitimate game criticism is a new one.
The mother is dead.
You must think this makes you sound smart.
The mother is dead.
Only using it to convey something a person with less stake in the game, good or bad, might present.
I've already described in great detail what makes it goofy. The transition of events from burying a dead wife to collecting toys is goofy and tonally dissonant. Those events do not flow into one another.
Yes. You learn more about her as the game goes on as the plot of the game is about fulfilling her dying request.
We learn a lot about her through Kratos, Sindri, and Atreus' comments
And the ending
She's arguably the most important character
People deal with grief differently. You do not know his ways.
They do, it's called return to mundanity. Like when you go to a funeral and have food afterwards.
I'm still perplexed how this is tonally dissonant. There isn't even a transition as you put it. Its just picking up items along the way. Kratos and Atreus don't make a huge deal about going well out of their way to pick up said toys. They pick them up, make a comment and are already moving on.
I really played myself posting a Waypoint article when I've hit the max number of people I'm allowed to have on my ignore list. Fun fact, it's 1000.
There are definitely more than 1000 people on Era who are performatively dismissive of social commentary or any kind of academic criticism of games. I'm not here to engage with those people, so it would be nice to be able to ignore them all.
That seems like a bit much. You can of course cater the forum experience to whatever meets your needs, but 1000 people on a message board of 30 thousand (with maybe 60% of those members being active) is a ludicrous number. If that many people annoyed me to the point of blocking them on a small site like this, I'd probably just go to a different site.
Assuming you'll even see this post since I might be on ignore as I'm not the most progressive poster around.
The general consensus was the last of us. And iirc, by a lot.
Might want to think about how percentages work, how many games were in the running, and the multiple likely outcomes you would be looking at for 'second place'.... And then how very little your statement actually means because of that.
You keep saying this. They aren't "collecting toys"; they're out hunting in the woods and Kratos is testing Atreus. Him collecting the forgotten toys Atreus has left in the woods is tonally consistent, since it would make sense for Kratos to want to remove any distractions that might mess with Atreus' focus and training.
That's the thing about vocal minority, they live in a bubble of their own opinion and the bubble only gets less transparent over time. There's handful of people who genuinely think UC4 being overrated and TLoU having terrible gameplay is a universally accepted opinion.
Again, you're exaggerating. Second place isn't garbage. People definitely turned against the game, and it wasn't in the first year.
That she was an incredible woman. Smart, kind, brave, beloved, respected and a fierce warrior. That she's dead, but
planned and/or forsaw everything that Kratos and Atreus are going through the game. That she orchestrated their journey. That she can tell the future. That she's a giant. That she led some of the giants in Jotunheim and knows about Atreus's true identity. That she kept that all from Kratos to serve a greater purpose.
The idea that God of War 2018 has to somehow atone for the sins of previous games strikes me as kind of silly criticism, so long as they aren't making the same mistakes.
"Yeah, Casino Royale was good but it doesn't make up for all the dumb shit in Die Another Day."
"Yeah, Casino Royale was good but it doesn't make up for all the dumb shit in Die Another Day."
Think about how percentages work man.
The last of us won with what, around 70%?
How many games were in the running?
So the last 30% was split how many ways?
And dude, the game was instaregret thread bait.