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Kal-El814

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Posts posted by Kal-El814

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    Okay fuller thoughts. I'll tag everything spoiler adjacent.

     

    The story here is generally very good. I think it pays off on just about everything hinted at in the first game and then some. Gonna talk about the plot's whole ass here, so click with caution.

     

    Spoiler

    We double bag for your protection...

     

    Spoiler

    I think the balance of prophecy vs. choice is handled well here, and makes for interesting discussions between the characters along the way. Kratos, Atreus, and Angrboda all have different points of view about them, all act despite those different perspectives, and I think that comes to a nice conclusion at the end. It also helps color the portrayal of Odin as someone who's compelled to act on prophecies both known and unknown. It's the nature of the thing, not its form... good stuff.

     

    The Odin swerve was well executed. I forget exactly when I caught on but I think they did a nice job lf balancing hints and feints there, and being in disguise is part of how Odin is depicted in the original mythology so it's nice to see that pay off here. Also I have read a bunch about Norse mythology as a kid and in my 20's... I am pretty sure there's no mask in those stories. HOWEVER the mask looks like the one from the Jim Carrey movie The Mask and in that movie they mention that the actual mask belonged to Loki... so... I'm pretty convinced this is a reference to The Mask mainly because it's funny to think that Odin lost an eye looking into the realm tear and seeing peak Cameron Diaz. :p

     

    I thought the game did a great job of setting up an initial beef with Thor and than breaking that down to the point where, when it came time to fight him, I genuinely didn't want to and hoped that Thor lived.

     

    Also... can we talk about the game bothering to loop back around and call out Kratos for indiscriminately killing an important Elf in the last game? And how that makes him feel and act in Alfheim this time? So good.

     

    Interesting to see where the story goes from here. They have options.

     

    My main issues with the story, and these are relatively small beefs, are consistent with this game just taking a kitchen sink approach to everything. There's so much time spent on the particulars of prophecy, on realm travel, on averting fate, on the literal fates, on who can leave what realm and when, on Nidhogg... then we get "giant stuff" for the explanation of the marbles and Atreus knowing how to be a benevolent Shang Tsung. Which would be fine except that ends up kinda being the whole thing? And there's a bunch of stuff that kinda goes nowhere? What was the realm tear Odin was obsessed with? Why did the mask lock onto the wolf in Helheim? Why do giants have marbles? If Loki's marble can let Agrboda track him, shouldn't she be able to find the giants?

     

    None of these are dealbreakers, but given how in depth some of the other core portions of the story go, it would have been nice to address some of that stuff instead of some of the nice but non essential side quest tangents.

     

     

    The characters are almost all great. All the old ones get plenty of time to shine and most of the new ones are pretty great as well. I think a few characters in particular stand out really well. There are a couple quibbles but overall I think this is one of the more solid core casts we've seen in recent years and there are a lot of memorable lines and interactions.

     

    Spoiler

    Ribbed for your pleasure...

     

    Spoiler

    Just about everyone gets their time to shine.

     

    Kratos is... one of the most interesting and well portrayed characters in games now. I can't believe it. He sucked ass and was one of the WORST characters for so long, but... here we are. It can't be denied. The acting is phenomenal. Every beat is earned. It would have been so easy to fumble the ball after GoW by making him not learn anything from that adventure or to have him being too flexible. His justifications for everything this time around are sound even if they're wrong which isn't easy to do. And he learns from his mistakes! And apologizes! And is introspective! Again in the old games he was skullfucking his enemies and then goes all "by the gods what have I become" before yeeting himself off a cliff somewhere, but... he's learned! That scene where he tells Atreus he's been fucking up and falling back into his old ways is just... so good. It's not an e4ven road and even that is done well. He kills Heimdall after trying to be better, but it's his relationship with Atreus that ends up pulling him back on the "right" path. It's just so well executed.

     

    Most of the other characters are very well done as well. I probably could have done with a little more long term tension between Freya and Kratos all things considered, but I think that her characterization overall was very good and the slow burn up to them mending the fence was really well done. Taking Brok and Sindri from comic relief to really engaging characters was a feat. They call out the extent to which the player takes them and their services for granted, so cool. Freyr's team was a bit undercooked, I think, though maybe some of that is in side quests that I didn't end up finishing. People seemed bent out of shape when the Traveller yeeted himself off the boat; I don't think I'd even heard him talk before that scene? Maybe once in the background.

     

    Kind of a shame that some of Mimi's most interesting stuff is in side quests, but I appreciate that there's only so much main game and they need to focus on the main characters.

     

    The Asgardians are a little more mixed to me. I feel like Thor's family should have given Atreus and Kratos more shit for their role in killing Thor's sons. Yeah it's ultimately Odin's fault, but I think Atreus in particular got off light all things considered. Thor was really well done overall, like I called out before. I go back and forth a little bit on Odin. He's really good, but after a whole game where he's unseen and Mimir talks about what a magnificent bastard he is, it would have been a bit more interesting to see him really flex, I think. Unless I missed something, Heimdall feels oddly one dimensional in this cast. He's just a bastard. Maybe that's so Kratos and the player are justified in killing one of the Aesir in this game? I dunno.

     

    All in all one of the better casts in recent memory I think. Just very enjoyable.

     

     

    Some thoughts about the gameplay and pacing... I think there's too much game here and some stuff feels over engineered. I know that's a weird complaint when the gameplay is generally great, but I don't think there's enough variability in the combat and the encounters for it to not get old over the course of doing everything in the game. A high class problem, but by the time I got to the second to last area before the endgame it was the story moving me forward because I just couldn't bring myself to fight in every optional encounter that the side quests were going to barf at me. The main path is longer than GoW and there's more side stuff... there's only so many times fighting higher level versions of the same mobs is engaging.

     

    I think the combat options / value ratio here isn't good. In GoW there's more nuance to the abilities and item perks than has a meaningful impact on the gameplay and that's cranked all the way to eleven in this game. It would be one thing if the granular changes to the skills really changed the gameplay, but... they don't. I never felt that changing my armor or runic attacks would have impacted a fight, and when I charged them around just to see, they didn't feel all that different. Maybe on Give Me God of War? But I dunno how many people are going to fuck with that, Give Me No Mercy is challenging already.

     

    While the camera is better, some of the encounters do not play nicely with it. You can get have enemies spawn out of sight and at a higher vertical level than you, and if the RNG doesn't have someone call out their incoming projectiles, you're dependent upon seeing the threat indicator (not always feasible given the fact that a lot of enemies and effects glow and can make them very hard to see) or scanning the environment to look for mobs that may never be there. It doesn't happen often enough to justify always looking around like that, but it does happen often enough to get annoying when you get hit by an enemy. But it's better than GoW for sure, which is nice.

     

    Some equipment and skill tree spoilers as well as a larger double tagged spoiler related to gameplay...

     

    Spoiler

    Having more shield options was a really great idea, I'll probably shake that up more than I did if and when I go back.

     

    But having perks to unlock when you max out a skill? Kratos's L1+Circle weapons (relics I think)? All the perks for the bow abilities? Three different kinds of Spartan prolapse? There are so many options that have such a small, direct impact on the actual gameplay here. More isn't always better, and here it's just... fine. I never felt more powerful when I unlocked stuff after hitting level 3 or so.

     

    Gameplay spoilers...

     

    Spoiler

    Playing as Atreus never clicked with me. Plinking at people with arrows, slapping them with a bow... just fundamentally not as interesting as playing as Kratos and by a lot. Even his animal forms felt weaker than just Kratos with his fists. I get that he's not the God of War but this GAME is God of War and I'm not looking to have that particular power fantasy interrupted to fill a Hel-Walker with 8 arrows to stun it. His story sections are great and as a character he's compelling, but his gameplay was really the only portion of the game I actively did not like. Also not looking forward to his fruit and root picking adventure next time. :| 

     

     

    Some last spoilers about stuff at the end of the game and after the credits roll.

     

    Spoiler

    There's a good deal of interesting post credits stuff. Neat that they addressed some of it that way, but wild that some big reveals happen after the larger emotional closure to the game overall. I dunno that people who have beaten the game are "done" so I won't say more.

     

    And one silly thought that occurred to me... What language are the characters speaking to one another in this game? Atreus speaks ancient Norse words when shooting his bow. In the first game Kratos says he can speak it but not read it, so presumably it's Ancient Norse? Even though Atreus doesn't use the "english translations" when he says Norse words?

     

    Anyway...

     

    TL;DR... it's a really great game. I think it could use more focus, could probably stand to have some fat trimmed, and the pacing left something to be desired for me personally, but these are high class problems for a generally really tremendous experience. It's wild to see how far this series and Kratos specifically have come, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the franchise goes from here.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    Just finished. I’m sleepy. 
     

    It’s great.

     

    Probably a bit overstuffed with content (like 30 hours in I got to ANOTHER big ass area full of side quests with a gimmick and Jesus fucking Christ in a Target shopping cart it’s all too much) to the point that the pacing of the game suffers even if you mainline it. And there are some things set up that never really go anywhere, which might have made more sense to flesh out than the some of the unrelated side stuff. There are also some late game and optional combat encounters that are just… not good. Between the stuff they puke out at you and the stuff you puke out on them it can be impossible to tell what’s happening unless you back out of combat at the hard difficulty and that’s just less fun than being in everyone’s face with an ax. 
     

    But the story is (for the most part, like I said some stuff is underdeveloped) very good and the characters really shine. The dialogue is the best part of a great game. 
     

    More spoiler thoughts when I’m awake. I think the overall highs of this game and most of the gameplay additions make the best parts of this better than the best parts of the preceding game. I think Ragnarok is a better game overall, it’s just a bit too ambitious in spite of itself. 

     

    • Halal 2

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    Okay one of the optional fights in this game... it's complete bullshit. I have no idea how you're supposed to do this. I appreciate I'm not at max level and maybe there's more game to go and grind gear than I'd anticipated but... I have absolutely no idea how to handle it. I've beat most of GoW on Give Me God of War and while I haven't cruised through every fight on hard in this game, I can normally handle them after bouncing off them a handful of times tops. This I can't even really make progress, I just die horribly.

     

    I guess I'm just way under leveled for it. Weird.

     

    EDIT - okay I'm under leveled, lol. I dropped the difficulty to Give Me Storytime or whatever and I still got kicked in the groin so hard I puked up my balls, but at least I didn't explode into giblets :p

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

    That's what I heard prior to the game's release: one thing multiple reviews praised was the side missions. And I enjoyed them quite a bit in the 2018 game anyway, but I think one reviewer even said they're the one ones he/she played since probably The Witcher 3.

     

    I don't really care if that's true or not, but it did give me an idea that the side missions aren't throwaway at all.

     

    Yeah the side quests are really good here, too. It's not a complaint that there's so many of them here per se? I feel like I got out of GoW wanting more, unless something changes I think I'll get out of this one wanting to put it down for a while. My bias is always toward the former, but that's just me. It's a high class "problem" regardless.

    Pedo guy megalomaniacal manchild officially owns Twitter

    in The Political Re-Education Camp

    Posted

    11 hours ago, Jason said:
    FPHH6H47FBPUPMRZXYRDIVYEVU.jpg

    Elon Musk says 'I have too much work on my plate'

    WWW.REUTERS.COM
    The billionaire said he was working "at the absolute most amount ... from morning til night, seven days a week" when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of...

     

     

    Anytime a CEO talks about how hard they're working, 100% of the time the "work" they're doing is the equivalent of trying to put out a fire with kerosene.

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, Dodger said:

     

    I have restarted the check point and reloaded a save from just before with no luck. It's the part 

      Reveal hidden contents

    When you get back from freeing Tyr and Atreus and Sindri are going back to midgard to talk to Freya and you get on the yddrasill tree to travel realms. After the conversation stops no door pops up. I just circle around endlessly and no amount of restarting fixes it.

     

     

    How long have you been running? There was one time in that area for me where it look probably 4 minutes for the thing to do the thing.

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, stepee said:

    damn Kal fucking racing to the finish here, I only got up after the end of the second world

      Hide contents

    where you play as atticus

    but Im fucking loving it. 

     

    It’s too bad playing remote play still looks like a video stream as opposed to moonlight on pc which essentially seems native beyond looking better. I’m going to need to wait for tv playing time for most of this one.

     

    Please don't edit that typo, lol

    • Haha 1

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    I'm close to what feels like the endgame push and... there may be too much in this game? Not in a bad way per se, but it feels like no idea got trimmed during development. I've cleared just about everything as soon as I have the option to do it, and a whole bunch of stuff got barfed back onto the map in places that were previously cleaned up. Oh you thought you were done? Here are a dozen skullfuckers, a half dozen gizmos, etc. Unlike a Bethesda game, most of these things end up giving you insight into something or someone interesting so it's hard to walk away from them.

     

    Also the camera and arenas are in general better than the last game; there's way less of the camera being mashed against the wall while you're fighting nightmares. But there's one enemy type that the camera just straight up cannot keep up with. Most of the time I don't mind, but I'm playing on "give it to me raw" or whatever the hardest default difficulty available from jump is... and there's a boss type of this enemy that can 2 hit KO me and I get railed by offscreen attacks that the POV just cannot manage. I don't mind dying when It's me that can't hang, this one miniboss feels super bad. I could drop the difficulty I guess but that seems cheap.

     

    I thought I had a sense as to where the story was going but I'm less confident now after the last couple beats; I'm really psyched to see what's next.

     

    One question... if you have your block broken and the game goes slo mo for a second... is there a way to recover from that? I'm fighting mini bosses now that triple attack and if I fail the parry on the first shot, I'm absolutely taking the next one in the face unless I'm missing a way to recover?

    God of War Ragnarök - Information Thread, update: initial OpenCritic reviews of Valhalla DLC posted

    in The Spawn Point

    Posted

    Wife out of town at a conference? We binge. About 20 hours in.

     

    Some quick hit vibes:

     

    Environments in terms of looks and engagement? Great

    Story and characters? Great

    Gameplay and progression? Varies from great to not interesting at al, more context in the spoilers below

    Pacing? Not good

     

    Spoiler context for the stuff I'm not in love with below. No huge plot beats or anything but some gameplay stuff that people would like to have kept secret will be included below.

     

    Spoiler

    Last warning...

     

    Spoiler

    Playing as Atreus is just fundamentally much less interesting than playing as Kratos. I've done a few segments with him now and even as he's unlocked new abilities and weapons it's just not the vibe I'm looking for in this game... at all. Which is a shame since I like Atreus as a character and a lot of interesting stuff happens when you control him. But... he's just not as fun to play as, full stop.

     

    And the pacing of this game is all over the map. Most of the time you get to play as Atreus something dramatic just happened with Kratos and that grinds to a complete stop for an Atreus segment. Here we go... gathering fruit and roots. Here we go... climbing a wall for a long time.

     

    Also in the first game almost all the time you could spend exploring was time where the game went out of its way to remind you that you had the time to do it. The best opportunity to explore came to me when I logged off yesterday and Kratos can either...

     

    Spoiler

    Go off and explore to do some side quests or... meet with the fates because Atreus is in Asgard?

     

    I know this is a more patient Kratos here, but that's being graded on a curve and there's just no fucking way he'd decide that now is a good time for a  magical journey with friends.

     

     

     

     

    In any event, looking forward to playing more today, the game grabs you by the balls and is, for the most past, unlikely to loosen its grip.

     

    I have to say that they've done a really great job with Kratos in this game. I feel like it would have been easy to really fumble the ball after the events of GoW and lean too hard in a couple potential directions but he's really well characterized here for the most part. Still wild to me that this series has gone from "fuck women until they cum health orbs" to where it is now. What a pivot.

    • Halal 1

    Trump v Desantis, and did trump admit to meddling in the 2018 election?

    in The Political Re-Education Camp

    Posted

    18 minutes ago, Air_Delivery said:

    He will lose in a general election but he has enough of a diehard following to destroy the GOP from within. He is literally a messianic being to an uncomforable amount of America. Desantis isn't going to replace that.


    An actual messianic figure would be able to drum up enough votes to beat a stroke victim who almost mrec’d a black kid. 
     

    I’m not saying Trump is a pushover, there’s just a lot of real estate between what Trump actually is and this pedestal he’s put on. 

    Trump v Desantis, and did trump admit to meddling in the 2018 election?

    in The Political Re-Education Camp

    Posted

    Trump is popular but I don’t know where the impression that he’s an unstoppable force is coming from other than fear. He lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost in 2020. His blessing didn’t create and likely prevented the red wave just now.

     

    He’s still the presumptive GOP front runner in 2024 but I genuinely don’t think he’s got enough juice to drag the entire Republican machine along with him if they decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. He’s already getting relegated to news networks that people don’t watch and social media platforms that people don’t use. 
     

    Would Biden just cruise against him in 2024? No I don’t think so. But again we just saw this happen with the Tea Party. Fox and the Republican engine we

    re happy to pump them up and bring them into the fold and then as soon as it became clear that Tea Party candidates weren’t viable in general elections they all bailed immediately. Some of those people are still around but they’re a lost cause, Fox knows it, and they’re ignored. 

     

    • Like 1
    • Halal 1

    FTX Bankruptcy Update (11/02): SBF convicted on all seven charges

    in The Political Re-Education Camp

    Posted

    1 hour ago, DarkStar189 said:

    Saw this article linked elsewhere and I'm only posting it because of the headline.  This was August 2022 :lol: 

     

    CNV-1.jpg?resize=1200,600

    Exclusive: 30-year-old billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has been called the next Warren Buffett. His counterintuitive investment strategy will either build him an empire—or end in disaster

    WWW.GOOGLE.COM
    The 30-year-old billionaire weighs in on what's next for the crypto winter, the price of Bitcoin, and where the industry goes from here.

     

     

    Truly one of the most delusional opening paragraphs ever written.

     

    Quote

    Sam Bankman-Fried does not look like the most powerful man in crypto. Friendly and rumpled, with an unruly halo of curly hair, the 30-year-old widely known as SBF has an affinity for League of Legends, fidget spinners, and other trappings of nerd culture.

     

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