God of Witcher

It's been about eight years since the last God of War game so naturally I was super excited when I found out that Santa Monica Studios decided to create a new GoW, largely because "Yay graphics!" I recently purchased a 4K television set because, well, it's 2018 and my old TV wasn't even a smart TV (cue gasps). As one who considers herself a bit of a gadget geek, my adult responsibilities restrict me from purchasing the latest and greatest tech. The days of reckless spending of my teenage years when I could squander my minimum-wage paycheck on smartphones, headphones, and useless shit alas, is over. So the 4K TV was my first big purchase in a long while.

This game, for those maybe not familiar, usually revolves around an anger filled Spartan-turned-demigod (father is Zeus because we all know Zeus had a hard time keeping it in his pants) who goes around killing all the Greek gods who tricked him into killing his family.  It is extremely violent. You use insane finisher moves to execute gargantuan monsters and powerful entities. You literally travel through hell and kill things there. Every god you killed created a consequence in the world you traveled. It is a beautifully rendered hack-and-slash game where you go around seeking vengeance.

That is until now.

We find our hero, Kratos, now a father, immersed in the Nordic realm with a son who is unaware through most of the game of his god-like nature. The son is your helper, assisting you in battles. You have to "grind," or seek side quests, to level up your character and your kid. You have to craft and modify weapons, solve puzzles, and help people.

It is infuriating.

The developers have managed to take an original game and twist it into elements of some of the top game titles of the last two years. It is officially The Last of Us, Witcher, and Resident Evil all wrapped into one. I have spent more time grinding and killing repetitive monsters than I have fighting gods. In fact, after almost two weeks of heavy gameplay (I've lost track of logged hours), I've killed ONE god—one of Thor's sons, I forget which.

I spent an hour alone last night trying to navigate a temple filled with spiky-walled booby traps. In essence, the game is something completely different yet nothing original. It is mundane with hours of little action. The hack-and-slash parts feel hack-and-slashy because now you feel like you're getting nowhere as you do it. I've encountered Baldur five times and still have not fought him except for the first level where your character is programmed to lose. Thor's other son ran away from me twice, and I haven't seen Thor or Odin or anyone else even make an appearance. It is genuinely boring but has already received rave reviews. I imagine this is  because GoW has literally borrowed from everything that was well reviewed as of late and slapped a GoW skin on it.

The graphics, I will say, are super impressive as it is one of the first few games made for the PS4 Pro, Playstation's high-powered 4K console. You can see every single pore, wrinkle, and beard hair on Kratos' face. The motion capture is insane, and the game, even though the gameplay itself is very slow-paced, has an interesting story.

I just wish there was more "warring with gods" and less traveling and puzzle solving. Don't get me wrong, I love the games it has borrowed from and even own them. I enjoy story-heavy, puzzle-solving games as much as the next gamer. It's just...when I put in GoW, I expect to kill things, not be a responsible parent. Needless to say after all this, I'm just not a fan.

Still, I'm one of those people that sit through a bad movie because I've already committed and want to see if maybe the end justifies the suffering. So Grind of War it is.

Hello Old Friend...

It's been a minute since I've blogged. Admittedly, since the days of "Xanga" (God, is that even a term people remember?), the practice isn't as viral or trendy as it once was. For one, the internet has become a much more savage wilderness, and my life hasn't been as enthralling as it was when I was in my 20s (largely by design). But there is a lot more going on in the world, in politics, in my career, and in my personal life. To name a few, the White House is on the brink of some strange apocalypse, I'm currently an associate editor for a history magazine (my first big job out of college), and I'm recently engaged to my boyfriend of 7 years. My main hesitation on returning to blogging was really "does anyone really want to hear the voice of another 30-something millennial complaining about her first world problems?" Then I realized, that's exactly what the internet needs.
 No. Not really.
 But there are some things I feel like I could provide perspective on and I do feel like I have a voice that I'd like to share. If not to help someone else, at least myself. And there's catharsis in that, isn't there? Catharsis is important. Maybe I'll even find surprisingly that I'm still as interesting as I was in my youth. (Likely not.)
 So here's my return to the blogging world. To sum, I am a young black woman from Pennsylvania, a Penn State graduate who's obsessed with podcasts, consumes news like a fiending drug addict (and not just as of late), likes anime, video games, cats, chocolate, red wines, gossip columns, and arguing with my fiancé over American involvement in Guatemala during the Banana Republic (I didn't speak to him for 2 days after such debate). So I'll be talking about all these things. This is me in all my glorious, bizarre, neurotic, nerdy strangeness.
 I'm on my 3rd cup of coffee within the last two hours so bear with me. Welcome to hell. Or rather, welcome to the clutter that is my mind. Watch your step.