God of War - Now for the game

Here's the actual meat of my posts that I've been promising. Me, playing video games. My thoughts and my opinions as I wander through the game.

God of War collection is in the PS3, system is booted, and I'm at the main menu. I'll select God of War, leaving God of War II for later. Oh look you can see a giant wall of flames and half of Kratos' face. He looks fairly solemn with his head bowed and eyes closed. Selecting new game. We'll do this on normal difficulty. Here we go, opening cutscene.

Solemn looking Kratos is talking. "The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me." Well duh! Don't you know anything about Greek mythology. The Gods abandoned people on a regular basis. It was pretty cool to have solemn looking Kratos suddenly talk to us.

Cutscene is over, Kratos threw himself from Olympus hoping to end it all. There was a voice over ranting about Kratos feeling abandoned. On to actual gameplay now.  Kratos is standing on a boat. Demon looking things are appearing so I'm going to kill them. Square for light attack, Triangle for heavy attack. Seems pretty simple. Lots of flashy attacks. So I had killed about 4 enemies by the time the tutorial appeared telling me how to attack. That seems kind of late.

I forgot to mention, Kratos wields to swords that are attached to chains. The chains are wrapped around his arms. This allows him to fling the blades away from his body and quickly snatch them back, kind of like a deadly yo-yo. The Blades of Chaos they are called. Lots of fun with these. 

Enemies cleared, into the trap door. I have to mash the R2 button to open it. Down the hatch, there's a chest. Apparently I hold the R2 button to open it. I tried mashing it first, that didn't work. Holding R2 works. I wonder why they are done differently?

Continuing down the hall. Break objects you get red orbs. Red orbs act as currency that you can use to upgrade your gear. Miniboss attack! A large hydra head just smashed through the bottom of the ship. I need to defend a lot so this thing doesn't kill me. L1 is defend. When it rears its head it's going to attack by snapping at you.

Square, square, triangle combo seems the best option, dumb thing take forever. Stop doing the slamming attack! Finally got a circle to appear above it's head, that means I can kill it the only way Kratos knows how, brutally. Press the buttons as they appear on screen in order to defeat the miniboss. This is called a Quick Time Event (QTE), Hydra is violently dead. Now where do I go?

Walk across the plank. There's a guy in a cage. He calls me the "Ghost of Sparda" (Kratos is pretty pale) and he doesn't want my help. I can't kill him either so I'm moving on.

Another chest of red orbs, stuff to smash, where do I go? Hmmm....ah, apparently I can smash this wooden barricade. Continuing on then. Harpies, I hate harpies. And normal people, apparently if I kill them I get health sweet! Innocents will die by my hand today. Killing hapries. Hydra attack! It smashed through the bottom of the boat! It snaps at you, it will also slam it's head onto the deck, once to the left, once to the right and once down the middle. And it swings its head in a giant circle. 3/4's of Hydra health bar gone, QTE time. Hydra is "dead". I mean it's a hydra, you have to kill the main head or more smaller heads will just reappear.

Now where do I go? Found two hidden red orb chests. Still lost. I'll try the hole where the hydra appeared. There we go, Kratos can swim. I can never remember which video game characters can swim. Now to figure out where to go in the water. Found it, apparently I can climb some cargo netting. I now know that I can launch an enemy into the air by holding triangle. Now go away tutorial screen!

Crossing planks again. I come to a fork in the road. Let's head up, I find a chest with red orbs, nice. I slip and Kratos grabs a hold of the plank, drag myself back up with the X button. Continuing on. I made it back to the fork in the road. I slip again. Kratos didn't grab hold?! I died....my first death was by falling off the plank in the tutorial level. That's sad.

Last waypoint puts me at the start of the plank so I start crossing again.. Do I dare get the red orb chest again? Yeah, I dare. I make it back to the fork and then I continue crossing, I made it this time. That was a really cheap death falling off like that. 

Found a save point, that was nice of them. I now have to push this box across part of the deck while being assaulted by archers. Press X to kick the box. Stupid archers are annoying, box can only take so much damage then I'll have to try again. Sweet I made it across without losing a box. Using the box I jump up and pressing Circle I grap the archers. I now have choices. If I press Square I can swing them in a large circle using them as a weapon, Triangle I just rip them in half, Circle I throw them on the ground and brutally stab them. Triangle doesn't seem to give me orbs, I'll use Cirlce.

Kratos really is hard core.

I just found a Gorgon's Eye, collecting six will net me more health. Must find more Gorgon Eyes. I just met Poseidon, he gave me an electrical Area of Effect (AOE) attack. I get to use it now to defeat enemies, sounds like fun. Going through the door Poseidon was blocking, and climbing the net. The captain was just eaten by a giant hydra. It's boss fight time.

There are three hydras. Two small and one enormous. I can't reach the big one until I've killed the small one. I start with the one on the left, the one on the right keeps trying to suck me over. The small ones have the same attacks from earlier, except they will now try to suck you over if you ignore them. They might have done that earlier, I never gave them the chance though.

Left one is down, I jump up the crates on the far left and I find some odd harpoon thingy. I jump on top of the harpoon thingy and SLAM, it goes right through the small hydra's head. Rinse, and repeat to the hydra on the right. Climbing the netting to fight the big one. He roared at me and pushed me off the platform, I have to climb all the way back up. Now fighting the giant Hydra, he keeps trying to bite be. I roll out of the way by using the right analog stick. He roared again, knocked me off the platform and then KNOCKED ME OFF THE SECOND PLATFORM! That was not cool. I now have a long climb ahead of me. We continue fighting, he roars some more, sometimes I stay up, sometimes I grab the ledge, sometimes I get knocked down one platform, sometimes I get knocked down two platforms. Finally got a Circle to appear above the Hydra's head. I slam the Hydra into the mast. Fight continues. I slam the head into the mast three more times before the mast breaks off. I think I see where this is going. I keep fighting the hydra and another circle appears. QTE, I smash the giant hydra's head onto the broken mast ending the fight.

That was a stupidly long fight, mainly from being blown off two platforms! Why was that allowed? It just dragged the fight out and eventually made me very, very bored. *sigh* Someone is calling for help from inside of the hydra. Yep, it's the captain. I take his key and let him fall into the hydra's stomach. Kratos is a jerk. Need to find my way back to the captain's quarters and that locked door with the women. Wasn't bad to luck to have women on board a ship? Even in ancient Greece?

The nice camera shows me where to go. I slide down a rope and I'm at the box kicking area again. More archers. At least I can save. I make it past the archers to the box I was kicking earlier. If I remember it sounded like a slaughter was happening when I left the door 20 minutes ago. Everyone should be dead. I open the door and there's a hallway. So how did I hear people screaming like they were right next to the door? Run down the hallway. Cutscene of women being slaughtered. Guess they were bad luck to have on board. Surprised they weren't dead already though.

Kratos is having bad dreams. Bewbs. I really don't get that. Kratos is now on a different ship, he apparently had a threesome. Kratos goes up on deck and yells at Athena. He wants to forget his past. Athena says that if Kratos saves Athens he will earn his redemption. NOT THE SAME THING. Pay attention Kratos.

Back to gameplay. Naked ladies in Kratos' bed. They want Kratos to come back to bed, Kratos says "go away". Which is funny since if you jump on the bed you can activate a QTE where Kratos apparently has a quickie threesome. On to the next save point.

And I'm done for this round of play. This will be a huge post, I'll have to see if there's some way to shorten these.