Frank Branham: Big moments - God of War II

Instead of playing many boardgames that past week, I've been sucked into God of War II. This is far and away the best game Sony has released since they launched the Playstation 3 last fall.

Sadly, the game is actually for the PS 2. Someone at Sony really does have a lot of 'splainin to do.
The game itself is totally amazing. It does not engage you mentally in any deep way. You move sticks, mash on the buttons, and stuff dies. The controls are somewhat complex, and there are a ton of button combinations, but the game often pops up hints to remind and help you remember which button to press in the critical parts. (Sandi at this point reminded me that I have to tell you that she had to sit and watch the blasted thing, and help me with the actual thinking parts. There are a couple of puzzles, more along the lines of "oh right, I have a speedy dash move". I'm better in the bashing things on the head department.)

The reason the game is so great--it is composed entirely of huge, awe-inspiring moments string together one after the other. It starts with Athena animating the Colossus of Rhodes which starts chasing you through an entire level, crushing parts of buildings as you race away from it. You do stop occasionally to fight it, shooting ballista bolts through its eyes, or ripping off an arm. Huge, terrifying moments. Then you carve a hole in the side, and climb up through the superstructure, taking out the internal skeleton.

Even the small part of the game have moments. The tiny little bats that swarm most videogame levels as nuisances are there. Here, you can just smack them with a basic attack or jump up in the air, pull them to the ground, and rip their wings off. One of the other basic warriors can be killed by ripping his arm off and beating him to death with it, slinging a chain around his neck so that his head pops off in an arc of blood, or throwing him up in the air impaled on your sword.

The game is rated Mature. It wasn't a very close sort of thing.

Even on easy, you die a lot. There are lots of spikes and high places. For a large part of the game, you feel like you are walking on eggshells for much of the game.

RPGs, and some.....of those other sorts of games discussed on THAT blog do those sorts of things. If you want to completely betray someone, it feels like a betrayal. It isn't a thing like you cost him 4 points.

This is one of the draws of Eurogames as well. When you sit down to play a new game, you will likely do okay. Any of the serious pitfalls have usually been smoothed over in the development process, there are little catch up mechanisms to help the people who made bad choices in the early stages of the game, and the scores that you can make on a turn are generally within a fairly small range.

There are some older games that have much more varying scores. Mahjongg and many of Joli Kansil's games have complex arrangements of bonus scores that range into the hundreds of times the typical score for a round. Even Tichu has the lovely Grand Tichu which is worth a ton of points, and feels like a serious accomplishment if you call and make it.

...

I've been trying to think of Eurogames that really have big moments. The ones that do tend to have complex victory conditions. Antiquity gets a lot of mileage out of its goal system. Liberte and Mordred are mostly remembered for their contradicting goals. While the state of the game does not shift wildly, we more easily remember the moments when the balance shifts. It isn't that a player gains 5 (or was it 6 or 7?) points more than they should have--it is that the Reds finally took over the map.

There are occasional other big moments, but games that have them seem to be getting fewer and further between, as they often invoke depairing cries of "Eeek, Luck." Can't Stop and Ra have their press your luck moments with pretty massive swings of fate.

The only game I wish could have fewer big moments is the dreaded Tongiaki. For some reason each of my three plays of that game ended up creating one or two massive migration chain. My last (and oh so very final) game ended with one player making an 18-20 length migration chain that rearranged most of the board.

(I think I paid someone a quarter to take it off my hands. I had to do the same with a copy of Assassin. There have been other bizarre rituals of divesting myself of particularly noxious games:

1. Sweeping the components onto the board, and unceremoniously dumping them wholesale into the box. (Only with cheap games.)
2. At a gaming flea market only allowing someone to buy a game if they take one from the dreck pile as well.
3. Ceremonial bonfires. (Hasn't happened yet with a game. But the book "Into the Out Of" did get tossed into a fireplace. )

Sadly, I sometimes remember the getting rid of games more than any events in the actual games themselves. Not a good sign.

© 2007 Frank Branham

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Oh Into the Out Of was that one.  Hmm I must have read it but can’t remember anything nor it being exceptionally bad.  What pushed it over the edge to the fire? Posted by Lee Fisher on Jun 7, 2007 at 10:38 AM | #

Into the Out Of had weird demons that were solid black that moved around by disguising themselves as bit of discarded rubber tires along the highway. It was all extremely silly, and carried on in a derange way---but it may have the worst ending ever: The ending was some sort of ritual which required the sacrifice of 3 eyes. Suddenly in the last chapter, we find out that the two main characters both have glass eyes, and their priest-y companion has a “third eye” he pops out of his forehead. Two or three of us read it. I think Roger tried to warn the others, but after the second or third, the book was sacrificed to spare any further attempts. Posted by Frank Branham on Jun 7, 2007 at 10:46 AM | #

Oh shoot I totally remember that eye thing.  Yeah that was pretty bad.  Plus I bet I have a copy on my shelf. hehehe Posted by Lee Fisher on Jun 7, 2007 at 11:09 AM | #

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