I see all these gaming magazines giving out all these awards to GoW, Even my favorite, Play, which I was so hoping would expose some of these issues, so I figured I'd vent:

This game, while having some of the best ps2 graphics hands down, is like playing gauntlet with timed insta-kill environmental traps. I mean, what the hell? Two weapons to choose from, and the only real difference is that the first one has longer range, and the second one is stronger, but both share damn near the same moveset?

Oh, lets not forget that even the most basic of enemies, while being hit with yet another mindless 50+hit combo, can somehow decide that he's just gonna attack me. Yeah, nevermind that if an enemy hits me, I gotta take the hit, and attack AFTER, but the somebody decided that since the game was so stupidly mindless, that a good way to force 'challenge' is to make the enemies super-cheap! Lets also add in aforementioned insta-kill environmental traps, and add a TIMER on some of them! Game of the freakin year, i tell ya!\

Now then. Okay, once again, pretty as hell graphics. Gory violent overkill with 'context sensative' fatalities!!! ...oh, wait, i mean 'press button when icon appears over enemies head, and if you mess up, you take damage, and have to try all over again'. Didnt EQ2 get knocked for having the same kinda thing with tradeskills? Drat.

I'm just wondering why, as I'm fighting the third different type of minotaur, that does the same damned things, and can be killed the same way, how this is 'one of the best action games there is' (funfact: it annoys the hell out of me how the mino will ROTATE as you preform the finisher. Um, hello, I cant kill it facing any direction other than down-right?)

Now, I bought GoW and Devil May Cry 3 right at the same time, and started playing GoW first, so I didn't have any silly ideas about comparing the two as I was playing GoW. But damn, after playing DMC3, I started to wonder... Are people really that happy with button mashing, as long as it looks pretty? If Dynasty Warriors had super photorealistic graphics, and over the top bloody violence, would it be recieving the same accolades?

I'll add onto this tomorrow, I'm tired, and having a hard time making any sense. -Len

I actually agree with you on a lot of this stuff. GoW is the BEST looking game for the PS2 I have ever seen. After seeing it, so many of my games seem grainy, its rediculous, and the slow-motion moments when you block, they dont affect the frame rates(well, other than they are supposed to).

But I think you are being a bit too over critical with the game. It wasnt meant to be the next Chessmaster. It was advertised as a great looking hack and slash, and thats what you do, hack and slash, ALOT. My friend has hit a 900 hit combo if that tells you anything about how much hacking and slashing theres meant to be. But they have given you quite a few diffrent things to do while hacking and slashing. You can toss guys up in the air and juggle them, perform finishing moves on just about any baddie or literally grab guys and RIP THEM IN FREAKING HALF! IN FREAKING HALF! Not to mention certain parts have unique things, like when you are climbing ships netting you can throw guys from the nets. Yep, grab em and toss em.

I think you fell in to the same trap that I would have if I had just played through it straight and didnt instead watch someone play it for a while as well as play it myself. You just played it, you didnt take a minute to think about the small things that flow so well together, but are the nice little touches that make a great game. When I played it was on Hard and none of the enemies were cheap, they were just hard(I need to learn to block better and then I shall defeat the god of war!). The bosses are unique and each have their own special thing(I only engaged the Hydra myself, but have heard discussions of the others).

The thing I felt were not done well was that game was too unforgiving when walking on beams. Maybe Prince of Persia spoiled me, but I prefer not to have to mash a button when I catch on the side of a beam so I dont fall.

Yeah, DMC3 is a bit more complex, but its also the third one, they had two previous games to get a great game out of the series. GoW is AWESOME for the first on a more than likely new series. Besides DMC3 is pretty much button mashing as well, smash buttons to either slash with sword or shoot with guns. I think that the flow and feel of GoW just wasnt what you had hoped for and thats why you are upset, which is kinda funny, because you are the first person that Ive heard complain at all about the game play. The nudity on the other hand is another story...

Ya damn it nobody wants their kids seeing boobies in their literally rip the humanoid in half games...

Hehe, boobies.

The game was a fun rental, but I wouldn't buy it. Just too short.

I own it, I've played through it, I've seen others play through it. Aura and I spent all day one Saturday rampaging around.

The main gripe I have is that it's still the same game as the old school Streets of Rage/Final Fight games of yesteryear. Pallate swapped enemies, and loads of 'em. Now, it's the best I've seen do it, so far. I like it better than DMC1 (I don't have 2 or 3 yet), and it was better than Fighting Force 64 by such a long shot it's not even funny.

The magic is nice, and well designed. The bosses kick much ass. The minigames to finish off a creature are good, they add SOME difference in gameplay. I did wish the Sword of Artemis had some finishers of it's own, instead of decap attacks on minotaurs. However, slicing undead guys in half with it is just plain fun.

Grab an enemy (the undead guys at least), your trash mobs if you will... you now have 3 options. Triangle rips them in half. Square picks them up, spins them around, knocking everyone around you down. Circle pushes them down, and you pummel them with both blades. It's sheer fun. Yes, the finishers for other monsters

The second gripe I have is the camera angles. Yes, it's good 95% of the time. When I'm leaving Hades, the spinning blades of doom PISSED ME OFF. It pissed Aura off to no end, he wouldn't even pass over the controller to chill out a bit, he was like "No, I'm doing this." Honestly, the Hades level is the ONLY level it was really a problem. I don't mind if monsters kick my ass, because I know I'll be able to go back and rip them a new one. I had issues when the environment failed to work properly. Climbing up the damn wall was annoying too.

The timed instakill environment traps weren't THAT bad. There were only like 2 or 3. You always had a checkpoint very near there, so you just walked right back up to it. The ones that really bugged me were the ones that were timed yet didn't kill you. You had to keep going a billion times. I HATE balance beams, by the way. Thankfully, it was only in a few places, but Aura did those anyway.

Oh, and the reason EQ2 got hammered for doing the click me to continue minigames in tradeskills is because it makes NO SENSE. It's NOT a twitch console game, and tradeskilling should not be able to kill you. They aren't comparable.

And the main reason I think GoW is getting such good reviews is that it's simply FUN. There are plenty of games out there that don't do it quite as well as GoW did, and even the ones that do don't have the fun aspect in it like GoW does. It's got a decent storyline too, though admittedly nothing THAT amazing.

This thread kinda reminds me how I felt about Lament of Innocence....

Fun, but once you get past the 50 hit combos, the life just goes out of the game. Leni asked if people really enjoy button mashing. Sure they do! For how long is the question. I loved the first 5 or 6 hours of LoI...I loved beating the crap out enemies and looking suave doing it. But that's the curse of action games...once you've seen the motions and mastered the combos, only the true believers can find fun in the game hour after hour.

Man I wasn't even interested in the game until you said that. Streets of Rage ROCKED. My friends and I used to play that for hours and hours.

Still, if I were to buy a game soon (still into WoW and have a few games sitting on the back burner so that's doubtful), my money would probably go to Jade Empire over this, despite the reviews.

Well, yeah, Streets of Rage and Final Fight kicked much ass. The issues I had was not that it was like that, but that it was essentially a palette swapping bad guy game. Heh. The boss fights are simply phenomenal though.

Jade Empire is getting very similar reviews, so that is a bit of a tossup (93.5% JE vs 94.7% GoW on gamerankings.com). GoW is too short for me to want to spend money on it I am afraid. Jade Empire is made by a proven group, but I am not sure if I want a RPG/fighter mix. I will have to think about it more.

/ponder