I have mixed feelings after playing GOW.
The visuals were amazing. They clearly spent the time to make it happen. There were few game glitches. The voice acting was great, and I really enjoyed hearing Teal’C again.
The downsides are many. The puzzles were repetitive, the story was boring, the weapons were strongly preferred by certain bosses, the path was linear, it wasn’t open-world, it was like Asssians Creed/Uncharted too often. The cutscenes were long and at times you felt like you were watching a movie more than playing a game.
Still, I was very invested in seeing the outcome of the story and when it happened I was disappointed. The final battle wasn’t what I expected it to be. Even boss battles were disappointing and mostly boring. Winning the boss was more about endurance than skill.
It was clear this game was designed to appeal to first-time gamers. To give them an easy win. It was a little insulting to long-time players who have seen all of this so many times before. When ideas are reused so often, games are not motivating to play. There is no discovery no joy of exploration.
This leads me to the reason I am writing this. If you just want a game that you don’t care about those details, you might like this. The more you play games naturally the harder it will be to satisfy you. I am playing Red Dead Redemption 2 based on a suggestion from a friend and that also has beautiful graphics but more varied gameplay than this.
Games should feel that you have a choice in what happens. That’s why we choose to play a game and not watch a movie. We want to feel in control. There is no sense that anything you do matters in this game. For that reason I dislike it.