26 March 05
I watched someone play “God of War” at work yesterday. It’s an amazing game. It starts off as your average “Greek warrior questing to take down an evil Greek god” sort of game. Then after about 30 seconds, you get to do a Mortal Kombat-style finishing move. You run under a minotaur’s legs, climb up his back, and stab him in the eyes a few dozen times. Another minute later, you get a new finishing move — this time, it involves getting eye-to-eye with someone and forcing your sword into his face up close and personal, while he’s pushing back on your arms. Later, finishing moves involve wrenching heads clean off. I can’t think of an ultra-violent game that has had such high animation and graphical quality. Most high-violence games rely on the violence appeal and put almost no effort into smooth animation, environments, etc. And the game design is really solid. Every few minutes there’s something that makes you want to keep playing. And every few minutes someone said “I thought this game was violent a few monsters ago, but jeez.”
[Why can’t I get this song out of my head?]
A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
‘cuz I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl.