God of War - Review @ VGC

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VGC reviewed the PC version of God of War, which releases in 2 days. Note that this is rather performance-oriented since the game is a port.

REVIEW: GOD OF WAR FEELS SO MUCH BETTER ON PC

It's hard to overstate how much better the PC release of God Of War feels when compared to its console counterpart.

[...] For a series that began on the PlayStation 2 with Kratos fighting a hydra on roaring seas as a ship crumbles around them, it's fitting that now, almost two decades later, the most important moments of God Of War are no longer found in the magnificent boss battles and set pieces, but simply from the conversation between a father and his son, sailing slowly toward their goal.

I already considered God Of War to be a modern classic, but this new release only strengthens that opinion. The story was already tremendous. The combat is extremely fun and deeper than many give it credit for, but now that the technical side of the game has been unleashed on machines that can fully take advantage of it, it's a complete package, unlike anything that's come before or since.

God of War on PC is the definitive way to play an absolutely essential game. It's never looked better, bringing into sharp relief an art style that's colourful, brutal and incredibly inventive with practically faultless performance, even on a machine that isn't at the absolute bleeding edge of PC technology. Even if you've played God Of War on the PS4, it's more than worth going back for another trip up the mountain. [...]
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It's hard to overstate how much better the PC release of God Of War feels when compared to its console counterpart.
No?? how come, that can't be!...
YOu would think people would know by now that consoles are abominations and are poison to any normal game development. THere are a few rare exceptions like sports games and fighting games...
 
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That's kind of exagerating. While I'm not a fan of consoles and would rather have a proper PC version of all games, there are some things console do much better than a PC.

First of all, because they're owned by one company that has special interest in it succeeding you get games that they call hardware sellers. Games that receive special funding and effort because they know they can keep them exclusive and thus offload the cost of development by hardware sales. Which then opens that customer to potential other sales on that platform. So that's how they get into the door.

Then you have the optimizations that are possible on fixed hardware that are impossible on an infinite range of hardware combinations. As a developer you are able to develop the game much closer to the metal. Harder to port later on, sure, but you can utilize resources on a much higher degree than on a PC.

And lastly, most people have no idea how to manage a PC or even care to bother. Installing drives, hacking around, making a mess. You have to have time and a little bit of curiousity to bother with that. Most people come home from work and just want to push in a disk and play something. Though admitedly console have been getting worse and worse at this. It's more and more common for console games to not work properly with the updates on the disk alone. To have constant crashes themselves. I remember a time when console games were the most stable software. And they still are compared to PC, but somehow they've also gotten worse. I guess due to the rush of things.
 
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I enjoy PC gaming as much as the next man (on here) but the reality is that most (but by no means all) PCs are connected to fairly average grade 24-27" displays with limited audio setups. Conversely, most (but not all) consoles are connected to living-room TVs (usually 40+" and sometimes OLED or QLED 50+") and speaker setups.

I would be very surprised if the average experience of a PC+24" 1080p LCD God of War was so much more transformative than its 60hz PS5 incarnation on living room setup, or really even the 30hz PS4(pro) edition (4k via checkerboard upscale). Bottom line, it's a great game that looks great and plays great on every platform :) Score!

Both, however, should be a whole lot of fun, and that's what it is all about.
 
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I'm not a fan of consoles either, but saying it's the enemy of game development seems not only exaggerated but false. As we have seen recently, the console market is much higher than the PC (and both are dwarfed by mobile gaming), and I doubt the PC would total both if consoles didn't exist. So in short, they allow games to exist that we wouldn't have otherwise.

On the flip side, I don't like console games ported to PC in general (ex. Dark Souls), or games that have to be limited because of a console co-release (ex. Outer Worlds). But the gap in quality with good PC games is less and less obvious. This game is a good example of a good port job.

I enjoy PC gaming as much as the next man (on here) but the reality is that most (but by no means all) PCs are connected to fairly average grade 24-27" displays with limited audio setups. Conversely, most (but not all) consoles are connected to living-room TVs (usually 40+" and sometimes OLED or QLED 50+") and speaker setups.

I would be very surprised if the average experience of a PC+24" 1080p LCD God of War was so much more transformative than its 60hz PS5 incarnation on living room setup, or really even the 30hz PS4(pro) edition (4k via checkerboard upscale). Bottom line, it's a great game that looks great and plays great on every platform :) Score!

Both, however, should be a whole lot of fun, and that's what it is all about.

It entirely depends on the setup.

In the living, the TV is usually quite far, so it doesn't fill the view as it does with a 24" display on a desk. And with a headset, the sound is better than with the average speakers you find on flat TVs. If you have a projector and a HiFi system with good room acoustics, it's something entirely different, of course.

It depends on personal preferences too.

I'm more comfortable playing with a keyboard and mouse, so I'm much better off with a PC. And I can upgrade its GPU once it starts to get behind, although these days I'm avoiding AAA titles so it doesn't matter much anymore. The style of games one can find on PC suits me better too. Consoles are more casual / arcade-oriented in general, and maybe it's more comfortable to play on a console, in front of the TV with friends (which is awkward on a PC).
 
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The only reason consoles exist is because there was a huge part of populations of tech stupid people who needed a plug and play system.(for whatever reason, too lazy to learn or to supid…)

Ouch, your vision of the reality really lacks nuance, or even the basic understanding there are other tastes than yours.
 
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60 frames per second is a must for games like these where careful timing of dodging and blocking is an important game mechanic. I watched when my wife was playing the game on PS4Pro. It looked absolutely amazing at that console, but lack of FPS made its presence felt. Now it's my turn to play the game on my PC with 60 fps and M&K. I'm going to play at 1080p. Previous two Sony games has an excellent AA that at 1080p you feel like you're playing at 4k. I hope this is the case for GoW.
 
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Ouch, your vision of the reality really lacks nuance, or even the basic understanding there are other tastes than yours.
Well, maybe you should help find a better word for it, cos i agree stupid wasn't great it's just convenient so i used it, just as consoles are convenient. :)

Anway it doesn't really matter that's why i deleted it…
But if you want… What does taste got to do with it? They are nothing but prebuilt convenience that a grandma can buy. That why you see those sales, for now.
You can get the same things out of PC and alot more… But you need to invest a bit of time into it. Yes grandma's can use Pcs the problem comes when you need to build one…again easy but you needs a bit of know how that you get with time.

For me playing on consoles is like if you used 4 by 4 planks for sking… You can do it, but why? Why would i do it when i have skis or splitboard with me and know how to ski already? The only time i would do it was if there was nothing else to use.
 
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60 frames per second is a must for games like these where careful timing of dodging and blocking is an important game mechanic. I watched when my wife was playing the game on PS4Pro. It looked absolutely amazing at that console, but lack of FPS made its presence felt. Now it's my turn to play the game on my PC with 60 fps and M&K. I'm going to play at 1080p. Previous two Sony games has an excellent AA that at 1080p you feel like you're playing at 4k. I hope this is the case for GoW.

Dodging and blocking are important in this game, but it's nothing like say Dark Souls where you have to carefully time everything. It's more of a swirling frenetic combat system where your tirelessly attack with broad strikes that hit many enemies at once and where in many fights the best defense is just to keep moving and hit enemies as fast as you can so they don't hit you. There are plenty of fights where that doesn't work, and where you have to be more careful, but I didn't find it to be that finely tuned as to be a problem.
 
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God of War looked great on my PS4 and I had no frame rate issues. I blocked and dodged and swung just fine and dandy.

I've gamed on computers for the past 40+ years but PC supremacists are the most tiring people on Earth. I'd really like to know what war you think you're fighting and for what stakes.
 
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God of War looked great on my PS4 and I had no frame rate issues. I blocked and dodged and swung just fine and dandy.

I've gamed on computers for the past 40+ years but PC supremacists are the most tiring people on Earth. I'd really like to know what war you think you're fighting and for what stakes.

Yeah, I'm tired of the PC is better than console or vice versa arguments too (it's as lame as the Mac vs PC debate). It's just a personal preference based on a wide variety of factors and it is silly to call one out over another. I've owned an Atari (when they first came out), then Intellivision, ColecoVision, several Nintendos, Playstations and Xboxes - and and I've always had a gaming PC since the mid 90s. I've enjoyed 'em all. Sure, I prefer a PC - but it's just my preference.

On the GoW front, I've not played this on my PS4 and am looking forward to playing it on my PC... or maybe my Steam Deck if it arrives in February.
 
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Played on PS5 and its nice looking game. Unfortunatelly I dont find gameplay deep enough to keep me going till end. My guess is I got burned out somewhere around middle of the game.
 
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Played on PS5 and its nice looking game. Unfortunatelly I dont find gameplay deep enough to keep me going till end. My guess is I got burned out somewhere around middle of the game.

I was interested enough in the central relationship/the story to play through to the end, but I got too bored with the gameplay to do all the side stuff (like hunting down all of the Valkyries)
 
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I do not take part in the PC wars but the stakes are in my view potentially huge. If consoles win the war clearly, then it's possible that many more of the good games would be console-only which would mean that I wouldn't get to play those since I don't own a console.

I used to own a console but I disliked having to sit a long way away from the monitor (big TV) and I didn't like not having keyboard and mouse control.

I was very glad that the great Horizon Zero Dawn made it to PC and I'm glad that God of War, which seems like a good game for what I like, has made it. I am hoping for Ghosts of Tsushima as that too looks like a very good game.

It's pretty darn likely that I'll purchase God of War at some point, though I'm still only maybe halfway through the super-long most recent Pathfinder game.
 
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I do not take part in the PC wars but the stakes are in my view potentially huge. If consoles win the war clearly, then it's possible that many more of the good games would be console-only which would mean that I wouldn't get to play those since I don't own a console.

If at some point everyone throws their computers in the garbage and uses their Playstations to make spreadsheets, you may have something to worry about. People have been agonizing about consoles destroying the PC game market for 30+ years.
 
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I was interested enough in the central relationship/the story to play through to the end, but I got too bored with the gameplay to do all the side stuff (like hunting down all of the Valkyries)

Is all the side stuff essential to following the story? I'm intrigued to play it but wonder if I might find it a bit too swordy and if I have to collect a billion teapots to progress the story, might find it tiresome.

I really want to play The Last of Us, even bought a new PS4 a couple of years ago but I just don't get on with controllers anymore.
 
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Is all the side stuff essential to following the story? I'm intrigued to play it but wonder if I might find it a bit too swordy and if I have to collect a billion teapots to progress the story, might find it tiresome.

Not that I remember, no. Whereas some games are like 20% main quest, 80% side stuff, GoW is the other way round and none of it IIRC is essential to understanding the plot.
 
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I really want to play The Last of Us, even bought a new PS4 a couple of years ago but I just don't get on with controllers anymore.

Regarding controllers, Im there with you. At least in games where precise aiming is required. In other games I can even prefer controller over k+m (ie Dark Souls). Perhaps you should consider some gamepad to m+k emulator. Aten Phantom-S helped me a lot to enjoy Last Of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4. Its even emulating mouse acceleration and although the feeling is not 1:1, when compared to m+k on PC, for me it was huge improvement. I think there are also other products, just look around.
 
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Regarding controllers, Im there with you. At least in games where precise aiming is required. In other games I can even prefer controller over k+m (ie Dark Souls). Perhaps you should consider some gamepad to m+k emulator. Aten Phantom-S helped me a lot to enjoy Last Of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4. Its even emulating mouse acceleration and although the feeling is not 1:1, when compared to m+k on PC, for me it was huge improvement. I think there are also other products, just look around.

It's always been a long debate and a hard-to-change preference. :)

The m+k gives the direct movement-to-displacement (or rotation) translation so I find it more precise too, and more intuitive to handle than getting the right timing*force on a stick.

On the other hand, m+k is awkward to look/aim in other directions while moving. Arma had a good system but only temporary (switching the use of the mouse to move or to look while moving). TrackIR is great for that but I would be surprised if any of you here had it, it's more common to simulators, and VR headsets are costly and limited in other ways.

So it's a bit of a struggle with some action games, but I'll stand by m+k. Doesn't Steam have a controller that mixes both advantages with a mounted mousepad?
 
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