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Sunday, July 31, 2005

To David Jaffe

Just finished God of War. Some only mildly spoiler notes follow.

Great game. Excellent mechanics. Enjoyed the hell out of it, even some of the jumpy parts. Shame that the end scene didn't use any of those mechanics, or any of the combos I'd found, or any of the magic I'd learned and instead was a really, really cheap fighting game. Cheap enough that on normal mode the enemy can chain two or three moves that are indefensible and come back from near death to winning in about a minute.

Ended up finishing on easy mode, because of course I wasn't anywhere near a save point and certainly wasn't going to go through all that again. Felt cheap to make it all the way to the end and have to wimp out for a fight that resembled nothing of the fine game before it.

And in general I wonder, why is it that the ending of games is often the least satisfactory part?

1 comment:

Finster said...

I think sometimes it has to do with deadlines. Like Knights of the Old Republic II. Great game... until the crapfest that was the ending. And it was bad because Lucasarts was breathing down their necks rushing the game.

I think another reason is that endings are hard in any media. I think the best writers are the ones that can end a movie or book effectively. I love Neal Stephenson's work, but he can't end a book very well. The last 50 or so pages always feel rushed and convoluted.

So, I blame either deadlines or lack of talent.