LawrenceLambleg

I get a lot of people like this game. And that's fair. If you like something - good for you, I guess.

But after being extremely disappointed by the decisions made for God of War Ragnarök, which I gave 1 star for, I have to give this 2 stars.

To be fair, this "DLC" which comes free of charge (which is one of its redeeming qualities) has another redeeming quality - it somehow manages to have more gameplay than the entire game.

But that is pretty much all you get from this DLC. And there are things I've read online about it that are true. Yes, the DLC is free if you have the original game, yes - there is no in-game currency, yes - cosmetics are addressed as just that - cosmetics. But if that is the bar you have for games, I'm sorry to say there are plenty of games free of charge out there that are way better than this.

And yes - it has a story, it has cutscenes, yay! We all know you can't have a game without cutscenes! Nowadays that is the most important thing about a game... not for the player to actually play it, but to sit and watch the characters talk to each other. Fun fun fun! But what bothers me is this add-on gets a lot of praise for "randomly generating" the same 10 levels which are not even fun to go through in this Groundhog Day scenario... If you want me to fight the same characters over and over again, let me do that, don't make me go through the same doors and jump over the same cliffs over and over and over and over again until the game gets interesting enough that God forbid I die and I have to do it all over again.

And yeah, sure... older games had less checkpoints so "skill issue", right? Yeah, but older games also had a much more interesting gameplay loop. I don't wanna die in "The Last Uncharted Kratos of Us" and think "oh no ... there goes another walking-through-doors extravaganza". If they didn't wanna bother with actual level design, why did they do it? And here's the twist - even if you don't die, you get to do it over and over and over and over again, because it's literally 10 small maps that are so poorly-designed I'm thinking maybe they just let ChatGPT program the levels.

I'm thinking the only reason this DLC is free is because the devs felt guilty about making a $70 game that felt more like an interactive movie. But another thing I'd agree with that comes from other reviews is this - if you already have the base game, just download this. (Sadly,) the Valhalla DLC is the most fun you can get out of this game. Otherwise it feels like Borderlands' infamous Moxxi DLC. And whereas Moxxi DLC was the worst thing about Borderlands, I really believe Valhalla is the best thing out of "God of War Ragnarök". I can't stress enough how sad saying this makes me feel for the future of video games. It somehow keeps getting worse and worse. And especially this year, seeing what these companies are doing, I feel ashamed for giving them my money.

Remember when the most famous comedy actor in Hollywood made a sort of funny meh movie called "The Mask" in 1994 and 10 years later some studio thought it was a great idea to bank on it by making a sequel without Jim Carrey?

Well this is sort of how I feel about this game. I remember as a kid not having a PlayStation and dreaming about the day I'd get my hands on one so I can play all of the gory, violent, fantastic God of War games. I get to wield badass weapons and kill all the Gods and Giants, helping Kratos get his bloody revenge and unleash his apocalyptic fury.

Well not in this game, because get this... this game wants you to know about what I could say is the only flaw in the series' revival. Atreus is a horrendously boring character at best and a completely wasted storytelling opportunity at worse. I don't think there is any other character in the games that I have any disdain for. Baldur was a nice villain, Freya was perfectly set up as a villain for this one, Brok, Sindri and Mimir really grow on you, this game starts you off with and sets up perfectly the long expected gallery of infamous rivals that this latest installment is about to let you sink your teeth in.

And Atreus as a plot device is tremendous and acts as a great window into the fascinating world of Norse mythology. One problem though. The character is written atrociously. And I don't even find it a problem if it was meant to be a despicable character. No. It's just pointless when the narrative of the newer GOW games has been praised for being a mature character development and redemption for Kratos. Why is it pointless? Well because we have already went through Kratos going on a war path that leads to nowhere. We grew up with a half-god badass taking on the Gods. We know this story. It was better written, better acted, it was more fun and it had infinitely better pacing. I can't put into words how little I care about Atreus as a character, let alone play as him for what feels like forever. The game's dialogue even makes fun of you for doing this to yourself. The ridiculously unnecessarily long and tedious section with Angrboda (that at least picked up in quality towards the end with some heartbreaking cutscenes) ends in Angrboda telling you "you spent more time in here than you think". Thanks for that 4th wall break, Angrboda, but I doubt it was more than it felt. Because it felt like AN ETERNITY away from fun gameplay.

I'm giving this 1 star in hopes of people noticing this horrendous trend of making AAA games where we are told we should move away from the titular character. If Santa Monica is gonna make the next game about Atreus, at least have the decency to not call it "God of War". That way I'd know not to buy it. Otherwise this feels like an insult for the fans of the franchise, who have been nothing but incredibly loyal to the studio. Or at least if you want Atreus as a protagonist, make him an interesting character with an engaging gameplay loop... not have us walk for three hours in a flowery forest picking up fruits... Who came up with this nonsense? Who in their right mind thought this would be fun? I don't know why The Last of Us is praised as the best game on PlayStation, but "walk around and pick up stuff from the ground" is certainly my least favorite genre in video games. It's just awful. Video games are supposed to be fun.

He's a genius! I love him! One of the greatest to ever do it!

If it wasn't for Dave Attell, half of today's comedians would be stealing jokes that were never funny.

The entire recorder segment made me laugh more than anything in stand-up that came out in the last 10 years at least. I hope every comedian is watching and taking notes, because if Dave Attell is still doing it - then the bar is finally getting raised back up.

I missed funny. Every sentence in these 37 minutes of comedy gold is a one-liner. And there's plenty of non-scripted ones either. He is so clever, he is so quick and he is so genuinely, uniquely and unapologetically hilarious.