Why I thought the original God of War was close to perfection.

Most of you may be familiar with the string of hits developed by Sony Santa Monica, their biggest contribution to the games industry being the God of War series. The studio did not appear out of thin air. The odds of them striking gold right out the gate was not coincidence. Many of the founders were senior members of SingleTrac, and Inognito Entertainment. They had cut their teeth on the Playstation, and Playstation 2 consoles. They managed to get more out of the systems they developed for than other studios in the US, or Japan. They explored multiple genres, and demonstrated that they could create profitable original ideas. Many of those hits coming from the mind of David Jaffe. He understood the audience better than many other directors. He knew how to delver new experiences that gamers weren't expecting. The team at Santa Monica was put together to create a new type of adventure game. Something that could go toe-to-toe with Tomb Raider, Halo, Resident Evil, and other big hits from their contemporaries. This game would be set in ancient Greece, and feature a different kind of hero. Somebody with a dark, and tragic past that reflected the failings, and triumphs of classic archetypes. Jaffe, and company demonstrated a knowledge for writing serious content through the Twisted Metal series. They also knew how to tell the story through the action of the game itself.

They went through countless iterations of Kratos, the star of the series. The early drafts had a faceless character in armor. This unknown warrior could have been anybody. It would have been easy for audiences to imagine themselves in the place of the protagonist. That type of projection worked for Master Chief in Halo, and Issac in Dead Space. That type of design even worked for the homicidal clown Needles Kane in Twisted Metal. It was good in concept. However the studio wanted to tell a different kind of story. They wanted a protagonist with a face, somebody that could show expression. Somebody that audiences would be able to empathise with. He still needed to be strong, and identifiable when compared to other humans in game. He would be tall so he could be picked out of a lineup. He wouldn't wear a helmet, or chest armor either. He would be bald, and pale as well, with a sharp beard, as if he was some sort of ghost on the battlefield. He would have solid red tattoos covering most of his body, and head. These things combined was counter the look of Sparticus, Ben-Hur or what we would think a sword, and sandals hero would look like. The icing on the cake were the weapons he was supplied with. In the early stages Kratos fought with a sword, but that seemed kind of basic. The studio wanted his weapon to have the range, and functionality of a whip, but with a sharp edge as well. Putting jagged swords at the end of chains was the kind of psycho idea that worked just right, thus the Blade of Chaos were born.

Once Kratos was fleshed out he needed a voice. Somebody that could pull off righteous anger, and fury, but then switch to curiosity, conviction, or defeat as well. The studio found T.C. Carson. My brothers, and I knew him from a TV show called Living Single. We couldn't believe the friendly character Kyle Barker, was also the intense Ghost of Sparta. I don't want to knock the performance put forward by Christopher Judge in the 2018 GoW, and Ragnarok, but to me T.C. would always be Kratos. The majority of his games would be narrated by another veteran actor. Linda Hunt had appeared in a number of films, and television shows. My brothers first saw her in the live action Popeye, but knew her best from the David Lynch movie Dune. She was very short for an actress, making her easy to spot in any role. However she spoke with a certain amount of gravity, and seriousness that could intimidate people three times her size. You simply couldn't ignore her delivery. She won an academy award for playing Billy Kwan, an Asian man with dwarfism in the film The Year of Living Dangerously. It was an amazing performance that holds up to this day. Today that type of casting could be considered problematic for a number of reasons, but I still consider it an amazing role. Her voice worked well as the narrator of God of War. It would also be revealed that the narrator was actually the titan Gaia in the sequel.

The game first came to my attention at the E3 in Los Angeles. My friends, and I managed to score some tickets to the industry-only event. The big publishers usually spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on their show floor booths. In a previous year Sony placed actual race cars on the walls to promote Gran Turismo. Nintendo hung a full size pod racer over their booth from the set of Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. For God of War Sony put forward an amazing display, featuring a rope bridge, and mountain pass that would appear in the game. I didn't know it then but it was cliffs leading to Pandora's Temple. I recorded some of the demo to show my cousins, but didn't really play it. I did put a pin in the game to check it out later. The buzz in the magazines following the convention was that this game was going to be something special. I didn't know anything about Sony Santa Monica, but I became more interested in the game when the magazines said the people behind Twisted Metal, and other PS hits were creating God of War. That was all I needed to hear. When I fired up the game I just thought that it was going to be a fun time. I had no idea how deeply it was going to rock my world. From a storytelling perspective it was one of the few games I could consider perfect.

I love a story that goes full circle. The thing is that the format is deceptively hard to do. Most stories told almost entirely in a flashback just never pan out. The setup is easy, but sticking the landing is all but impossible. One of my favorites is the Hudsucker Proxy, it is the best example of when the format works. The theme of having a cycle of ups, and downs, even the use of actual circles appears multiple times throughout. The story starts just a few minutes before the New Year, the symbolic end of a cycle. The opening instantly hooks the audience because they think they are watching a desperate man about to take his own life. I don't want to give away the rest if you haven't seen it. The other thing that engrossed me was the plausible fantasy of it. Some critics said it was like watching a fairy tale come to life. It is what I think the writer/directors Joel, and Ethan Cohen are masters of. They take a story that has an element of truth, and then push it to the very edge of what was possible, and what really happened. They did this to great success with the movie Fargo as well. There was a video game that I think captured this level of magic, and storytelling as well. That was NiGHTS into dreams… by Sonic Team.

NiGHTS into dreams… was an original title for the Sega Saturn. The early 32-bit system also featured memorable 3D titles Panzer Dragoon, Sega Rally, and Clockwork Knight. NiGHTS was, and remains, my favorite game of all time. I had written a tremendous amount about it on my old 1UP blog many years ago. I also wrote about the dismal follow-up on the Nintendo Wii. I will be reposting that 1UP series of my personal top 20 in the future. But I digress. NiGHTS was a story told without words, so there was nothing for localizers to translate or adapt for the US market. The game revolves around a boy named Elliot Edwards, and a girl named Claris Sinclair. The two kids have a challenging day when the thing they enjoy doing is taken away from them by their own insecurities. That translates into bad nightmares when they go to sleep. They come across NiGHTS in the dream world, and the androgynous character helps them fight against the nightmares. It’s a lovely, but short story. The thing that amazed me, aside from the brilliant design, and game play, was that the game went full circle. It ends exactly where it begins. Leading audiences to understand that NiGHTS had always been there for the “Twin Dreamers.” Kratos on the other hand has no such help to rid him of the nightmares he suffers from. Audiences don’t know what the character is going through when God of War begins. Kratos is at the Suicide Bluffs near Athens. He says the gods of Olympus have abandoned him, then he steps off the cliffs. This is where the narrator takes over, and explains that things were not always like this. I had no idea that the game would end at the exact same place, and that to me was amazing storytelling.

From the very first moment audiences were hooked. We wanted to find out why Kratos had lost all hope. We saw that a few weeks earlier he was in the service of the gods, Athena specifically. He had been completing missions on her behalf for a decade, but was plagued by nightmares. We didn’t learn the cause of his madness until later in the game. Athena promised that his past would be forgiven if he completed this final task. In a tragic misunderstanding he thought this meant that she would rid him of his memories. Misunderstandings like this were the case with other tragedies, such as Hercules. He accidentally killed his family, and was tasked to complete 10 labors (later expanded to 12) in order to find atonement. In God of War the gods were forbidden to fight each other directly, so Athena was sending Kratos on her behalf because he was trained by Ares, and once served him. The game shows, rather than tells us what is happening. We instantly start fighting zombie-like warriors in the middle of a storm out in the ocean. Kratos fights ship-to-ship until he faces off against a gigantic Hydra. The action, and spectacle never lets up. Visually there were very few PS2 games that could match what Sony Santa Monica delivered. Kratos soon found himself in Athens where we fought our way to the heart of the city. This was when we caught the first glimpse of Ares. He towers in the distance, as large as a mountain, stepping on the forces defending Athens. At this point I felt like giving up. The developer did such a good job at creating the villain that I felt genuine fear facing him. There was no way that I would accept that Kratos would have stood a chance against the actual god of war.

The Oracle of Athens explained to Kratos that there was one weapon that would give him a chance, Pandora’s Box. I thought that this was an interesting MacGuffin from classic Greek mythology to use. The quest to retrieve it from the Desert of Lost Souls was the next step in the journey. Had the game solely taken place there, and Kratos had returned back to Athens with the box then I would have been satisfied. As a huge mythology fan I was already elated to have battled the Hydra, then minotaurs, and even sirens in the desert. There was no way I thought the game could have gotten even better. I was so wrong. I had no idea that I would be hit with an experience that would have made an eight-year-old version of me explode from excitement. Even the older me started freaking out as the game slowly unveiled the next portion of the game. Athena appeared once more to Kratos to explain that Pandora's Box was at the other end of the desert, in a temple strapped to the back of the titan Cronos. I just about lost my mind when she said this, and then the game showed us the massive titan. My brothers had absorbed a lot of the footnotes of the mythological creatures because I wouldn't stop talking about them as a kid. When Athena mentioned Cronos we all got excited. This game was not going to be a surface level appreciation of the ancient gods, it was going to be a deep-deep dive.

The Playstation 2 was a fantastic console, and possibly the best of that era. When God of War debuted the developers were maxing out the potential of the hardware. Only a handful of studios could say that they made use of every feature, of every tool that they had picked up while working for Sony. As great as the console was there were a few things that it wasn't powerful enough to accomplish, one of these were graphics that were indistinguishable from pre-rendered CGI graphics. The cut scenes for the games were rendered with more powerful hardware, but more or less maintained the aesthetic that they were going for. The first time we saw an interpretation of Cronos my brothers, and I were in awe. The massive creature looked tormented with his burden. An enormous mountain was chained to his back. We had to figure out a way to reach him, and the mountain. Crossing the desert was a fun part of the game, and it gave me a sense of the challenges that were ahead. Not only would I have to battle different kinds of mythical characters, I would also have to figure out puzzles, and death traps as well.

As I progressed through the game I noticed how much of the experience was pulled from the work that the team had done earlier. The tragic origin of Kratos, plot, allies, and monster designs had a strong aesthetic. They rivaled the work that went into the story, and cast of Twisted Metal. The attention to detail on the textures, landscape, level design, color, weather, and even particle effects looked like it had originated from Downhill Domination. God of War had improved in both counts. When it came to rendering giant characters with the hardware it was all a matter of perspective. When Cronos was first spotted he was off in the distance, a tiny version of him wandering the desert could be seen while fighting the sirens. When he was close then all we saw was a portion of his face. Both of which were framing devices that made audiences feel a sense of scale with the mighty titan. I knew instantly that everything the team had learned while working on War of the Monsters was being used as well. This became especially evident at the end of the game. I expected Kratos to open Pandora's Box, and have a bolt of lightning strike down Ares. But that wouldn't have been enough for Jaffe, and his team. Instead the box imbues Kratos with awesome powers, and he grows in size to rival Ares. The two giants then square off in the port of Athens. Scaling down the buildings, and even having tiny pixelated soldiers fighting on the bridge, and town were techniques pulled right from War of the Monsters.

I don't mean to skip the entire challenge that happened in the temple of Pandora strapped to the back of Cronos. I just didn't want the blog to be a recap of the entire game. Rather the details that I picked up, and really appreciated as a Greek history geek. Every moment of the temple was building towards a more amazing reveal. Studio Santa Monica knew exactly how, and when how to turn every card they had placed on the table. They had mastered the ability to pace every encounter, to raise the stakes on every challenge. They allowed gamers to power up the Blades of Chaos, and even add a secondary Blade of Artemis, to help balance out the more difficult fights. All the while they gave us more, and more of the story of the battle between the gods, and the titans. They allowed us to explore every corner of the fantasy world they had created, and this included the underworld as well. Of course in typical Greek tragedy a happy ending was not in the cards for Kratos. Although he managed to stop Ares his nightmares were not erased. Athena only promised that the gods would forgive him for killing his family. They never promised they would rid him of the memories. This lead to Kratos feeling as if the gods had abandoned him. The final scene takes us back to the start of the game where we see Kratos try to take his own life.

Rather than die from the fall he was instead taken up to Mount Olympus. I was not expecting the game to end there. Someone had to take the place of Ares as the new god of war. Walking up the golden staircase to the throne room gave me goosebumps. Never in a million years would I have expected it. The effects, and presentation of Mount Olympus was one of my favorite visuals of the entire series. To this day I am amazed at how the studio was able to recreate something as etherial, and otherworldly. Returning full circle to the start of the game was a brilliant way to cap the experience. As with NiGHTS into dreams... it was something almost impossible to do. It was a literal one in a million chance of sticking the landing. Also as with NiGHTS if God of War had ended with only one game then I would have been satisfied. David Jaffe, and the studio had managed to create a perfect game. There were other developers that had been around for much longer, still trying to capture that kind of lightning in a bottle. Despite all the hard work that went into God of War there were no guarantees in the industry. It could have fallen short with the audience for some imperceptible flaw. Because of this Jaffe, and company wanted to plant the seeds of a sequel, or even series.

Gamers that returned to complete the Challenge of the Gods were rewarded with all sorts of secrets. Two potential paths for the franchise were revealed. One of the possible stories was set in the current era. A military expedition discovered the bones of Cronos out in the desert, with the temple still chained to his back. There were other challenges, and treasures waiting to be revealed inside. Would a soldier, a descendant of Kratos be the only person to go in, and come out alive? Would he discover his legacy? Perhaps become the next God of War? Then there was also a second story revealed. Kratos had a younger brother that was taken from him as a child. Whereas Kratos grew up to be a successful Spartan captain, his brother grew up in the underworld, and grew to resent Kratos. I had no idea if either ending would be explored in the future. As I said the market could be fickle. Despite the press, and marketing that went into the game if audiences didn’t help spread the word then it would have been a slept on after release. It would have been forgotten along with the hundreds of other games released each year. Today there are dozens of YouTube channels where gamers are rediscovering titles that perhaps came out at the wrong time, and deserve a second look. Thankfully God of War was an enormous success. There would be a sequel, and it would be even more incredible. I’ll talk about that in the next blog. For now I’d like to hear your take on God of War, or any other games you would consider to be close to perfection. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Learning how to tell a story from movies, and the studio that sold the Playstation to me

We’ve been going through a bit of personal history in the past couple of blogs. I’m going to keep digging in because these things definitely helped shape what I enjoy in my favorite forms of entertainment, and will tie back into my love of the God of War series. Bear with me please. All through my childhood repeatedly consuming games, comics, and movies made me aware of the types of stories I enjoyed. I learned the techniques that writers used to help shape a story thanks to my English teachers. I copied my favorite artists work hoping that I would pick up how they see the world. I’d rewatch movies on VHS, and later DVD to pick up how sometimes movie studios got things right, and sometimes they missed the point. It was easier to figure out what worked best when creating big budget projects. When movies were at their best it seemed almost easy to make a sequel. There were a lot of amazing sequels that my brothers, and I grew up with. I didn’t always believe in trilogies, and often wished that some stories ended sooner.

There were a few things that I thought made up great sequels. First is that the stakes had to be much higher in the next movie. It couldn’t simply be more of the same thing. Yes there had to be familiar elements, but the challenge had to be cranked up tremendously. From Alien to Aliens for example, Ripley went from surviving a single xenomorph in a horror film type setting to being an action hero against an army of xenomorphs. In Back to the Future II the original villain Biff completely changed history. It was up to Doc, and Marty to restore the timeline. In Terminator 2 the killer T-800 cyborg was sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor from an even more dangerous robot. Terminator 2, Aliens, and Back to the Future II were almost a complete reversals of the original movies. Audiences loved it, and to me the film series could have wrapped up then. My favorite blockbusters created heroes, and villains that I wouldn’t mind seeing for a movie, or two. Ripley, Sarah, or Marty would be fun to follow for a few adventures. However at some point I thought their story should wrap up. There were a few characters that seemed better suited for a series of adventures. People like Indiana Jones, or Rick O’Connell (the Mummy 1999) were the types of heroes that I thought could easily carry a series of films. The sequels could raise the stakes in unique ways, such as Indy being a father figure in the Temple of Doom, or helping his own father recover the literal Holy Grail in The Last Crusade. The video game equivalents of Laura Croft, and Nathan Drake were adventurers that we’d be happy to follow along with as well.

Then there were some films that I thought worked so well that they didn’t need a sequel. I’m forever grateful that E.T. never got a sequel despite calls to do this from the studio. That film wrapped up so well that there was nothing else that needed to be said. The pressure to revisit the property was tremendous, but thankfully Steven Spielberg stuck to his guns. He wanted to focus on original stories. Then there were films that didn’t really need a sequel. The Jaws films for example were nothing more than cash grabs from the studio. The most interesting characters in the original film died after all, those being the shark, and the shark hunter Quint. Even if Police Chief Brody, or ichthyologist Hooper turned up in other movies the plot, and chemistry couldn’t repeat the magic of the original. I applied what movies had taught me to the games I played. Did some games deserve a sequel? Or were they better as one-off experiences? If they did get a sequel then how did they raise the stakes, or completely rewrite the direction of the franchise? The leap from 16-bit pixel games, to the early stage of 32, and 64-bit polygons helped make sequels much stronger. Developers had a chance to expand on the worlds they wanted to create thanks to a bump in storage capacity, audio, and graphic technology.

We were blessed to have the several consoles while growing up. Our parents sacrificed a lot of time, money, and sanity making sure that they could keep their three boys happy. Starting with the Atari 2600, then every few years another console. The NES, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Saturn, GameCube, and Dreamcast to name a few. After the Genesis our parents made sure that my older brother, and I worked (part-time) to pay for our own games, and consoles. My younger brother was able to get out of that rule for a few more releases. None of us ever believed in console bandwagons. We knew that great games were on every platform. Nobody could claim to be the absolute best. We also knew that the best developers made the best games, regardless of hardware. Sony was the newest entry in the console wars, by having Namco bring arcade hits Tekken, and Ridge Racer to the Playstation helped us decide if we’d be spending money on it. Remember that 3D games were still relatively new for home consoles. Seeing polygons with textures, and higher frame rates than we had seen in the past was revolutionary. Although near arcade perfect adaptations helped sell the PS, it was actually original hits by independent studios that made the console matter to us. We started to notice that some studios really spoke to us. As if everything they did was gold. One of those was SingleTrac.

Three of the first games they released for the PS were amazing. Jet Moto, Twisted Metal, and Warhawk. Each of these games was an original idea, something new to the genre, if not carving out a new niche altogether. Jet Moto was a sci-fi racing game, Twisted Metal a vehicle combat game, and Warhawk an air combat game. Many early PS fans would remember WipeOut as Sony’s response to Nintendo’s F-Zero, but that wasn’t the only futuristic racer on the console. Jet Moto was as good, but at the same time a different kind of beast. The flying jet bikes went over land, and sea, allowing it to play like the best parts of Namco’s Ridge Racer, with Nintendo’s WaveRace 64. Warhawk was a futuristic air combat game, with a plane that could both fly, and hover. It found the balance between fighter jet, helicopter combat, and third-person shooter. Twisted Metal was a post-apocalyptic vehicle combat shooter. Of the three it was a breakout hit for the console. The graphics, control, sound, characters, levels, game play, and storyline were brilliant. They were a far departure from the mascot-driven games of the late ‘80s, and early ‘90s. The crazed contestants of the Twisted Metal tournament could never be mistaken for the friendly faces of Mario, Pac-Man, or Sonic. If there was something that SingleTrac understood better than their contemporaries was that audiences was getting older, and looking for more mature themes in their gaming.

Twisted Metal, the most recognizable character Needles Kane, and his Sweet Tooth ice cream truck became synonymous with the console. For a while many fans, including Sony, considered him a mascot for their platform. The studio had a hit, and the sequel was even more amazing. New characters were introduced, the story was fleshed out, and every element of the game became better, and more polished. What happened next was Sony shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how important it was to have a studio capable of cranking out so many memorable first generation titles, and all original so that Sony didn’t have to pay for an IP? You would think that Sony gave SingleTrac a massive budget to continue building hits. What actually happened was the publisher turned around, and gave the property to 989 Studios. 989 released the dismal Twisted Metal 3, and 4. The backlash against the game was almost instant from critics, and gamers. My brothers, and I could tell that the new studio was not at the same caliber of SingleTrac. We were sorely disappointed in what happened. Their version of the franchise was a sluggish, and ultimately forgettable mess. I talked about it extensively on an earlier blog when I compared what Sony did to Twisted Metal, to what SCI did with the Carmageddon game. In the end SingleTrac broke up, but from the ashes an even more amazing studio named Icognito Entertainment was born. Sony went back to the game creator, a guy named David Jaffe, and asked if they could develop a new Twisted Metal for their follow-up console the Playstation 2. David said yes, as long as they would get more creative freedom. Sony agreed, and the rest was history.

Twisted Metal Black was one of the darkest games seen in any generation. At the same time it was also one of the best PS2 games ever released. Jaffe, and the team knew better than most Hollywood studios on how to craft a sequel. They kept their content fresh, even when revisiting familiar themes. They added new faces to the lineup, upped the challenge, but made sure the game was still easy to pick up, and play. You didn’t necessarily have to have played the previous versions to get the most out of it. The studio once again demonstrated that they had the pulse of the audience. More so than just about any other studio in the industry. The Gen-X community that made up a huge portion of the video game market was entering adulthood, and they wanted their games to mature as well. Yes they still wanted a challenge, and they still wanted a diversity of traditional gaming experiences. But they also wanted the serious games to become more serious, or in the case of Twisted Metal, to become more over-the-top with the violence, and carnage. Incognito Entertainment was the second coming of SingleTrac. Every title they developed was completely new, and unique. They didn’t bother with nailing down an IP from any movie, or comic book. They didn’t copy what other studios were doing. The proof of was in their other PS2 games.

War of the Monsters was one of the greatest games for the Playstation 2. It showed off what the hardware was capable of from an animation, graphics, sound, music, and control aspect. It was easily one of my favorite games of all time. It was almost criminal how little buzz it generated from audiences, and critics. Jaffe, and the studio created a giant monster fighting game that played better than most 3D brawlers, and believe me when I say I’ve played almost every brawler that’s ever been released. None were as smooth, as memorable, or as addictive as what Incog Ent. had delivered. You might think a game without licensed giant monsters wouldn’t be any good, but by the lineup was inspired by a mixed theme of creatures from the golden age of monster films. We’re talking gigantic baddies from the ’50s, through the ‘70s. The studio was able to deliver archetypes from the US, the UK, and Japan. Yet somehow they all managed to work well together. It’s one of the few games that I sorely wish had gotten a sequel. It wasn’t the only critically underrated game that Incog developed.

Downhill Domination was an arcade style mountain bike racing game. From a visual standpoint it was one of the best-looking PS2 games ever released. Players took riders down several mountain stages scattered all around the world. Incog got a chance to show off all the tricks they had been learning with the hardware. Every stage had a mix of different elements, terrain, and even weather. This included snow, gravel, dirt, grass, rocks, and even lava. Tracks were set along ski courses, they had waterfalls, and rivers running through them. You'd have to watch out for hikers, and wildlife scaling the mountain. There were tons of lines to find, and hidden paths down the courses. There was nothing as amazing as racing side-by-side with another maniac while trying to survive a lightning storm sparking a forest fire in your path. As if racing down a mountain wasn't challenging enough the computer opponents could kick, and punch you. You could return the favor, and earn upgrades like sticks, and bottles of water to throw at them. In order to earn better weapons, and sponsorship money you could perform freestyle tricks while racing. The enormous leaps you had down precarious cliffs gave you several seconds to perform all sorts of freestlye moves. Incognito had approached the racing genre with the same sort of creative freedom that went into JetMoto. The best way I could explain the brilliance of Downhill Domination would be to say it took the racing combat of Road Rash, the BMX freestlye tricks of Matt Hoffman Pro BMX, and the fun characters, and massive stages of Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. It didn't do these things okay, in many ways it did these things better than the aformentioned games.

I was in awe of how wonderful each game the company developed turned out. The diversity, and game play they created over the years should never be understated. When I heard the studio was absorbed by Sony I was heartbroken. That meant I'd more than likely never see another War of the Monsters, Dowhnill Jam, or any other original idea. It would probably all be licensed IP, or sequels to other hits. I wouldn't mind the team creating another Twisted Metal, but that was up to the publisher now. I had little faith in Sony. Thankfully they proved me wrong with what they were working on. David Jaffe, and many of the team members he had worked with in the past were cooking up something new. It would be an action fantasy game the likes of which had never been seen before. The game was called God of War. I was not ready for it. We'll talk more about it in the next blog. Did you ever play any of the SingleTrac, or Ingonito Entertainment games? Did you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

What came before the gods? Pop culture makes me obsessed with mythology...

In the previous blog I talked about a conversation I had with my cousin on whether Elden Ring, or God of War Ragnarok would win the 2022 game of the year. It got me thinking about the GoW series, about what made it stand out to me. Why did the adventures of Kratos resinate so much with me? I suppose it all goes back to the movies, and stories I grew up with. I’m a Gen-Xer, like most we were born in the 1970’s. It was a sweet spot where arcades were transitioning from pinball machines, to video game cabinets. So we were the first generation to enjoy the last of the mechanical games, and the first of the digital games. Also we were the generation that was introduced to home game consoles as well. I was lucky to have parents that took my brothers, and I to many different types of movies. Animated, live action, comedy, horror, action, suspense, and just about everything in between. Of course they’d tell us to close our eyes if there was nudity, but we enjoyed most everything we saw. Then of course we would watch TV after school, and see all sorts of classic films while doing our homework. It would be a few years before we got our first game console. So comic books, cartoons, and classic movies pretty much fed our imagination.

There were a few films that we always tried to catch on TV whenever they played. Chief among them were the ones featuring Sindbad, sometimes written Sinbad. The films covered the stories of the famous Arabian sailor. We got to see a world of fantastic adventures, filled with mythical monsters, evil wizards, and memorable archetypes. While we enjoyed the movies about Robin Hood, and King Arthur as well, it was always nice to see dark-skinned characters play the heroes. The Golden Voyage of Sindbad was possibly our most favorite. It didn’t hurt that I had an instant crush on the chesty Caroline Munroe. The makeup, costumes, and special effects were amazing. We knew how green screens worked thanks to the local weatherman, but couldn’t figure out how they got giant monsters onto the same frames as the actors. The scene where the evil wizard Koura brings the statue of Kali to life was forever burned into my memory. We’d eventually learn about stop motion animation, claymation, and the like. It was an animator named Ray Harryhausen that brought the fantasy monsters to life. I would be forever in debt to his creativity.

Every movie sparked questions from us. We were in awe of the myths from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Who were the Greeks? Who were the Romans? What about the Persians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Sumerians? What was a colossus? Where did the giants come from? Were these based on actual legends? Were they original stories? Did these places, did these people exist in real life? Where did flying carpets, and genie’s come from? We’d pester our parents with these questions day, and night. Thankfully mom was familiar with many of the stories. She had grown up with seven brothers, and a sister. They learned all sorts of things in school. She told my brothers, and I about Shahrazad, and the Thousand and One Nights. She talked about how the ancient cities, as well as some of the magics, and monsters were even mentioned in the Bible. As practicing Catholics that was all I needed to hear. I was convinced that a lot of these fantastic stories were based on reality. The thing that really intrigued me was that every legend was built on an earlier story. Like it was King Solomon from the Bible that cursed all djinn, and made them servants. So demons, and monsters used to just run over ancient civilizations. The film Clash of the Titans was the first Greek mythology film we saw in a theater. I learned about the gods that existed before the Bible from that movie. More important, I learned that there were monsters called the titans that existed before the gods of Olympus. They all had names, they all had origins. The idea of something existing before the more well known gods inspired me. It created a desire to learn what came before. I wanted to read more about the ancient gods, and monsters. Of course there weren’t many story books about that in elementary school.

That desire to learn what came before never faded. It was how I discovered that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit existed before Mickey Mouse. At the very least our library had books about cartoons. My fascination with Oswald stayed with me for decades. It was the bit of trivia that I could always bring up to stump the other die-hard Disney fans in school. I never forgot about the titans, and when we took field trips to the main brach library in downtown Long Beach I would seek out the mythology books. I would find out the names of the heroes, people like Jason, and Perseus, and the adventures they went on. I’d wonder why the statues of the classic heroes were always naked, but seeing them wrestling monsters was proof to me that the stories were based on reality. Every now and then I’d learn the name of a titan. Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Iapetus, and their young brother Cronus. I’d learn there were female titans named Rhea, and Phoebe as well. Studying that titans also had parents named Gaia, and Uranus to me meant that they must have been the ones that helped shape the cosmos. It was heretical thinking, but I was sure that the Catholic god was the one that created them, grew tired of their battles, and banished them from Earth. He ended their reign before the Olympian gods showed up. Teachers always wondered how I knew about Roman, and Greek gods whenever they talked about where ancient traditions like Valentines Day came from.

Middle school (then called Jr. High) was more of the same, picking up bits of information about the oldest mythologies. The comic world was undergoing a radical changing of the guard. Jim Lee, and Chris Claremont had redefined the look, and writing for the X-Men. Frank Miller, and Alan Moore made Batman a true heavy hitter. Peter David, and Dale Keown crafted brilliant Hulk comics. Mr. David had even introduced the Pantheon into Hulk continuity; Ajax, Hector, Agamemnon, Andromeda, Atlanta, Delphi, Jason, Paris, etc. These were just a few of the artists, and writers that exploded the comic book market. The indy publisher Eclipse, and later Dark Horse comics was translating a few Japanese mangas at the same time. It was how I discovered Masamune Shirow, and his Appleseed series. The post-apocalyptic story was brilliantly written, and illustrated. The fact that they used classic Greek names, but in a science fiction setting blew my mind. The cybernetic hero Briaeros Hecatonchires, and his girlfriend Deunan Knute were mercenaries recruited into the Olympus E-SWAT team. Nike, Athena, Poseidon, Aeacus, Hades, and Uranus were characters, and places visited in the series. Shirow’s groundbreaking mecha, and weapon designs, several of which were based on insects, were unlike anything I’d seen in any western comic. Shirow was quickly becoming an art god for me. The fact that Briaeros was a Black Mediterranean man underneath the cybernetic armor was also inspiring. Of course I was furious that the more recent CGI movies had white-washed him. The name Hecatonchires was the type of brain augmentations he had, the name was based on the hundred-handed giants that aided the Olympians in defeating their cousins the titans. Briaeros was the name of one of the three Hecatonchires. His brain implants were so advanced that they scared other cyborgs. It was said that he could control an aircraft carrier all by himself by plugging into its computer.

I remember vividly as a kid that several classes got a chance to take a field trip to the University of California Irvine. We were treated to an entertaining presentation in their massive gymnasium, where we were encouraged to go to college. Then we were allowed to attend an actual university class. We had a list of possible classes to sit in on, I was split between the science, and art classes. I sat in on the art, and it turned out to be a history class. The professor was discussing the importance of a classic Greek statue. I was absorbed by the details that he pointed out. The sculptor captured the correct anatomy of throwing a javelin, how the foot placement, turn in the hips, and torso was actually mid throw. There was a shift in balance, on the balls of the foot, and these were motions that happened in a hundredth of a second, but was accurately recreated in bronze. After the class wrapped up most of his students packed up, and left. I ran up to him, and asked if there were any statues, paintings, or other representations of the hecatonchires recorded. Because I only had the stories to go from, but wondered how the Greeks actually imagined a hundred-handed giant looked like. The teacher stared at me with a puzzled look. “Heck-a-ton-cries, uhh, I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that.” I insisted that they were the monsters that helped the gods defeat the titans. He nodded, and said “I’m not sure, sorry.” He couldn’t put away his notes, and get away from me fast enough. I’m sure he was wondering who the hell this young brown boy was asking such a strange question. I was deflated. How could a teacher that studied ancient art have no idea what I was referring to?

High school allowed me to finally get credit for my fascination with ancient myths. Each time an English teacher would assign book reports we’d get a list of acceptable titles to read, and write about. I’d gravitate to the oldest stories that I could find. I got a chance to read the Iliad, and the Odyssey over those years. It helped me discover the relationships between the various characters. It also allowed me to appreciate the classic movies when I rewatched them. The teachers would then add to my love of mythology by introducing Beowulf, and the other stories from the north. All the while my brothers, and I continued enjoying movies, and playing video games. They were evolving in the arcade, and at home. Stories became bigger, and more complex. The best games were soon rivaling Hollywood for our attention. It was only a matter of time before they would surpass cinema as the biggest form of entertainment. The ‘90s saw Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Phantasy Star made even more amazing with the introduction of 3D to home consoles. The Sega Saturn for example featured Panzer Dragoon. It was a rail shooter the likes of which we had never seen before. Sega had managed to create something fantastic with heavy influences from mythology, but in a fresh new way. Similar to how Appleseed reinterpreted the names, and relationships from the classic gods into science fiction.

As I got older I was convinced that my favorite games were created by people that also believed in ancient legends. Stories of heroes against impossible odds. Enormous beasts, swords, and sorcery were brought to life once more thanks to their talented teams. Video game studios rather than Hollywood still believed in the power of myth. In creativity, and imagination as being the most important element to a successful title. At least it was for a little bit. Even from the earliest days we saw how publishers tried to turn a popular IP, like Star Wars, into a video game. Sometimes these adaptations worked, sometimes they didn’t. Star Wars worked thanks to Atari working with vector graphics, the predecessor to polygon technology, and sound clips from the movie. Then there was E.T. a home console adaptation by Atari that was so bad that many think it tanked the industry, and extra copies of the games were notoriously buried in the desert. I paid attention in English class how stories were built. How heroes, villains, and challenges placed to create drama. It made me watch movies, read comics, and play games with a more critical eye. I became very aware of how sequels worked, or didn’t in some cases. I’m going to talk a little bit more about this on the next blog. I’d like to know if there was something you were obsessed about as a kid that you carried into adulthood. Or was there a comic book, manga, or game that forever influenced you. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

What was your favorite game of 2022? Explaining to my cousin why I thought Elden Ring was better than God of War Ragnarok.

We’re going to go on a journey over the next few blog entries. The idea behind it started as a conversation with my cousin. One day over the holiday break my cousin, and I were talking about the game of the year contenders for 2022. The biggest titles competing were God of War Ragnarok, and Elden Ring. My cousin loves a challenge, and was absolutely smitten with Elden Ring. He enjoyed it so much that he went back through the entire FromSoftware catalog to play, or replay the other Souls games as well. He asked which I think would be game of the year. I said while I enjoyed Ragnarok (GoWR), I thought that Elden Ring (ER) was going to take the title. He knew that I was a massive God of War fan, and was getting my niece into the series. He asked why critics were also learning towards ER. I told him that I understood where new players, and long-time fans were coming from with their praise, and criticism of GoWR, compared to ER. I said both games were beautiful, both told an amazing story, both immersed audiences into a unique world, and both helped set the bar higher for the next generation. You didn’t have to play other games in each respective series, but you would get a lot out of both if you had played prior versions as well.

He wanted me to explain more because I always sung the praises of GoW. I told him to be honest, I don’t think GoWR topped the 2018 GoW. I said it was as good, but not better. It had many improvements on game play, control, combos, and visuals. As a whole, however, I don’t think the story, and features topped the previous game. Because of this Elden Ring was going to take the major awards. He wanted to know what it was specifically that I thought was lacking. He appreciated my love of gaming, and wanted to see if I could figure out the intangibles. He wanted to know which God of War game was my favorite, if it wasn’t Ragnarok. I said the best way I could explain it was in theme park terms. I told him to think about the best rides in Disneyland, what were his favorite attractions. I said for many theme park fans there were two at the top of the list; Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Haunted Mansion. I said to think about all of the things that you enjoyed in each attraction. The Imagineers responsible for the attractions were former animators, brilliant painters, writers, engineers, effects artists. They not only broke new ground for rides, but for storytelling as well. Each attraction would completely immerse the rider into an experience. From the time they got in the queue, all the way until they exited the ride. Every moment was in a world that Disney had created. The Imagineers accomplished this by controlling every element. The colors of each scene was painted in was chosen with the insight of a master painter. The angle of each turn was framed with the care of a director of photography. The fanciful pirate scenes were lit as if they were stage plays. Every material created, or purchased building, queue, and ride vehicles helped to convey a narrative.

I told him to imagine your favorite part of Pirates of the Caribbean. If you were to ask any seasoned visitor what their favorite part was chances are they would give you a list of things. Maybe it was the Blue Bayou, the perpetual nighttime swamp where the attraction begins. Heck, even the musky smell of the water that hits you as soon as you enter the show building has inspired small candle companies to recreate the scent. Maybe it was the waterfall that riders went down. Maybe it was the skeleton helmsmen perpetually sailing against a storm. Maybe it was the treasure room of an unknown pirate king. Or the battle between the Wicked Wench, and a Spanish fort. Maybe it was the sacking of a village, or any other number of things that were all cutting edge for the time, and still unparalleled in many other parks. Audiences would be hard pressed to say what the best part of the ride was. It was the whole that made it a legendary dark ride.

I told him to then think about what was the best part of the Haunted Mansion. An attraction that was longer in development, and allowed them to improve on the storytelling that they learned in Pirates. For the Haunted Mansion the best part could be the building itself. A plantation style mansion that was immaculate, and nothing like the dilapidated buildings that we usually consider possessed. It could be the queue that worked past a mausoleum, and graveyard. The Stretching Room, corridor leading up to the “Doom Buggies” with paintings that changed, and statues that followed the riders. Maybe it was the endless hallway, or the seance hosted by Madame Leota. Maybe it was the Hatbox Ghost, the ballroom scene, the graveyard party, or even the Hitchhiking Ghosts that were the best parts. Just as in PotC it was impossible to pick out a single best thing. It was the collective experience that was unlike anything else on Earth. It was rare to say this about any attraction. It was an experience that even 50+ years later people would never get tired of.

I explained to my cousin. It wasn’t about the speed of the attraction that made it so memorable. Neither Pirates, or Mansion was a roller coaster. In fact both attractions were deliberately slowly paced, so that the Imagineers could pull audiences in. They wanted to bring them into the world that they created, let them forget about the outside world, even for just a few minutes. But at no point did the action stop, they kept pushing audiences forward, little by little. The Imagineers wanted to tell a loose story by using a series of vignettes. They controlled the pace, and time required to absorb a scene by slowing each attraction. This let audiences look at the tiny details in each area, while never losing the overall picture. People could notice new things each time they rode, they could hear the action, feel it, and in some cases smell this world to complete the illusion. This was especially true with Mansion. The sides, and back of the Doom Buggies helped block out the ride, and directed the visitor to look at each scene, framed perfectly each, and every time. Then the buggy would swivel, turn, and reveal another scene just as amazing as the last. I told him that my favorite God of War games was just about evenly tied between God of War Ascension, and Ghost of Sparta. I said I considered them to be the Pirates, or Mansion of the franchise, even if they were less well received by fans.

I explained that not only did I love the magic, combat, and control of the games. I also appreciated the pace, storytelling, and framing of each level as well. From the first time I played, through the next dozen play throughs, I never grew tired of the games. Even though I knew where the story was headed I loved the way that the developers paced each section of the titles. The developers were doing much more than creating an action game. They were acting as Imagineers letting audiences play in the fantastic mythical world they had created. In my opinion these games captured the essence of the series better than any other entry. I then told my cousin that the difference between the older, and newer GoW games had nothing to do with quality, or storytelling. Sony Santa Monica was creating absolute gold, and honoring the legacy of the earlier teams. I said GoW (2018), and Ragnarok were not theme park dark rides, they were instead entire lands. There was so much to see, and explore in each game that they were more like Batuu, or Pandora. The two newer lands at Disneyland, and Walt Disney World respectively. Players could not only walk, run, and fight, they could now control the camera. They could look around, and see every detail in these fantasy worlds. Whether it was a massive fortress, a soaring dragon, a poisonous swamp, a loaf of bread, or an exotic flower. There was no detail overlooked. The developers populated the realms with thousands of such things.

Players in the new GoW games could take their time traveling back, and forth between realms. Exploring at their own pace, absorbing the features of each realm, and appreciating everything that the developers had layered into the experience. I felt that the developers had slowed down the experience to the point that it would come to a dead stop. Which to me was a frustrating experience in a theme park, as well as game. I flat-out told my cousin that I didn’t have time for any of that. I worked all day, raised a family, and at the end of my day I want to enjoy the game, not spend 20 hours wandering back and forth across a map searching for pieces of slag. Grinding, leveling up, and exploring helped control the pace. It was much more difficult to simply rush through the two newest GoW titles because of the difficulty, and various side missions. There were encounters in the game that acted as attractions in these new lands. Enormous set pieces that helped push the plot forward, and make for memorable portions, like say knocking down a giant hammer, or fighting a dragon at the top of a mountain. I had no sense of when these major action pieces would pop up. Maybe it was just around the corner, or maybe it was 10 hours away. In previous GoW games we could just about guarantee that the next major battle was five or ten minutes away from any part of the stage. In the meantime we could enjoy the battles against waves of weird monsters, and figuring out fun puzzles.

A slow, and deliberate pace were all things that modern audiences expected to see in a AAA title. Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption, the Last of Us, and Horizon were examples of games that had become longer, slower paced, and more immersive than at any other point in history. Like a Hollywood tentpole movie these games required the eyes of a talented director, a team of writers, hundreds of employees, millions of dollars in development, and years to be released. I explained to my cousin that although I appreciated that the studio had given us multiple worlds to explore, what I wanted to enjoy was the attraction. I didn’t want to wander through Batuu, or Pandora, poking around at everything all day. It was part of the reason I didn’t vibe with some of the newer Disney rides. I didn’t want to be forced to press a bunch of buttons while sitting in the Millennium Falcon, nor did I want to stare at the foliage of the plants of Pandora. Modern rides, and modern games were breathtaking works of art-meets-technology. They were built from the lessons of previous Imagineers. They did many things great, but storytelling, and action was the part of the experience that I thought suffered most in the new attractions. Rides, end even entire lands based on an existing IP felt limited. It would be hard to create a Star Wars attraction featuring a popular character that did something, said something, or acted in a way that would not be considered canon. Not to mention the ride could feel awkward if the character died in a film, or television series, yet their animatronic remained as vivid as ever. This is why I think the best Star Wars attraction like Star Tours, or games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order featured an original character, and story. But I digress.

I would argue that the best attractions couldn’t, and shouldn’t be dated against a movie, comic book, or cartoon. The films of Star Wars, Avatar, the Avengers, and Tron were all cultural touchstones, but that didn’t mean they were perfect for attractions, or games. This was especially true if audiences didn’t see frequent updates to the IP. Plus what happens when the parks try to incorporate the likeness of an actor that may turn out to be problematic, or controversial? Millions of dollars gets wasted updating the attraction, and the the likeness of that problematic actor, or actress remains seen by millions of people each year. Again I digress. God of War, like many great games, created its own mythology. It took many liberties with classic Greek, and Norse fables. Characters, and settings that were familiar to audiences were sprinkled throughout the various titles. By centering the experience around a new hero named Kratos, rather than Athena, Ares or Zeus then the developers had the creative freedom to bring us along all sorts of amazing adventures. They could incorporate characters from the Odyssey, the Iliad, or the Ring Cycle. By running with an original idea the GoW series could cross into different pantheons without ever losing the audience. By this same reasoning an original attraction like Pirates of the Caribbean which opened in 1967, and The Haunted Mansion from 1969 still withstand the test of time.

For my final point I said that God of War (2018), and God of War Ragnarok was the difference between the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, and the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World (1971). There were changes in the show building, the queue, and various improvements between the two, but they were still fairly similar. Elden Ring was a whole new attraction by comparison. My cousin completely understood my analogy. As he had a family as well he understood how precious his free time was. Although he enjoyed the challenges of Elden Ring, he also wished he had more time to play through other games. Experience other adventures as well without being bogged down in remembering where he was in a 40-hour adventure. I’d like to know your thoughts on the best games of 2022. Do you agree with the critics? Was there a smaller game that you think was the best of 2022? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!