My cousin asks me how close this all is to Shadow of the Colossus. Without even pausing the game, I turn to give him a blank stare. It's okay, I'm mashing square, I barely have to pay attention anyways as Kratos twirls like a flaming top with a scowl on top of a giant monster that the series never acknowledges as his grandfather. Over the span of maybe 15 minutes, Kratos launches himself all over it's body, attacking boils, fending off skeletons, and pulling fingernails. On the back of the creature is the temple where about 70% of the original game took place, so I'm glad that's been trivialized. After stabbing his way across the thing's body, fighting a skull monster that crawls out of a boil, crawling out of the esophagus, and finally stabbing his giant forehead with a tiny magic sword the beast is at last slain. I say beast, but for the duration of the fight it was taunting and chastising Kratos, asking things like "WHY DO YOU FLEE, KRATOS?" as he crawls up the giant's arm.
This has about as much in common with Shadow of the Colossus as Transformers 2 does with Citizen Kane. They uh... both use cameras?
TWO GAMES ENTER. ONE GAME LEAVES,
Through some kind of cosmic event I happened to play and beat both of these games in the span of about a week after not being anywhere near a major console for the better part of 5 months. My cousin pushed me through God of War 3 on Christmas Eve and Day, got Lords of Shadow as a gift and beat it in the days thereafter. God of War 3 is a truly bombastic and outrageous experience. It's a livid child, reading a book on Greek mythology as loud as he can while running around a playground. One minute he's yelling about Poseidon (skimming the details) and rolling down a slide, the next minute he's moved on to Hercules while he attempts hand stands on the monkey bars. Lords of Shadow, in contrast, is a subdued experience. It's framed as classic literature and unfolds accordingly, short chapters encourage frequent breaks, and exposition comes often and in detail in the form of the Shakespearean tones of Patrick Stewart as well as found documents. So who plays host to the better experience, Gabriel Belmont or Kratos (he doesn't have a last name, but I like to pretend it's Protagonist)?
This has about as much in common with Shadow of the Colossus as Transformers 2 does with Citizen Kane. They uh... both use cameras?
TWO GAMES ENTER. ONE GAME LEAVES,
Through some kind of cosmic event I happened to play and beat both of these games in the span of about a week after not being anywhere near a major console for the better part of 5 months. My cousin pushed me through God of War 3 on Christmas Eve and Day, got Lords of Shadow as a gift and beat it in the days thereafter. God of War 3 is a truly bombastic and outrageous experience. It's a livid child, reading a book on Greek mythology as loud as he can while running around a playground. One minute he's yelling about Poseidon (skimming the details) and rolling down a slide, the next minute he's moved on to Hercules while he attempts hand stands on the monkey bars. Lords of Shadow, in contrast, is a subdued experience. It's framed as classic literature and unfolds accordingly, short chapters encourage frequent breaks, and exposition comes often and in detail in the form of the Shakespearean tones of Patrick Stewart as well as found documents. So who plays host to the better experience, Gabriel Belmont or Kratos (he doesn't have a last name, but I like to pretend it's Protagonist)?
