Sitting, Waiting, Wishing
I long for spring. This has nothing to do with the fact that it’s snowing outside right now. Or that I’ll have to shovel the accumulation of tonight’s snowfall tomorrow morning.
My longing for spring can be summed up in one word: Kratos. Who the frickin’ frack is Kratos? He’s none other than the God of War.
I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m a geek. Computer software, hardware, cell phones, PDA’s, MP3 players, all pique my interest. I’m also quite fond of video games. I started playing them way back when my brother bought his first console, a Sega. I’m not talking about the Sega Genesis – this was before that – this was the SEGA MASTER System. Sounds mighty, don’t it? It came pre-installed with a motorcycle racing game that would make me dizzy and a ‘hidden’ maze game you could only get by punching the keys on the controls in a certain sequence.
My brother never got around to buying too many games so the system quickly became a door stop. It was years before he bought his next system – the original PlayStation. The graphics were like nothing we’d ever seen before; they were sharp, clear and so much more advanced than the old Sega games. I was awestruck by the fact that the games were on discs and not on the bulky cartridges they used to be. It came with a game – Crash Bandicoot and I quickly fell in love with that marsupial. I played until my hands cramped, it was cute, easy to play and nowhere near as gory as other games like Resident Evil. It’d be the first thing I’d do when I got home from school and I’d play until my brother got home and kicked me off to play something he wanted.
Over time, I finished the game and never really took to any of the others we had. With no job and no real money of my own, I didn’t have the funds to buy games myself so the fascination with the PS faded.
Fast forward a couple of years to S’s Christmas gift of a PS2 system. A friend lent me the “best game” he’d ever played: God of War. The graphics, style of play, ease of controls and brutal depiction of violence quickly enveloped me. It really was an awesome game. It wasn’t until the second installment came along that I became hooked. S has been known to sit and watch me play because she says it’s like watching a movie. The graphics are that good.
Of course, being S, she can’t just sit quietly. “Your guy seems lonely, I think he could use a friend,” she said once as I was playing. How could I explain to her that Kratos was too haunted by his past (killing his own wife and child and hundreds of others, all while serving the gods) to make any friends? Alas, I couldn’t.
I’ve tried to get S interested in video games by buying a Wii. She had expressed an interest in having one, but has been pretty “meh” about it. While the Wii is interesting with the whole swinging the remote around wildly, the games are geared towards kids. The graphics are nowhere near any of the games on the PS3. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s fun to play Wii games with friends, I’d probably sell or give away our console.
Back to God of War, shall we? Not too many games keep my attention for very long. I’ve completed GoW twice and I’ve started playing it again. It’s that good. I’ll be the first to admit that other games come close, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Unchartered: Drake’s Fortune both come to mind. But CoD is a first person shooter game which I’ve never played before and while playing online against other people was fun at first, listening to a bunch of seventeen year old boys yelling into their headsets from their parents’ basement got tiring very, very fast. I may play Unchartered again, it had a pretty decent story and some sweet graphics. But really, nothing comes close to my Kratos.
Which brings me back to my initial point: I cannot wait until the spring. Why? Because that’s when God of War III will be released. Oh, how sweet it will be. I even bought the Chains of Olympus installment for the PSP a few months ago to hold me over. I finished it in just over a week and am back to biding my time.
Go on and watch this preview. I’m sure it’ll give you goosebumps too.
Let me know when March gets here.
Related posts:
