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One Reason To Buy A PlayStation Is Missing: God Of War Review For PC

For many years, PlayStation owners scoffed at the PC boyars, because they could not touch the amazing world of the God of War franchise with elaborate battles, an Oscar-winning storyline and a striking protagonist. And after the release of God of War in 2018, the situation reached a critical point – the game was named the best by several publications at once, it collected a sea of ​​awards and prizes, sold in huge numbers and became the real flagship of the PS4. Well, now there are fewer reasons to play a trick on PC gamers – the legendary (no kidding) game was released on Steam. And she is ready to prove that she is the best not only on consoles.

You can play with a mouse, but I would not

While Steam clearly states that the game is intended to be played with a gamepad, it was extremely interesting for me to play with a mouse and keyboard. The impressions are quite contradictory – on the one hand, I was able to throw an ax with a mouse in my hand much more accurately and faster than with a gamepad, but here it is worth clarifying that I am just awful when aiming with sticks. On the other hand, the gamepad in battles gives you much more comfort, control and freedom in performing special attacks. Perhaps if you are a pianist and can press a dozen buttons in battle without hesitation, then classic input devices will suit you, but I still advise you to play on a gamepad. And, no matter how strange it may sound, it is better to give preference to the controller from the Xbox – the key layout in the game is written for it, and not for Sony gamepads.

Get ready to dance on the keyboard

PS At least here Atreus is called a son, not a boy 🙂

The plot that you already know everything

The first three games in the series were built on Greek mythology – the fans were told about the origin of Kratos and his rather sad story about becoming a god of war, but in the fourth part, the developers decided to quite abruptly switch to Scandinavian mythology. The writers explained this by the fact that the gods, in their opinion, at that time lived side by side with people, but were geographically separated – to me personally, this seems to be a very controversial point, but it fits well into the general plot outline, so there are no complaints. It’s just that a god from Greek mythology suddenly gets to Odin, the Scandinavian deities and travels between their worlds – nothing unusual.

We will do without spoilers, although the plot has long been decomposed into atoms on the network

At the same time, the journey of Kratos and Atreus to the top of the mountain in order to scatter the ashes of the second wife of the god of war is written in a very exciting way – with many references to Scandinavian myths, various unexpected twists of fate and colorful characters (some gamers will meet in the next part of the series). Everything necessary, including the harsh fatherly instructions of Kratos, is present in the narrative – this is exactly the game, after passing which the hope arises in the soul that the modern world of gamedev can still be saved from soulless open worlds, grind and DLC.

The aged god of war in high definition

A huge advantage of the PC version of God of War is support for 4K resolution at an unlimited frame rate – a gamer who, by some miracle was able to get hold of a powerful video card, will be able to enjoy Kratos’ journey at the level of graphics that PS4 owners (especially the original version without the Pro console) at one time I did not even dream. Moreover, it has support for many useful technologies like DLSS or NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency, improved shadows and reflections, more advanced anti-aliasing and more. Graphically, the PC version is, of course, head and shoulders above the 2018 original.

Cut scenes are very atmospheric, but outside of them the game has something to surprise in terms of graphics (even on a not very powerful PC)

In addition, the PC version has a flexible system of settings – you can turn off some unimportant graphic elements to get better performance or, for example, improve the overall quality of textures by lowering the quality of reflections and shadows. I will not say that the picture looks colossally different at the minimum and maximum settings, but if you look closely, you can notice a certain difference. But, fortunately, the system requirements for God of War are very sparing, so you can play even on fairly ancient processors and video cards – apparently, the authors of the port understand the current situation on the market.

Exactly the same as on the PlayStation

I might like to say that “God of War” on PC is getting worse or better, but the truth is that it is not – this is exactly the same game that has excited the minds of gamers with good taste since 2018. The combat system is still thought out to the smallest detail – at the minimum level of difficulty, fights turn into easy battles, but at the maximum you have to fend off literally every blow, spin around your axis, throw an ax, ask for help from Atreus, use special attacks and hope for luck. How exactly to play is up to you, but I would recommend the lowest difficulty level for the first time – the plot plays an important role here, and when you sweat after each skirmish, it’s hard to enjoy it.

Gameplay element with travel between worlds – a brilliant idea

The only strange element of God of War is, perhaps, the virtual world – after a series of projects with huge open maps, where you can go in any direction and do whatever you want, the linear plot and the passage along the pre-written “rails” seem a little archaic. On the other hand, I quickly reminded myself that 99% of open-world games are empty and soulless so much that they could not be better, so sometimes linearity plays into the hands of the game rather than vice versa. And on the mini-locations themselves there are always a couple of secrets that will force you to study each pixel with special zeal.

It’s good that Sony decided to do this.

Initially, when the news of the release of God of War on PC first appeared, I was skeptical – yet porting console games does not always go smoothly. Horizon Zero Dawn, for example, is still being polished to this day, and it still doesn’t seem polished enough. But all the stars agreed with the “God of War” – the game got rid of bugs, optimization problems and other troubles, made it possible to customize the graphics and fight enemies in high resolution. And this, in fact, is a great opportunity to touch one of the best games of our time, which was previously available exclusively to console owners. Isn’t that wonderful?

✅ Benefits:

  • true 4K resolution;
  • flexible adjustment of picture quality;
  • the ability to play on the keyboard with a mouse;
  • excellent storyline and addictive gameplay;
  • full localization;
  • flagship PS4 on PC.

❌ Disadvantages:

  • no, it cannot be.

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