Getting Back Into Gaming & The Search for Games My Wife Will Also Like - God of War
After a long hiatus away from console games, I was recently pulled back in when my friend loaned me his Playstation 4. When I was younger, I used to follow the releases of games very closely and would patiently wait months or even years for my favorite titles to drop. That however was a long time ago, but despite not closely following the gaming world for close to a decade, there are still games that have caught my eye over the years. In the back of my mind, there are a number of games which I was always curious to try, but just didn’t have the time to play.
Now that I have time, and a Playstation 4, I can finally start to check out some of the games I had missed. Since there are a number of games I would like to try, my friend recommended I get the Playstation Plus membership, which provides access to a large library of older games. This is perfect for me, as I do not really mind playing older titles since they are still new to me. An additional motivation for getting the membership is that it will allow me to test many different games in the hopes I can also find one to enjoy with my wife. She has never played any console games before, or really done any serious gaming on any platform, save for maybe some occasional candy crush on her phone. Due to her lack of experience in this space, and my lack of knowledge about the current games available, trial and error will be our strategy for finding the right game for us.
The first game she tried was Far Cry 5, which is a fun game that I enjoyed playing by myself, but was too difficult and chaotic for my wife. After a few demoralizing deaths, she was over trying to play Far Cry and we began scrolling through the seemingly endless library of downloadable games available. One of the games that we came across was the original God of War, which came out in 2018, around when I stopped having time to play. I remember hearing about this game, and it always interested me as I love adventure games with a good story and plenty of action. We added it to the download list, and I didn’t think much of it.
A few days later, I came home from work, and to my surprise, my wife was on the couch playing God of War. I was not expecting that of the five other games we had downloaded, she had chosen to play this one. After just an hour or so of playing, she already seemed quite proficient with the controls and was locked into the story. Not wanting to disturb her flow, I sat nearby and worked on my computer, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by the mysterious story and cool visuals.
Before long, she got to a difficult part and asked if I wanted to take over. By this time my curiosity was fully peaked and I eagerly accepted the controller. After defeating the enemies in the area she was in, I instinctively looked around for hidden items or loot. Having grown up gaming, I knew games like this usually had items hidden away in random corners or down secondary paths. She innocently questioned why I didn’t just go forward, but then I found my first chest. When I opened the chest there was an item that was part of a set of 4. I asked her if she had seen any or opened any other boxes while she was playing and of course she hadn’t.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that there were tons of items hidden around the map, and any time we switched off for her to play she would miss them. Watching her walk past chests and un-methodically run through unchecked areas started triggering some OCD in me. As we progressed deeper into the storyline, I couldn’t help but wonder how many items had been missed in that first hour or so she had been playing. Might she have missed something important? How many of the items were parts of sets that would never be complete?
As the game progressed, it started getting too difficult for her, and now knowing that she needed to be more alert about finding items also added a bit of background pressure. As a result, she concluded that, despite the interesting story, this was not the game for her. I will still play alone, but we will need to keep searching for a game we can relax and enjoy together.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post.