'God of War' is Both a Melodrama and a Michael Bay Movie

When talking about large AAA games, the word “prestige” will often be bandied about to talk about a certain type of high production cost game. That word is meant to evoke the realm of “prestige TV,” suggesting that the stories told by these games are in conversation with the sort of character focused TV shows you find on most premium cable channels. However, while they may be shooting for more nuanced character moments, more often than not they end up in the realm of melodrama, where emotions and events are larger than life. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, melodrama is fun! But saying that a game is “prestige” to evoke the comparison to TV only serves to lift games for how “serious” they are and can feel like a weak grasp at “legitimacy” that games don’t need, especially when you take into account the breadth of independent games that tackle narrative in much more nuanced ways. We discuss the different levels of bombast and melodrama God of War operates on and getting into Android: Netrunner on this episode of Waypoint Radio. 

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