14 DAY TRIAL // My guilty pleasure for the start of 2013 consists of sessions of the God of War: Ascension multiplayer beta now and then, both to get my adrenaline up and to contemplate once more on how hard it is for a medium-level player to actually become good when facing other real life humans.
The current beta stage offers a new free for all mode, where players are free to maul each other, with constantly shifting alliance and a chance to try out new ideas and strategies.
God of War: Ascension also delivers the team-based mode, which gamers initially saw during E3 2012, where four man groups battle for the favor of the Gods and the chance to take out Polyphemus.
I play both of them and cannot help but observe that the free for all mode is much more difficult than the team-based one.
This could be a glitch linked to the matchmaking, but the official forums see little complain about the matter, which probably means that my observation has got something to do with old human nature and modern lack of time.
I was never a natural at video games, but I always loved playing and understanding them enough to become good after a while.
My first serious addiction was the first Mortal Kombat in arcade form, and when I started out, I never managed a win, even when using newcomer friendly Kano.
I needed only about one full week (filled with gaming sessions that could last 3 hours) in order to become good enough to hold down the machine for 4 or 5 matches in a row.
I am now more than double that age and I played the God of War: Ascension beta for more than one full month and I still feel like I need time in order to declare myself good.
It’s either that I am getting older or that video games are getting harder.