Installing Red Dead Redemption 2 on PS4 took two (Blu-Ray!) discs and 90 minutes to install. It was very much like PC gaming in the days everything came on physical media.

I picked up the new God of War game for the PS4 yesterday, as my various social media feeds were full of nothing but hype and praise for it. Some pre-release previews had already piqued my interest, so I bit the bullet and bought my first “opening weekend” video game in years.

So far, it’s incredible. I haven’t played the previous games in the series, beyond a demo level of God of War 3, as they all seemed rather one-note hack-n-slash games. By contrast, this one is full of character, nuance – and yes – plenty of fast-paced hacking and slashing if that’s your thing. I’m only a few hours in, and already I’m more invested in the game, and particularly the evolving relationship between Kratos and Atreus than I have been for any game in a long time. As a bonus, it looks absolutely stunning, even on my aging 1080p TV.

Now that I’m hooked though, the real trick is going to be finding time after today to keep progressing through to the end!