Thread: White Yeti Reviews - New: God of War

GOD OF WAR



Story:
God of War is a classic Greek story of vengeance, which follows the Spartan Kratos. Kratos is a servant to Ares, the God of War, as a result of his actions at an earlier time. As such, he is forced to roam the earth doing Ares? bidding; he spreads destruction and violence everywhere he goes.
However, Ares? overly-bloodthirsty nature has caught the attention of the other gods residing on Mount Olympus. They contact Kratos, who is the ultimate warrior on earth, and the only man capable of fulfilling their request, and set to him a task: he must kill his own master, the God of War.

Design:
God of War is layed out as a series of levels taking place in and around Greece. Progress is linear and tied to the progress of the story. Combat is standard action fare, taking out large numbers of low and medium level grunts, and occasionally punctuated by a mini boss. Certain levels also end in a large, often epic, boss battle.
In addition to your physical combat attacks, the player has magic abilities at his or her disposal. Both magic and physical attacks can be upgraded through the start menu using red orbs, a sort of upgrade ?currency? that spills out of vanquished enemies, more or less depending on how the enemy is dispatched. In addition to red orbs, there are blue and green orbs, which refill your magic and health meters, respectively. These can be obtained through special kills of certain enemies or through chests, which are spaced out, and sometimes hidden, throughout the levels. These chests also contain Gorgon eyes and phoenix feathers, which can expand the limits of your health and magic meters.
In addition to the solid, bloody and visceral combat in the game, the levels are interspersed with clever, and often, challenging puzzles. These halt your progress, and you must figure them out before you continue your quest. The highlight of these is a temple that is laid out in a series of concentric rings, of which you must solve each to progress inward to the center.

Gameplay:
Control of Kratos is pretty straightforward. The left analog stick moves him, the X button is jump, the [ ] is a light attack and the ^ is a heavy attack. With the O button, you can perform a grab on most weaker enemies and finish them off by tapping one of the two attack buttons or the O button a second time, each of which performs a different finishing move on that enemy. The only odd design choice is the use of the right analog stick, which causes Kratos to dodge-roll in the direction it is pushed. Because of this, the game relies on a fixed camera that is dictated by the game, but you get used to this in about 5 minutes and it is always positioned well; I pretty much never wanted to move the camera to a more advantageous position.
Progress through the game is pretty well balanced in terms of a difficulty curve, with a few exceptions, which stand out starkly and brutally difficult (*cough* wall of spinning blades *cough*). The puzzles are tricky, but never frustrating, and the boss battles are long and require a level of skill, but are not impossible.
A few additions, in regards to playing on a Playstation 3 System: minigames involving tapping a single button rapidly are harder than usual due to the overly-squishy buttons on the SixAxis and Dualshock 3 controllers. If possible, use an adaptor to play it using a PS2 controller.

Presentation:
The game shines again in its presentation. The graphics, although old, are obviously some of the best on the system. The animations, particularly for Kratos and the special kill quicktime events are exquisite. In addition the backgrounds, when they feature action provide a massive sense of scale to this game, as you can see Ares attacking Athens in the distance or the desert floor moving below Pandora?s temple.
The music, as well, is there at all the right moments, and none of the wrong ones. It is a moving score that provides just the right amount of energy to make each slash of Kratos? blades even more vicious and more rewarding as they rip into your enemies. Voiceover work is good as well, although it appears minimally, usually in cutscenes.



Overall, God of War is an excellent action game. It has a great battle and leveling system that work perfectly with the progression of difficulty. The graphics and sound are rich and enveloping and the entire experience is cohesive and well made. The story is great as well, with good twists and an excellent ending. While people often state that God of War 2 is more of God of War with better graphics, I can?t really see that statement as a bad thing, as the original is undoubtedly one of the finest games on PS2.

9.5/10

This is easily one of the best games on PS2! If you have a PS2, you need to check this one out! It's pretty cheap to pick up used. I got my copy used here in Japan for about $13!

GOW is a MUST for all ps2 owners. Nuff said.

Great review bud.

When i first played this game i was not excepting all the puzzles. It's a first for me. I gotta say tho GoW is probably greatest "worth your $30" game on ps2

It became more and more difficult for me during pandoras temple, but overall the gameplay was very good and intense.

for me 9.5/10

Sweet graphics and very seamlessly put together to keep the action non stop. I got stuck at the "near impossible 150feet high balance beams with spinning blades obstacle" part of the game however, and after about 20 reattempts each time on 4 different days, and literally 100's of swear words later, I decided to retire from the game before the disc got heatedly and hastily removed from the ps2 and thrown at great velocity at a solid surface. I havent been back to it since...

Originally Posted by 5lutre

Sweet graphics and very seamlessly put together to keep the action non stop. I got stuck at the "near impossible 150feet high balance beams with spinning blades obstacle" part of the game however, and after about 20 reattempts each time on 4 different days, and literally 100's of swear words later, I decided to retire from the game before the disc got heatedly and hastily removed from the ps2 and thrown at great velocity at a solid surface. I havent been back to it since...

I was stuck there when I played it too

i already perfected god of war 2 easily,, hmm but one thing,, the bunos game play,, i realy sucks there,, the second challenge of the titan..