God of War 2
by: The Ryan 1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks, 28 minutes ago
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$50
SCEA
The last PS2 Blockbuster
What makes a game? Graphics, gameplay, story… Is it just one of these things or is it a combination? Can you sacrafice graphics for gameplay? Yes. Can you sacrafice gameplay for story? Probably not. Developers are always trying to find the happy medium for all new releases, especially new franchises.
When the first God of War was released, Sony Computer Entertainment sacraficed nothing. The graphics were great on the PS2, the gameplay easy to pick up and build on and the story was out of this world! Taking existing mythology storylines and slightly skewing them in another direction. If there was one thing that kept me playing, it was the storyline.
For those who don’t know, you play as Kratos a.k.a. The Ghost of Sparta. At the end of the first game you are crowned the new God of War by defeating Aries who is the [previous] God of War. You start off at pretty much the same point as where you ended the first game, on your throne. The same narrator from the first game (who you surprisingly learn the identity of later on in the game) graces us with her excellent vocabulary and suspenceful storytelling right from the start. Kratos feels underappreciated by the Olympians and rages on in his own path of destruction.
The Gods tire of his insulence and successfully drain Kratos of all his Godliness by the end of the first (introductory) level. You are allied by some unexpected individuals as you go off onto your journey of regaining your powers and waging war against the Olympians. As with the first game you will usually see the same locations a number of times throughout your journey due to the excellent level design. You could easily spend 20 minutes trying to figure out on puzzle before you realize your a couple of hours worth of gameplay away from being able to solve it.
It’s perhaps all of this puzzle solving that carries the game for approximately 11 to 14 hours. I spent plenty of time looking for everything I could and it took me 13:30. After I completed the adventure I peeked at the official guide only to find out that I missed a big chunk of the special pickups.
Not to worry though. God of War II is worth a purchase because of all the Treasures that you unlock after your first time through. One of the gems of this collection of Treasures is Challenge of the Titans. In this 7 level challenge your are tasked with such missions as ripping out a Cyclops’ eye in a certain amount of time and killing a certain amount of enemies while they are airborn. By the 4th or 5th challenge you’ll want to throw your controller down and quit God of War forever… but we all know that won’t happen. The normal unlockables are there as well. The ability to watch all the cutscenes, extra costumes that change your stats and Titan mode. Titan mode is also known as Impossible mode to everyone who plays this game.
Picking up the control and playing will take any newcomer no time to get used to the action. With popup boxes explaining every new ability to you (which you have the option of turning off), no instruction will be left out. The controls are identical to its predecessor in every way accept for one minor change. The O button is now the button that you rapidly press to open doors, rather than the old button which was R2. So if you were happy with God of War 1’s controls you’ll feel right at home here. Nothing more to say than perfect control scheme.
Last but surely not least is the visuals. I played this game on the PS3, Sony promised that if God of War II was played on their next gen console it would get next gen 720p HD capability. If you were to tell someone who didn’t know any better that it was a PS3 game, they would easily believed you. The high Resolution cutscenes look flawless. You can see individual teeth while people are talking, the pores in peoples skins and the smallest detail in the environment. Let’s call the visuals a Playstation 2.5 game.
Needless to say this is easily one of Playstation 2’s best games of all time. It’s visuals are unparalelled by any last gen game on any console and the storytelling is second to none. The plethora of interviews and behind the scenes looks of the game on it’s second disc doesn’t hurt either. If you’re a fan of hectic but thoughtful games this one is definitely for you.