God of War for PlayStation 2

The God of War Review

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Key:

Italicized: My opinion

None italicized: Facts (for the most part)

Small warning:

To anyone out there that is thinking about getting this game for their kid or allowing their kid to purchase the game, but want to know more about this please hear me out. This game is rated Mature and they take that rating seriously with this game, where, unlike other games where there is just a lot of blood, this game has a lot of nudity in it. If you think that your child is old enough to tolerate that or if the person who would be getting the game is an adult then feel free to go through the review and buy the game/rent it if you decide it's for you.

Intro and background (some spoilers)

God of War...epic? Awesome? Fantastic? I'm not sure which adjective best describes this game, maybe it's all of them. It's a hell of a game though in my opinion; one of the few games I bothered to play through more than once and with this game being entirely linear that's saying something (at least to me). In the game you get to play as Kratos. (Spoiler) The game starts with Kratos committing suicide by jumping off the largest cliff into the Aegean Sea. While he is plummeting to the sea below the game's story is told through several flashbacks as well as a lot of game play. Kratos himself is the former captain in the Spartan army who sets out to kill Ares, the god of war. Although at one point Kratos didn't have this choice and it is never really explained what happens in-between (left for other God of War games in the series I suppose). So as you can already tell there are some parts of the story in God of War that need to be filled, but there aren't many obvious plot holes in the game. Any-who, Athena requests that Kratos destroys Ares, as Ares is attacking her city Athens. But Zeus has previously forbidden the gods from declaring war against each other. This leaves it to a mortal (guess who) to take down Ares. Kratos, however, is already motivated by revenge, but it seems that that is not enough and Kratos will need help along the way. This leaves the Gods to talk to Kratos though...holograms (at least as far as I can tell) and help him along his way during his quest to kill Ares. As the game progresses Kratos' story to how he ended up where he is (jumping off the cliff) now is told. The story reveals that he had formerly been a murderous servant of Ares and, to carry out his bidding, Ares had given him the Blades of Chaos which were given to take down Ares's enemies. You start the game out using these blades.

Interface

I don't think that anyone could argue that the interface while playing the game is bad, yet there are some parts of the interface (not during the game) which aren't as well crafted:

The Good (in the Interaction Section)

The Bad

Examples of when the interface is questionable include the part where you have to spend so much time upgrading the weapons. Although one could argue that while you are killing all these enemies and collecting their blood (or whatever it is left behind) that it is satisfying to see that that blood then transferred over into your weapons so that they have more power. However, it seems that you spend awhile holding down the x button as the blood is drained into the weapons. This is practically essential to going forward in the game (unless you are an absolute hardcore gamer). Yet the problem is that if you didn't read the manual beforehand you don't know that unless you are looking for it. So you spend your time playing the game and then it ends up getting abnormally hard and is probably one of the reasons people might abandon the game if they have not found out about that menu. You also have to decide with the upgrade system which weapon you upgrade as well as which magic ability you want to upgrade (as they all use the same blood left behind to upgrade either one).

Game play

The game play through the game is extremely well done, one of the best points of the game and a reason to come back to the game to play later. It is done well because it has simple moves that you can perform to start out with and you gain more as you go on and upgrade your weapons. (Spoiler) Later on you get a very powerful sword you can use instead of the Blades of Chaos which you were originally equipped with. You have a choice during the game (after you get this weapon) about which one you should use to destroy your enemies and they can be switched without going to any menu by pressing the R1 and L1 game simultaneously. This is a welcome difference from other games (such as Resident Evil) which makes you go to the main menu and select the weapon you want and then wait while the game loads back up again. While changing your weapon does change your strategy during the game it is nice to do it faster and easier if you know which weapon(s) you want to use. With God of War there are only two weapons (albeit one which I'll leave a secret) to choose from and therefore no need to really think about which one you need to use. Yet the weapon system still does well without having so many weapons as the Blades of Chaos and the other sword are so different. One with a shorter range than the other, but is more powerful. The other with a longer range and two blades are used instead of one. With these two vastly different weapons it is easy to tell that there is a big difference in strategy switching from one to the other which actually adds to the game rather than detracts from it.

The best feature with the weapons in the game is the fact that they do have what I mentioned before the 'upgrade' system which allows you to use the blood from the enemies to fill up a bar which makes your weapons more powerful. So therefore, especially with the harder modes like God Mode, it really gives you a REASON to go through the game and try to find the hidden portions of it so that you have a better chance at surviving upcoming battles. It really feels like you are prepping for the battle by doing it and makes it that much more enjoyable. While I did say in the interface portion that the upgrade system isn't really the best, that is true, but what is produced by doing this IS indeed good. I say that it is good because it changes the dynamic that you find in other games where you pick up a weapon, use it and it always does the same damage and expect the same things to happen. Now, depending on what you did beforehand in killing enemies and exploring the world to get more orbs for you to use; pushing the square button can have different effects. Such an example might be if enough damage is done to an enemy that they would be stunned, well if you upgrade the weapons enough that might be done in 20 blows. If you don't upgrade the weapons, however, it might end up being twice that many blows to stun the enemy.

Story (Spoiler)

I won't go into too much detail with the story as I want you to have things that surprise you during the game. The story itself is very well done. As mentioned later on the graphics are beautiful, which is especially the case with the cut-scenes in the game. The main thing that kind of 'put me off'' at the beginning of the game is that Kratos threw himself from a very high cliff at the beginning scene of the game...this put me off because it was kind of obvious to me where they were going from this. They were going to leave you hanging before Kratos hit the ground and they are going to show you how he got to that point. This might just be me trying to look into the future, but all of the things I predicted actually happened which kind of let me down. That and there wasn't much else that really happened that really 'surprised' me as I went through the game (Spoiler) trying to get to Pandora's box with the help of the Gods. There is also the unsettling fact that you can't skip through the video cut-scenes unless you've seen them before (while the disc is spinning during the time you played it) so every time you try the game out again you'll have to sit through the same sequences again. So the story, to me, get's a not so good rating, but I think that the giant 'looking' environments (there is a hell of a lot more shown than what you get to really play on) and the game play really help to overshadow some of the story's short comings.

Interaction (AKA The Good)

I just had to add this as one of the categories because most of the game has interaction to a point that most other games don't. This doesn't mean walking around to people, talking to them and trading items which it seems like some games have done to death. No, that's not what they did with this game at all. The interaction they added include great death sequences as well as excellent, stunning moves which you have to push the appropriate buttons (which vary, even if they are the same death sequence) to press to make Kratos do those actions. This adds sooo much to the game because it doesn't feel like you're watching the character as much as playing as him because of these different buttons you are repeatedly pressing (just like weight lifting type actions in other games) along with the beautiful sequences seen on screen as a reward for being able to press the buttons appropriately and fast enough. They also managed to do this to a degree that it isn't overly done such as some games might throw at you (Guitar Hero) and the best thing is that you DON'T have to perform these moves. Most of the time (with certain enemies) you will get an icon over the head of them once you have gotten them to a certain health level and you can press that button to enter the sequence of pushing those buttons to kill or stun the enemy. This is never done the way that Resident Evil IV has done it where these button sequences need to be pushed without warning which sometimes gets annoying and is refreshing since it isn't done that way. However, the animations that are shown during these sequences sometimes do get a little old and you want to see something more original during the game with these creatures. Yet of course, like most games, this is expected.

Attacks (non-magical)

There are a decent number of attacks in the game that aren't magical, but very useful. The amount of damage that you can direct towards the enemies varies by the hardness level you set it at as well as how far you've upgraded during the game.

(All that is mentioned below is what happens when you are completely leveled up. This means you might not be able to do some of these when first starting out)

Blades of Chaos attacks

There is the standard attack which is the square button. This button can be pressed to create a combo of up to six attacks. These attacks are done directly in front of Kratos and are wide-ranging attacks.

There is a O button which is the 'grapple' attack. This means that if you are near an enemy (close enough to touch them) you can reach out and take a hold of them and do things such as pound their face in (always fun).

There is the Triangle attack which can create a combo of up to 3 attacks. These attacks are done in front of Kratos and are mostly attacks geared towards attacking downwards. You can also just hold down the triangle button and this causes Kratos to do an attack and then jump in the air. You can then decide what attack he does as he goes down.

Also (as with Dynasty Warriors) you can also do the standard attack in combination with the triangle attack. You can do this in the same way that the Dynasty Warriors games do it in the way that you can do six standard attacks in a combo and you can do say 5 standard attacks and one triangle attack. Yet you can't do six attacks followed by a triangle attack (in a combo). There is also a small difference between these two systems in how with the combo attacks if you do one standard attack and then do a triangle attack you can do the triangle attack twice so you get three attacks. Yet, that's the only way that they differ in that manner.

One other thing to note is the fact that you can do the 'grapple' attack during any of these combos.

There is a 'charge' attack as well which is the R1 button. If you keep pressing the R1 button while doing this attack Kratos will use his blades against the enemies as well.

Air Attacks

To start off I will mention that Kratos can jump; what's more than that he can double jump (thought there was a law that prevented that). With this extra time in the air it was determined that Kratos had enough time for attacks.

Kratos can do up to three attacks in the air with the square button. These attacks are directed directly in front of Kratos (just like the last ones with this button)

For the triangle button in the air Kratos can do only one attack, which, guess what? is directed downwards.

Kratos can also 'grapple' in the air as well. (This is useful for flying enemies)

With the 'charge' attack you can also (for whatever reason) do it in the air as well. The attack is performed as a beeline to a point ahead of Kratos.

Defense

We can't forget this can we? In fact for many people playing this game on hard or very hard they will probably use this button a lot. To block you need to press the L1 button. You can use this defense during any time. You can be in the middle of an attack or just standing there or whatever. You can't block in the air though; drat! (at least that's accurate to real life)

Another interesting feature is the rolling actions that Kratos can do. Kratos can do these rolling actions seemingly at any point. The only exception is when Kratos is doing an attack in which case it'll take a second or two for him to stop and then roll. To do this rolling action all you need to do is move the R1 stick around in the direction that you want him to go. This is a useful tool for getting out of 'hotspots' in the game as well as to give you time to think about your next move. The only real problem with it is the fact that you can accidently push the R1 button and Kratos will do his roll and this might end up killing you. However, during game play, as far as how much I've played this game there never really seems to be a problem with this way of controlling Kratos.

L1 Attacks

This was really nice to see in the combat system as it adds some more dimension to it.

All of the attacks mentioned below involve holding the L1 button along with the button mentioned.

You can do the L1 square attack which spirals you around in a circle in the air.

The L1 triangle attack has you tumbling through the air while swinging your chaos blades and then an attack ahead of Kratos directed downwards.

The L1 circle attack makes Kratos charge up and then bang on the ground causing a circular area of damage. You can charge up for a short time or a longer time depending on how long you hold the circle button.

The L1 x attack is meant to throw opponents in the air and keep pummeling them as they are in the air. It can, however, be done without throwing your opponent(s) in the air (such as a tall enemy).

L1 attacks in the air

You can do all of the L1 attacks in the air as well. With the triangle, square, and x attacks they are performed longer if you keep repeatedly pressing the buttons while in the air.

With the L1 circle combo in the air it lets you immediately drop down and perform the attack mentioned above, but it takes a longer time before Kratos pulls his blades out to do anything else.

If you jump in the air well you can also do things such as the L1 triangle attack followed by the L1 circle attack. The amount of attacks you can do depends on your height from the ground.

Sword Attacks

With the sword attack the same goes as with the other attacks mentioned above by how you can do square and then triangle, etc. in a combo.

You can do square combos with the sword up to four times. These attacks are done directly in front of Kratos and have a short range.

You can do triangle combos up to 2 times. Same type as above (directly in front short range)

Hopefully you won't get confused with this one, but when you have the sword out you can do up to 3 combos with the circle button. Ditto on the type of attack (as above).

Sword Air attacks

With the square attack you can do up to 2 attacks in the air

With the triangle attack you can only do 1 attack straight downwards.

There is one circle attack you can do. The attack basically puts your sword straight out in front of you.

L1 Sword Attacks

With the L1 x attack there is only one attack you can do.

With the L1 circle attack you can only do an attack straight down with the sword

With the L1 triangle attack it launches Kratos directly into the air so that you can do another attack on the way down.

With the L1 square attack Kratos spins the sword around in a circle.

Rage of the Gods Blades of Chaos attacks

Excuse the title...but that's what it is

These are basically the same attacks as the ones listed before here. The only difference is that in Rage of the Gods mode they do more damage. The square and triangle buttons with the Blades of Chaos are also slightly different with the Rage of the Gods in the way that they don't cover as much ground as they do when not in Rage of the Gods mode. This is probably done to help keep things in balance so a player doesn't do as much destruction.

Magical Attacks (Spoiler)

There are four different magical attacks which you will get as the game progresses. One is a Poseidon's Rage attack; another is Zeus's Fury, as well as Medusa's gaze and Souls of Hades magical attacks. All of these attacks vary in what they do for you. These attacks can also be upgraded just like the weapons mentioned previously. Not only do they upgrade the attacks that you do, but in some cases require you to do extra things. Such an example is to mash down a button while doing the attack to increase the range of the attack. These things, even if they don't sound like it, give you a good sense of emergence into the game rather than watching a character just performs something on screen.

For all of these different magical attacks there is also the fact that for each and every one of them there is a 'tutorial' of sorts that you need to get through before you can go on. These tutorials seem well-made, although in some cases there are ways to bypass them in the way of not using magic to defeat enemies, but that doesn't seem to matter too much. There is a limit on the amount of magic you can use at once and you have to collect blue orbs as you go through to be able to get the status bar for the magic up to where you want it to be so that you can really cause some destruction. This is a good thing in my view because it gives you the mindset that Kratos doesn't 'own' magic of his own, but he is 'borrowing' the 'magic of the land' in using these different attacks and keeps Kratos...relatively close to reality XD.

Poseidon's Rage

For this magical attack it looks like you are literally 'struck by lightning' and you are using the energy from the lightning to spread forth on the enemies around you. This is actually a very useful attack because it occurs in a circular shape around you as you are performing it and therefore fending off enemies so that you can then 'recover' (get your orientation) before going back into the fight. Later on you can increase the range of the attack by quickly pressing the O button while doing the attack.

Zeus' Fury

This is basically like the 'bow and arrow' that Kratos never had =P Other games would probably use the same system for their bow and arrows, but in this case Kratos gets to 'throw lightning' at his enemies. This is done by automatically locking onto enemies and throwing lightning at them. As with my gripe in the previous game I reviewed (Dynasty Warriors 6) the 'auto-lock' sometimes gets annoying because it feels like there is a lack of control and it is sometimes hard to lock onto the enemy you want to throw the lightning at. Therefore, at least for me, I didn't end up using this magic attack much throughout the game unless it was unavoidable during game play. So...therefore I think that this particular magic attack (while it looks like a good idea) doesn't seem to pan out and I think they could have come up with something different. After just seeing some game play for God of War III it seems like there is a glimmer of a bow during play and that might be the replacement ;)

Medusa's Gaze

This is an interesting attack on characters and in some cases while playing it is indeed required to go farther in the game. What this attack does after you earn the magically ability is to turn your enemies into stone so that you can continuously hit them while in that state. There are also upgrades to Medusa's gaze which makes it so it take less time to freeze enemies and increases the range of the attack so that more creatures are frozen. (Spoiler) There is even an attack that allows you to simply use the circle button in conjunction with the Gaze ability so that you can freeze many enemies around you.This attack also adds some more strategy to the game in how you deal with the situation, although not much as there seems to be only two cases in the game it is required.

Souls of Hades

This is the last magical attack which is given to you. With this magical attack the souls of Hades come out and have some fun in killing enemies. You have no control over the souls with the exception of upgrading them so that they are more powerful. This is also the most powerful magical attack which is given to you during the game.

My Gripes

There are a few gripes that I have about this game which I thought are at least worth mentioning. While the puzzles that are thrown into the game are pretty good there are some that are just a hassle. The ones I'm talking about include the parts where you are 'tight-rope walking' during part of the game and there are no checkpoints during the entire part while doing that, just the one before. Even the slightest miss-jump where it seems like you might be able to hang on if you tried to do so Kratos just falls to his death and you restart; this gets annoying fast and there are platform you can jump to which just bypass a lot of the 'tight-rope walking' and this makes this part of the game even more pointless to me.

There is also a point in the game where you are climbing this Cliffs of Madness and you are basically supposed to go from one point to the other and defeat enemies along the way while doing it. This isn't so bad, but the entire format of these hills where there are sides of the mountain you can climb on and others you can't and it's entirely linear with multiple sections that just don't go anywhere...it could have been designed better in that certain part of the game.

Also, while I liked the ending battle of God of War, it seems that, I don't want to say it was rushed, but there are points where the animation with the deadlock just froze my entire PS2 and that has happened several times. It seems like either a big glitch in the game, or maybe it's my crappy PS2. That's more of a warning about freezing your PS2, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Also, with all of the game's 'wanting' you to go back through the game and collect all of the orbs and such there doesn't seem to be much effort in really putting something 'extra' into the story while you are going to these hidden orbs and so forth and it'd be nice to see an 'Easter egg' in these 'especially secret' portions of the game so that you feel you are seeing something that not many other people have seen before. I think that adding such things would make the game even more enjoyable to the average person.

A small gripe I have with the Medusa's gaze is that while it's great to use it against the enemies it is a hassle to deal with it when used on you. Such an example would be that no matter how much health or magic you have during the game if you happen to be jumping in the air and the attack is used on you will instantly die because you fall to the ground as a statue and it crumbles. While this is accurate it can get VERY annoying for those that are playing in God mode.

One other minor thing I found annoying was the necklace puzzle, specifically the one with the blocks. The problem with these blocks is that even if you get them in the right combination it doesn't seem like the lining up of the blocks was done well at all. You can have each block in the right place and it 'locks' in with a sound, but then it won't complete the puzzle when you do that sometimes. So you have to go back and find the ones that aren't 'entirely meshing' with the rest and move them into the right places. This is just something you shouldn't have to deal with and should have been done better, but, as I said, that's very minor.

Compliments

Out of ALL of the other games that I have played for the PS2, this one is definitely a unique one in every sense of the word. They have a combat system I haven't seen in any other game with great characters throughout and very good recreations of the Gods themselves (however short they are). There was obviously a lot of effort that was put into making the game and overall I think that they have done a beautiful job in making the game and it leaves you literally 'wanting more' at the end of the game and you are likely to just try the game over again in a different mode to see what you missed. Also, with all of the beautiful graphics in the game and the well-done character models and so forth this game loads FAST compared to many other games. The only other game this beautiful that loads that fast I've seen is probably Toca Driver 3 which doesn't even have the background music like God of War has.

Also, despite all of the things mentioned above about the different attacks and levels which are annoying, they aren't 'as annoying' as they sound because the game allows you to go back to the checkpoints that are given to you throughout the game and most of the time they are very close-by, making it easier on you.

Overall Impressions (AKA short review)

Interface

Overall the interface is done well with the exception of the 'power-up' screen. The game is responsive to your input from the controller so you can do excellent 'real-time' blocks of enemy attacks which are very satisfying.

Presentation

The game is absolutely gorgeous in the case of graphics (sorry to repeat so much) and the cut-scenes are done very well. The story itself is nothing to write home about, but it does a decent job.

Sound

The sound is done very well throughout the entire game. It is just the blood-pumping music when you want it to be and it cools down when you get to some parts which don't require as much of that blood-pumping while playing. The weapon sounds are done fairly well, but it seems that more time was spent on the sound with the Blades of Chaos then the other weapon(s) found and used during the game. The other thing that it lacks is the ability to go back and play the soundtracks used during the game.

Game play

This is (like I said before) where the game absolutely shines in most cases. You can't get enough of the game play and you'll wish that it had multi-player and/or online game play in addition to single player. There are minor things with some levels where you might be confused as I mentioned before and some of the magical powers could use a small kick to make them more entertaining/useful.

Lasting Appeal

As I said a few seconds ago you would really wish this game had co-op mode or some other way to play it other than a one-player campaign. However, out of nearly all other single player campaigns, the God of War game does a fantastic job with what it has and you will probably be inclined to play it again because of this fact. The single-player campaign is fairly long, but it seems a lot of people wanted more which is delivered in God of War II which has two discs.