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Title: God of War
Platform: Playstation 2
Publisher: SCEA
Difficulty: Variable
A few months ago I rented Devil May Cry 3 and it literally blew me away. Having loved the first and kind of hating the second, I didn't know for sure what I was getting myself into. Wait a second, this is a review of God of War, not DMC3. So yeah, God of War...
So the story of God of War is as follows: Kratos kills himself in the first scene. No, that's not a spoiler. That's exactly what happens in the first scene. The whole game is actually a flashback. So you start as Kratos being a champion for the gods of Olympus. He is trying to get his sanity back but the only way he can rid himself of his horrible past is to kill the god of war, Ares. You set out on a difficult journey to collect the only thing that can allow you to be able to kill Ares, Pandora's Box. In your eyes you will see Kratos as a heartless asshole, but as the story progresses you realize that he is just a tortured soul with a horrible past. That doesn't change the fact that the story overall is decent. It's not something you've never seen before, but it is compelling and the other parts of the game is what will make you come back for more.
The sound of the game is, frankly, probably the best you'll ever hear. Better than Halo, better than Resident Evil 4, the sound of this game, to me, puts all other games to shame. The music is pure orchestral chorus and instruments that is plainly awesome. All kinds of cool swishes and clings from your blades populate the sound design and the music comes in at the perfect times. Your enemies, like Devil May Cry 3, give off a short sound right before your attack letting you know to get the hell out of the way or block. As I said before, the sound design overall is perfect. It couldn't get any better. Music comes in perfectly, there is never any studdering in the music or the voices. Also the voice overs in the game are superbly done. Kratos sounds like a badass, the fretting people sound horrified and all the gods and the narrarator's voices are awesome. If I had to pick the best thing about the game it would easily be the music.
The in-game graphics are the best I've seen on the Playstation 2. The cutscenes aren't quite as good as some games I've seen such as Area 51, but that doesn't mean a thing to me. One of the things that make the graphics so awesome are the character animations. All of the characters just have a great smoothness and fluidity to their movements. Another thing that really helps is the great sense of scale. You really feel like a midget that's about 2 ft. tall compared to some of these baddies. The first boss is probably 190 times bigger than you, and that's not an exaggeration. Greece must have been a real fucked up place. You'll run through the most beautiful settings ever, and some of the grimmest. They all have a really nice crispness, rich in texture, and lots and lots of detail. Every enemy and friend you come across is high in detail.
Under the skin this game is a hack n slash. But it covers it's ass with an awesome combo system that lets you attack in any direction in mid-combo. With your Blades of Chaos singed into your arms by Ares, you have the coolest weapon ever... besides a turd cannon. And with Kratos being the big badass that he is, he can pull off some deadly combos with his blades. Square, Square, Square, Square, you get the picture, seems to be one of the most useful at times, but there is actually lots more where that came from. While you upgrade your Blades of Chaos you get even more awesomely cool combos to use and some really cool attacks, simply by holding L1 with one of the face buttons you can pull off some upgrade exclusive moves that help you in the heat of battle. Some games give you really crappy special attacks, but in God of War, you actually get useful ones, suprise suprise. You get more than just the Blades of Chaos as far as weapons go, but most of the game you'll only need your trusty starter weapon. You can also enter Rage of the Gods mode to make yourself extra kickass with even more power. Not only do you get weapons to use, but you also are granted magic by the various gods you encounter along your journey. You change your magic attack with the D-Pad and use magic with L2. 4 different attacks can all be powered up, just like your weapons, by using red orbs. Green orbs for health, and blue for magic. Beat the bloody pulp out of enemies for red orbs, and every once in awhile you'll get a green or blue. There are lots of chests to open to find orbs as well. Hidden chests reveal Gorgon Eyes and Pheonix Feathers. Get 6 G.E. to up your health bar, and 6 P.F. for a expansion to your magic.
One of the most innovative things about the gameplay of this game is the context-sensitive action sequences. Beat the hell out of enemies to get them weak enough to do a short minigame that either consists of RAPIDLY pressing Circle, rotating the left analog stick in the correct directions, or pressing the correct face buttons as they show up. Boss battles usually consist of a combination of these, along with beating the hell out of them. See, it's a combination of the two. There is a huge variety of enemies you face, some annoying, but most encounters are great fun. You'll usually be outnumbered by... a lot. God of War blends fast action with puzzle solving really well. While the puzzles aren't all that hard, most of them so obvious you feel really stupid when you can't figure them out, they are a good break from all the action. If these puzzles weren't thrown in, God of War would probably get old pretty quickly. There are different types of scenarios to fight through too, like going across a rope, or bridge, or a pole. Swimming through death traps, running from giant flaming boulders, walking on rafters while dodging spinning blades of doom, everything is here.
Within the Ancient Greece setting, God of War had a lot to work with, mythological creatures, gods waging war on humans, and Athens in general. God of War has it all... except a turd cannon.
This game was one of the most refreshing, fun, and ultra violent/gory games I've played in a long time. I give God of War a 9.5...out of 10.
Good:
+Sound Design
+Graphics overall
+EVERY BIT OF THE GAMEPLAY.
Bad:
-If you are squeemish, this game is not for you.
-If you're a Catholic, this game is not for you.
-The game has you running toward the camera every now and then, which is a mortal sin.
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