Many Stories Thousands of Years Old, One Game Four Years Old

I have been totally blown away. I have just finished God of War. For those of you who don't know, God of War focuses on the quest of Kratos who is determined to avenge his murdered family by killing Ares, the God of War. The game is set during mythological Greece and pits you against many of the beasts associated with that mythology such as Medusa, the Minotaur and many more.

Kratos is armed with the Blades of Chaos, blades that are attached by chains to Kratos' arms that act as the main weapon and essentially define the combat. The games main selling point is the combat. It's so very visceral and brutal, you really get a good feel of contact with Kratos and the enemies he is eviscerating. The style of the combat is very expressive, there are extremely rare moments where you feel out of control or the fighting controls feel slow. The chain blades give a unique feel to the combat and allow you to both fight enemies at distance and take out hordes in single sweeps.

In addition to the combat controls, the movement feels very smooth making for some great platforming. This is in no small part thanks to the great level design. There are only a handful of areas in which you feel lost as to where to go or what to do next. The game also has a great sense of size and scale. All of the levels feel enormous and as with games such as the more recently released Assassin's Creed, you feel a real achievement when you reach some of the areas that at first seem unreachable. This is an amazing thing to achieve on the PlayStation 2, a piece of hardware that is now 9 years old.

Something of note is the difficulty. The game genuinely hearkens back to the days when games where meant to be frustratingly hard, and just because they required skill, not because they were poorly designed. And the game does require some serious skill. I finished the game on normal, I hate to think what state my controller would have been in, if I had attempted the hard mode.

That brings us to the games visuals. The art direction is amazing and continuous, nothing in the game is truly abstract enough to remove you from the experience. And the experience does look amazing. The PS2 must have been pushed right to it's limits for this game, and it easily looks as though it could be on a current generation machine, rather than last generations hardware. As I've said before, I can't believe I over looked this game until now.

The story is something you'll either love or hate, and this depends on your level of interest in proper old Greek Mythology and the old films that used those stories. Personally I really enjoyed the tale, I feel that it was told well, that the cut scenes maintained the visual continuity and that the dialogue was truly something special and a standard that I wished games today would follow. The ending isn't the biggest surprise, but I won't spoil it for you if, like me, you're late to the party.

I've enjoyed every minute of this game, even when it became frustratingly hard. It's an extremely solid game that makes you feel that you are an immensely powerful mortal, taking on a god. I recommend you get down your local game store and buy it now.

9/10

The Dilemma

Those of you who keep up with blog may be aware that I've been playing the original God of War on my trusty PS2. I've got to be honest, I'm amazed at how much I'm enjoying it and annoyed that I hadn't played it sooner. I'm near the end so I'll save in depth thoughts for a review, but on to the issue of my dilemma.

In my excitement I've already picked up God of War II and I'm more than willing to play it, although it leaves some much newer games unplayed. I really want to start playing either Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3, or put some more time in on Left 4 Dead and the online modes for Gears of War 2. Not to mention the large number of RPG's I've been saving.

Should I really be playing older games when newer ones await? All I can say is thank goodness for the relaxed release schedule for games that I'm really after has slowed up, because I really can't warrant any more games for some time.

Any sugestions?

God of War review up soon, Gears of War 2 review up at some point in the future.

I Nearly Lost My Old Friend

That's right, my poor old trusty launch day PlayStation 2, that I have cared for ever since I brought it home on that cold and wet November night in 2000, was coughing and spluttering recently. The reason for this temporary panic was because I had only just got around to playing God of War. I know what you're thinking, "Jon, you games savvy wizard, what are you doing only just playing a game from 2005?" Well I've got news for you kiddies, it's the real worlds fault! If only I had the time and money, I would have played this years ago, so EXCUSE ME, for being so behind the times!!

Sorry about that, had a moment.

Anyway, God of War inconveniently is one of the rare PS2 games to come on a DVD 9 disc. Put simply it comes on a dual-layered disc. Because my PS2 is getting on a bit, this challenge of reading everything off the disc and playing the game properly, proved to be akin to asking a pensioner to climb 6 flights of stairs whilst carrying 22 full bags from Tescos and an epileptic cat. Put simply, I kept on losing sound, levels were taking around 10 minutes to load and the cut scenes jumped like, well, an epileptic cat. In other words the whole gaming experience was becoming slightly marred.

I scoured the Internet looking for solutions, which ranged from the very simple option of buying a lens cleaning disc to the rather gruesome prospect of opening up my good old PS2 and fiddling with it's guts. I opted for the first option and had very little luck and the unfortunate pleasure of listening to the disc cleaning music that came on the disc (thank you Tescos).

So things weren't looking good, I began to entertain the idea of nice new trendy slimline PS2. A thought I quite liked purely as a consolidation for the loss of my old PS2. And is if by magic, the damn thing started working again! I can't help but think it overheard me talking to someone about purchasing one and got frightened into working condition.

I am honestly over the moon about this, I really do love my PS2, it's one of the few consoles that I was able to buy at launch day and pay full price for. Here's hopping that it doesn't decide to crap out on me any time soon, unlike it's unreliable friend, Mr 360.

As usual, this means that once I finish God of War, I'll post a review, and I'll do my best not to let my failing PS2 influence my score.