God of War
July 28, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
trackback
Categories: Uncategorized
Behold. After five days, some 25 hours of post work game play, I have defeated the 2005 Game of the Year - God of War.
I know I’m a year behind the times. I happened to be at Target wandering about the mall, killing time before our movie started this weekend, when I noticed the title. I don’t follow the gaming scene and have only occasionally picked-up titles. We purchased the PS2 several years ago as a Xmas present for my eldest daughter, who uses it more for a DVD player than anything else.
My previous happy purchases include one and two of LucasArts Star Wars: Battlefront. Excellent game play, innovative, and great graphics. Being able to choose era, team, and individual was killer, but also being able to interact with turrets, enemy XWings and the like was over the top for me. I’ve also spent a pretty penny for The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction when it came out and was fairly pleased with the overall game. Having been a Hulk fan since before the womb I was excited to be able to issue some general mayhem and the indestructible cows were a lot of fun.
God of War differs from the previous titles mentioned in several ways and despite the cool features of each it outshines them all. The story line or plot of the game was well thought out with a surprise ending after defeating Ares. The quick of it being you are a Spartan commander who makes a deal with Ares the Greek God of War just seconds before you’re about to be slaughtered. Whereupon Ares offers some magical enhancements to you. The cut scene goes onto show you kick some serious tush in a rampage and also, oops! - butcher your own family. At this point you turn on the God of War and have to do a whole list of impossible acts. Including acquiring Pandora’s Box, escaping Hades, and killing the Olympian Ares.
Surprisingly I was not annoyed by the cut scenes, they were to the point, informative and had excellent graphics. Normally those things are superfluous and take away from the game or worse yet you’re unable to skip past. The voice actors matched well with the images of the characters and I found myself sucked into both storyline and game play.
[ See more images of game play here. ]
The music was perfect, it really melded well and brought everything together. The weaponry and ability to increase the power level as well as acquiring new talents was ideal. Meaning I would be able to acquire a new weapon or attack, despite it being low powered initially, it was provided at a point where it could be used just prior to battling something nasty. The button combos for attack sequences and special moves were easy to string together and intuitive. At one point I believe I cleared over 40 hits in a single perfectly timed and executed attack sequence. When in the zone, the music, graphics, and perfect performance brings about an almost dance like quality. Where you jump, attack and move in a way almost bordering on precognition of what the game will through against you.
Another big plus is there were not a series of advertisements, logo placements and general credits that you had to watch or click through in order to start a new or saved game. Just power on, load, go. Saving a game was also very smooth and quick. In other PS2 games, levels have to load into memory and there are transitional points where you have to wait around watching a swirling progress bar. This was a continuous play, no doubt the PS2 taxing itself to keep everything seemingly smooth. Superbly done.
Despite it being rated 10 out of 10 by most gaming magazines there were a few minor annoyances. It included a few too many puzzle scenarios where they wanted me to figure out things or action patterns where you have to issue a sequence of button presses in the right order or have to start over. I picked this game primarily for the action, using melee weapons and unleashing some general carnage with minor brain powerer requirements.
With all the blood on the cover of the box, I assumed that’s why the game was rated mature. That was not the only reason as I found out. Those great graphics also involved half naked women and female mythical creatures. Including one point where the hero - Krato, gets to ‘get it on’ with two sea wenches before trying to save Athens. Surprisingly this part was controllable by following a sequence of button presses.
I did make use of a strategy guide/game walk thru which I consulted when I felt I had wasted enough brain juice on trying to find the way out of a room, or which weapon was best for a particular enemy that was using me as a whipping boy. To Alex Eagleson who wrote it and those that helped him or provided input to create it, I thank you. It would have taken me much longer to finish the game without it.
A must have game for mature game players.
Comments»
I have not had the opportunity yet to play this game… I knew it was really hyped, but maybe i should just go pick it up come payday. Then maybe I can give you a better reply on here hehe.
I had the chance to play the game for a little while with a demo provided by Official Playstation Magazine. I was extremely impressed by the graphics and I love the reaction command feature, which was used in Kingdom Hearts II (one of my favorite games of this year). I’m so behind in my game playing I don’t know when I’ll get to God of War. I wonder what will be the best game this year…