Hype Muffin
In preparation for the release of God of War III later this year, Sony has released a compilation of the first two games in the bloody, sword-swinging series. God of War Collection allows you to revisit the PS2 games on one convenient disc, and though the games themselves remain largely unchanged from their original, there's still plenty of combat and puzzles for Kratos to overcome. For old fans of the series, this is a refresher course; for new players, it's an easy way to delve into the series.
God of War
The first game explores Kratos' feud with the Greek god Ares, the god of war. The plot seems ignored for much of the beginning of the game, but it's not until around the halfway point that Kratos' sordid history is explained. His past--and the source of his nightmares--sets a good motivation for the action of the game, but the story still feels secondary to the gameplay. Greek mythology is a great setting with plenty of opportunities for story-telling but it is not used as well as it could be in this game; though there are plenty of references to ancient legends, they're fairly basic and do not add much to the overall narrative.
God of War is primarily a hack-n-slash game, so the focus of the gameplay is on combat. With the blades of chaos, you'll take down waves of enemies, attacking, blocking, dodging, and even using magic granted to you by the gods. With upgradable attacks, the combat manages to stay mostly fresh, and with opponents that use a variety of blocks and attacks, you don't get stuck mashing the attack button too often. Furthermore, the spells granted by the gods have a variety of effects, including a wide ranging attack, a distance attack, and using Medusa's head to petrify your enemies. Switching up your attacks with magic spells is vital, and makes the fighting much more interesting than constantly slashing away with your blades--though admittedly, this is bound to occur sometimes.
Stringing together attacks increases your hit combo, granting you extra experience points.
When large opponents and bosses are sufficiently weakened, you can perform a flashy take down activated by quick-time button commands. Finishing off enemies is far more satisfying than it has any right to be, with plenty of gratuitous blood, but at the same time, the quick-time events are terribly frustrating. The timing is critical on these, and one mistake can cost you not only a successful kill, but a portion of your own health bar. Many times it's easy to ignore the quick-time events, but during boss fights they become especially annoying. In addition, the combat is severely hampered by the lack of camera control. The camera remains fixed throughout the game, so you can't look around at your leisure. Most of the time the camera angle isn't bad, but on occasion it is positioned poorly, ruining your depth perception as enemies swarm over you.
God of War isn't just about fighting, though. It also mixes in elements of platforming and puzzle solving. These portions of the game, however, are ridiculously tedious. The exploration and puzzles aren't necessarily badly designed, but they tend to use slow elements that require an annoying amount of practice, with a lot of trial-and-error gameplay (i.e. die and restart). Oftentimes the solution is simple, but the execution requires a ton of practice and slows the action of the game down to a crawl. Interestingly, the developers have noted these puzzles' difficulty through unlockable PS3 trophies, yet the tedium remains.
The controls are designed for the fighting, and to that extent, they work well. You move with the left joystick, but the right joystick is used for quick dodging; press the direction you want to dodge, and Kratos will roll there. It's a very convenient and fast way of escaping attacks, but it also means that there is no camera control. Otherwise the controls work well, though some of the quick-time events and actions like opening doors by rapidly pressing R2 might wear out your controller.
Both God of War games feature massive, epic-scale boss fights.
For a PS2 game, the graphics aren't bad. The updates and upgrades for the PS3 are mostly back-end stuff: the graphical quality is the same, but it runs smoothly and at a higher resolution. Keeping in mind that the game was originally released four years ago, the visuals are really nice, especially the cutscenes. Furthermore, the voice acting is well done: though not a huge part of the game, the voices portray the characters well, and aren't overdone. It would have been great to see some sort of graphical upgrade considering the power the PS3 provides, but this is essentially a straight port, and there's a whole other game on the disc.
There are only a handful of items to collect in the main game, but when you finish, there are several bonuses unlocked, including videos on the production of the game. Additionally, there is the challenge room, a short side game where you fight ten levels of enemies giving you a chance to put your skills to the test, and the game features five difficulty modes. The challenge room is really for the truly dedicated, as are the higher difficulty levels. Since the main game is rather short--approximately seven to eight hours--it's easy to replay the game, even if there isn't much else to do.
God of War II
GoWII picks up directly where the first game left off, though now Kratos' feud is with Zeus himself. Drained of his power and cast into Hades, Kratos joins the Titans on their quest to destroy Olympus. To this aim he seeks out the sisters of Fate to change his destiny and defeat the king of the gods. In essence, it's the same story as the first game, just with a less interesting backstory. Worse still, the game ends on a rather substantial cliffhanger, so you'll have to wait for God of War III to see how the story actually concludes. Like the first game, it's not a particularly complex or interesting plot, though it does conveniently remove all the powers and abilities Kratos accumulated in the first game, putting him back at square one for the beginning of the game.
That attack looks awfully familiar...
Overall, the gameplay is very much the same as the first game; combat is again the focus, with puzzle and platforming elements mixed-in between battles. As before, the puzzles and platforming are not terribly intriguing, but they are, thankfully, somewhat less tedious than the challenges of the original game. Otherwise GoWII features a number of small alterations and changes, none of which fundamentally change the game, but rather offer a different angle. The magic spells are different, but they again have a variety of effects that can be crucial at times, even outside of combat. Kratos can carry multiple secondary weapons which handle quite differently from the standard swords, giving you more options in battle. It's a nice feature but the secondary weapons aren't that compelling--there's little reason to use them. The combat remains the same, and unfortunately quick-time kills make their return and manage to be even more frustrating, especially during drawn out boss fights. And though it hardly seemed possible, this game manages to be even more bloody than the original, with some especially gruesome sequences and finishing moves. It's not so bad that it's distracting, but GoWII is an especially violent game.
Like the gameplay, the controls see minor adjustments, but are, at the core, the same. One notable change is that the R2 button will no longer see punishment as you open doors. Instead the O button will suffer, but admittedly it feels much better. Again there is no camera control, so tread carefully when fighting so as not to lose yourself amidst the battle. The visuals and sound have seen the same slight upgrade. The graphics roughly appear the same, while small additions to detail and extensive cutscenes provide just a little more visual flair to the game.
After the first game, Kratos' powers are unmatched. Zeus, however, sees fit to deny him his power.
GoWII is slightly longer than its predecessor, lasting approximately ten hours. Furthermore, there is more to collect and find in this game, with an additional weapon to upgrade as well as bonuses that can be used after you've finished the game. Like the first game, there are a lot of bonus features unlocked after finishing the game once, including a challenge arena that lives up to its name. Once again there are multiple difficulty levels, giving you a chance to test your skills if you're willing to replay the whole game. In addition, the disc includes several videos detailing the production of GoWII, providing some nice viewing material if you are interested in the construction of the game.
8/10
As a packaged deal, it's hard to argue with the value of the collection. Both games may have been released last generation, but compiling them into one disc with a voucher for the God of War III demo is a great deal for new players or even for fans who want the whole set. For violent and bloody action games, the God of War series is sure to please, even if the games lack significant depth.
Overall: 8/10
