I know a lot of you are going to berate me endlessly for this, but I just got God of War a week ago. I know, I know, I'm completely out of the loop and a total loser, but I just didn't think it was worth my money. It came off as just another kill-things-with-a-shitty-back-story kind of game. Lately, though, I was looking for a new game for my PS2 (since I'm still too poor to get something newer) and it caught my eye. I thought, "sure, why not?"

After a few minutes into the game, I realized I had been wrong about one thing. The story in the game is actually quite good. I'll give a brief summary for those of you who aren't familiar with it already: The protagonist Kratos has to kill Ares (the Greek god of war, for the less knowledgeable readers) because he's terrorizing Athens and because he has a personal vendetta. It's deeper than that, of course, but I don't want to give it away because I'm like that. It's not at all what one might expect from a game propped up mostly on its combat.

This brings me (rather naturally) to my next point: the combat. Everyone (including everyone's favorite "professional troll," Yahtzee) raves about the combat. I don't see what the big deal is. The combat is pretty good, I guess, but I've definitely seen a lot better. The controls are only a slight improvement on average fare, and enemies come in a few shallow types that take about two seconds to crack. What they're probably actually raving about is the graphics (as opposed to the all-important controls). The graphics are really good, especially for the last generation. This is largely unimportant, however, so let's move on.

The game is filled with a number of puzzles. Most of them can be summed up as "uninspired," consisting mostly of jumping puzzles and pulling levers in a certain way. Even worse, most of them kill you instantly if you fail even slightly, sending you back to an unrealistic checkpoint. For example, there is a moderately-sized maze in the middle of the game. If you die at any point inside it, you are sent all the way back to the beginning. It's supremely frustrating and entirely unnecessary. Also, if you fail too often at these puzzles, the game suggests switching to easy mode. This is annoying for two reasons: first, the difficulty mode only affects the combat, and second, it's quite condescending for the game to tell you that you're not good enough to beat it unless you're playing easy mode.

All of this could be forgiven, though, with a good ending. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see it. You see, this game is made by Sony, and it reinforces the notion that they should just make hardware. The end battle consists of three extremely difficult separate battles with no save points in between. The entire process takes about an hour, and that's if you do it well. After trying for about 90 minutes and nearly losing my sanity, I decided it wasn't worth it. Sony made the same mistake that most designers make these days; they made most of the game fairly easy and tried to "make up for it" by making the final battle ridiculously hard.

All in all, this was an average game. It has its strong points, but it's not a necessity. Oh, and by the way, it's too short, though I should probably be thankful for that.

You just verbally shot yourself in the foot. I'm not a Sony fanboy, but I love God of War with a passion. Maybe I'll let one of our more outspoken PS fanboys argue this review...

I thought the graphics were kind of a letdown. The enemies and moves were pretty shiny but the environments were kinda flat. I think it's a lighting issue or something. Anyway, the whole time, in my head, I was comparing the look-and-feel of God of War to Prince of Persia and finding it coming up short. (I guess that's true of the puzzle gameplay, too.) Everything's just a little too... err, claustrophobic, too. With the exception of that one area where you can see giant Ares blowing shit up in the background, almost everything felt too small, squished-in.

I gave up somewhere in the giant temple because I got bored at a point where there was no clear signpost about what to do to get to a more interesting part of the game.

-- Alex

it's kind of funny that you berate the game for suggesting you play on the easy setting because you keep dying, and then you fail to finish the game because it's too hard.

at least be consistent.

Ah, good, you've got a taste of the first GoW, so now you'll play GoW2 and realize that all the stuff you didn't like has been improved if not completely "fixed" (such as like, 5 enemies throughout the whole game, uninspired puzzles, etc.).

(Also, I must be really good at GoW because Ares didn't take that long for me to finish. God mode on the other hand, makes me want to kill myself)

I've tried God Of War and I didn't like it much. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but it's not for me. I tend to side for platformers, like Prince of Persia, so this didn't really appeal to me.

You raise some good points, sir, but I'll tell you what, when I get home from work after a real shitty day, it feels real good to throw that fxcker in and kill half an hour, literally, ripping undead limb from limb...so...there's that.

I rather liked it. Sure it was like they had taken all of the greek myths, threw it in a blender then peed on the remains but it was acutlaly fun. Oh god the backdroups in the second one... Plus am I the only one who nearly got a hard on when he fought that damn hydra on the mast in the middle of a storm ?
Sure its not perfect but it was interesting enough to keep me busy for a few days.

Indigo_Dingo:
And the game had to be claustrophobic, cause you couldn't control the camera.

But yeah, I suggest you get God Of War II, as nearly everything you say is improved, or fixed, in that one.

It did fix a lot of the problems, but it felt like more of the same. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved GoW and GoW2, but it got a bit repetitive, and by Chains of Olympus it really did start to bring it down.

As for the OP, Ares doesn't take an hour if you're good. Ares on god mode takes an hour if you're extremely good, but on normal he wasn't that hard. But maybe that's just me.

Yeah, Ares was quite easy to me, actually. And the suggestion to switch to easy mode is always good. It gives you a chance, and it's way better than nothing.

Which game has a better melee combat system?

The only possible contendor (in my opinion) would have to be Devil May Cry. I honestly can't think of a combat system with the same level of fluidity and brutality combined at the same.

I loved that game, and I beat ares in one sitting, at a friend's house(My friends are dicks and if they didn't also like the game, would have annoyed the crap out of me the whole time), on hard mode, no less. It was just decently hard without being too easy or too hard, the second game however is original Prince of Persia(Not the console one, the old one on the PC) difficult.

I never seen the appeal in GOW either. I just cant get into it no matter how hard I tried it just wasn't something I could get into.

Fondant:
Which game has a better melee combat system?

The only possible contendor (in my opinion) would have to be Devil May Cry. I honestly can't think of a combat system with the same level of fluidity and brutality combined at the same.

This is gonna just sound like me saying "NO YOU ARE WRONG" but with my experience, God of War 2 takes the cake. Maybe Ninja Gaiden 2 and DMC4 (mainly because of that awesome devil arm) but when I hear "Fluidity and Brutality" I think GoW2.

ElArabDeMagnifico:

Fondant:
Which game has a better melee combat system?

The only possible contendor (in my opinion) would have to be Devil May Cry. I honestly can't think of a combat system with the same level of fluidity and brutality combined at the same.

This is gonna just sound like me saying "NO YOU ARE WRONG" but with my experience, God of War 2 takes the cake. Maybe Ninja Gaiden 2 and DMC4 (mainly because of that awesome devil arm) but when I hear "Fluidity and Brutality" I think GoW2.

Ninja gaiden combat is definetely a contender. The thing with DMC is the combat system is great, if you can use it. With the weapon changes and the variety of moves as well as guns it'll kick the shit out of GoW any day...if you can actually play well. The crazy clips on youtube show where it's better than GoW, but not too many people can play that way.