God of War II

"Average, nothing more"

To begin, let me say that I played and quite enjoyed the first God of War title. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I started this game only 2 days after completing the first. I was however, very disappointed at an expansion this game is, and that's all it is, an expansion, minus the entertainment factor.

Graphics
One part of the game I actually take my hat off to the creators for. The full potential of the PS2 has been harnessed in making this game. I remember playing Final Fantasy X and thinking, "gee Tidus looks damn ordinary in that scene". Well, none of that here, Kratos looks fantastic in every scene he appears in, be it in game or FMV. The rest of the cast looks fantastic too, from the leeriness of the Gods to the in depth detail of the huge Titans, it can easily be said that all of the FMVs are up there with the best on the PS2.
The enemies also look rather surreal. Each scale and skin colour has been done with the utmost of care to make them look very life like as a game can be. The bosses, however cruelly boring they are to fight all look fantastic, every movement made clearly follows the basics of physics to a tee. However, its clear that a majority of the work went into physical appearance of the bosses instead of how they actually fight. Not to say the standard enemies aren't great looking, however horribly gory they may be.

Which brings me to the next topic of review, the goriness, this game is not for most people in my humble opinion, only those that can stomach a fair bit of violence and blood. I'm not talking whacking someone with a wooden plank, I'm talking ripping heads off, gutting pigs and ripping out eyes from heads. You can GUARANTEE that all the bosses you fight will die VERY horrifically, but hey, if you think that bashing a guys head between a door until it bursts with blood is entertaining then by all means play ahead. I'm not downplaying the violence, its good in this game in that it reflects the main characters personality, but I think that there's a bit too much in that it takes away from the game slightly. A game should be remembered for its game play and entertainment factor, not by how much blood pops out of some guy's head.

The game also features a bit of nudity for those that are wondering. This game does take place in ancient Greek times and is based loosely of Greek mythology, with that said there's nothing shown below the waistline and its only really noticeable a few times in the game. There is also a hidden implied sex scene in the beginning with two topless women, although you don't see anything, you do hear everything.

Sound
The sounds of this game can be split into three parts, effects, voice and music. While the effects were done very well, and the voices were good also, the music was average at best.

As stated, the sound effects were done to a tee. The sounds of Kratos hacking and slashing mixed very well with his grunts of effort used in every fight scene. The enemies are also very well done, they're screams and sounds of body parts being torn apart or pierced are genuine and fit in with the game very well. Even the sounds of Kratos scaling up walls and opening chests are accurate, overall the sounds effects were almost perfect.

Although not quite as good as the first, the voice acting was done very well for my tastes. Naturally I wasn't expecting brilliance, but the voice acting did fit in with the game very well. After living through various game voices that made me cringe (Dynasty Warriors comes to mind) the developers of this game made a real effort to ensure that every scene was done as best it could. And it shows, every scene sounds rather impressive. Kratos' voice, however sounds a little too deep and throaty for me, he sounds like he's putting it on a bit, as it incorporates more of a growl than in the first game. However, all of the Titans and Gods were done very well, all matched almost perfectly.

The musical score fitted into the game, that's it. A good game album to me has to stand out, I have to be playing the game and say to myself "that's songs good", because the music itself stands out. When I do this, I buy the soundtrack. I have bought the soundtrack for Advent Children and many other games, but this just didn't warrant it. The music gave the impression that it was there because it had to be, most of the time it is drowned out by the sound effects of battle anyway. Although good, it was no wear near as good as it could have been.

Story
This is by far the weakest point in the game, plainly put, it was poor. In short, after the first game Kratos becomes the God of War, but he is shunned by the other Gods and ignored. Kratos spends his days leading the soldiers of Sparta towards conquest. One day Kratos himself descended to the battlefield to personally finish off a city. It is here that Zeus tricks Kratos, (why is explained latter) saps him of his Godly status and then kills him with a weapon known as the Sword of Olympus. The rest of the game follows a very, VERY basic plot, find the Sisters of Fate, three sister responsible for controlling the fates of people and Gods and force them to change Kratos' fate, allowing him to go back to the time and change his destiny.

I know you may think I have spoiled the story, but all of the above is given away in the first hour or so of the game. Although the story is technically sound, it is very bland, going to see the sisters takes the entire game and during which there is literally almost zero plot development. In short, you have to rely on the gameplay only to keep you interested because the story just isn't there to back it up.

Gameplay
Meh pretty much sums up my feelings towards the gameplay of God of War II. Off the bat, let me declare the differences between God of War 2 and its sequel in terms of gameplay. The first main difference is the button combination required to open doors and chests. Although subtle, the buttons that need to be pressed have been changed, for example, to open a door you have to hold a shoulder button and they mash circle. To me, this just seems unnecessary and it will drain your thumb after a while, I remember dying several times and restarting right next to one of these doors and my thumb killing afterwards. In the end I had to flip the controller over and use my index finger, not needed is the phrase here, one button to hold down would have been ample.

You are given a new array of weapons in the sequel as well, although I won't reveal them here they do add a bit of flavour to the gameplay, however they are quite bland and in most cases you will still find yourself using the blades of chaos/athena, as they have more variety and depth.

A new array of magic is also present is God of War II, again I won't spoil them here I will go as far as saying that they are just as good as the abilities in the first, and they do add a new mix and feel to the fighting portion over all.

Now on to the gameplay on its own. God of war, to me, suffers from a lack of variety, as mentioned before, there's pretty much no story, so all that's left are two things, fighting and puzzles, sound boring? Well it is. The puzzles are just a filler between fights and it shows. Once a cut scene is shown you are almost always thrown into a puzzle. Although they are challenging, chances are you will have to go to walkthroughs/guides to solve them, unless you want to spend a good 20 minutes wondering around the place wondering what the hells going on, and let me say that nothing is more irritating than learning that there was a secret/hidden switch concealed horrifically under the water or realizing that a particular wall hidden in the distance was climbable.

Standard enemies flood almost every part of this game, and while that's a good thing it gets old pretty fast. Although the variation between enemies is fairly good they all pretty much die the same way in the end. The universal strategy is to block/roll then attack/deflect, that's is in a nutshell. The fighting just seemed very old school and very outdated, once you get the timing down deflecting attacks you literally cant be beaten. And the games knows this so they just throw MORE enemies at you, sometimes in huge waves. Instead of the developers thinking they're way around and improving the fighting they just simply chose to add more enemies, and it seldom works.

After the puzzle most of the time you will fight a boss. A main criticism of the first God of War was that there weren't enough bosses, what someone should of said was that there wasn't enough GOOD bosses. In all seriousness the bosses in this game are absolutely draw dropping, in a bad, bad way. I can only think of one entertaining boss battle and that was at the end. It's as if the developers just crammed a bunch of sub-par bosses in and called it a day, I would have liked to have seen about half of the bosses done REALLY well, instead of heaps of crummy ones.

Most of the time you just have to be patient and that's it. Some bosses are hopeless; they have an array of about 2 moves and die in about 3 minutes. Some of them on the other hand are just boring, numerous times after being killed by the same boss (and that will happen alot by the way) I just couldn't put up with starting from scratch again. Why? Because it was the same 4 moves OVER and OVER again in an almost perfect loop. What really irritates me though was the lack of information or cues. Fighting bosses takes more than just hitting them most of the time; you have to interact with people, places or things. This is fair enough and actually makes the bosses somewhat interesting, problem is, the game gives you almost no idea what those people places or things ARE, all your given is a 2 second camera angle of something that might be able to help you. This leaves you to spend 5-6 lives just figuring out what the hell you supposed to do to win, combined with a further 7+ lives getting the timing right on the enemy attacks.

The duration of this game also leaves something to be desired. 15 hours on average is the amount of time it will take you to finish this game and complete the "story". For us here is Australia, its a good $100 for a new release ($80 US roughly). Now for this much money I expect to get an entertaining 20-40 hours out of a game. God of War II didn't give me that at all. Renting is recommended as about 2-3 weeks is all you will need, and once your done you wont want to play it again.

Conclusion
So in conclusion, I am more than willing to take the flack for this review, but I stand by what I say and call it how I see it. God of War II is nothing more than a game that looks good, sounds okay, lacks story and plays on an average scale. If you want to play this because you liked the first, then by all means, but be prepared for more of the same, minus a story.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/07, Updated 07/11/07