God of War review

God of War is the brainchild of a certain David Jaffe who is responsible for the Twisted Metal games. His idea was simple and not exactly original; to use Greek mythology in an ultra-violent action adventure setting. What’s different is that he stayed faithful to that world instead of borrowing bits and pieces from various mythologies as many games do. Oh, and that the hero, or anti-hero if you will, was someone who was angry and brutal. No, make that extremely angry and brutal.

Ares

We know very little about Kratos, our protagonist, in the beginning. We soon find out that he is the perfect fighter with brute strength as his main power. Think Hercules, better yet a slightly psychotic Hercules who struggles with nightmares and inner demons every night and day and enjoys decapitating and dismembering foes as a pastime.

At the beginning Kratos is working for the Gods (again if you know your Greek mythology you will recognize the names) and does their bidding hoping that they remove his nightmares and his constant turmoil.

The game is in no rush to reveal the full story but we gradually find out through the game (and after you’ve completed it once) why his past torments him so. We’ll soon know however that Kratos is meant to kill a god but not just any god; The God of War.

Me Kratos, You splat

One of the first things you notice is the intensity and the violence of the combat. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within even seems tame in comparison where time would slow down when you did a particularly violent move; in GoW there so much of it you can’t keep track. Blood, body parts and gore are flying around everywhere. In the mini-documentary that comes with the game David Jaffe mentions watching tons of films searching for ideas but it turned out that most of them were just too tame. That should give you an idea.

The violence in GoW is over the top because it’s meant to be over the top. This is the brutal and bloodthirsty world of Greek mythology so it’s completely fitting. On the box it says 18+ (PoP:WW had 16+) but I suspect that has more to do with the number of boobs rather then rolling heads.

‘Tis but a flesh wound

Now that we have gotten the gore factor out of the way, let’s look closer at the combat itself. The animation is fantastically well done and there are many of them too. You have a choice of performing a strong attack, a weaker attack which covers more area and a grab. You can also block, roll out of the way and of course jump. In time you will also get many more interesting attacks when you get new weapons and skills.

Grab deserves a special mention because it’s just oh-so satisfying. For Kratos it won’t be enough to simply judo flip the enemy over his back. In fact I’ll let you do the work; picture the most brutal thing you can do to your enemy while grabbing him; with or without a weapon. Also when you find yourself climbing a net or a rock face, grab is your best friend.

Kratos Strong!

Kratos also gets the chance to do a finishing move when he has weakened his foe; along with being impressive to look at this can also boost his life a little. In order to pull off these moves you have to do things like tapping a button, hitting buttons in order or rotating you analog stick.

If you’ve played action-adventure games you know that boss fights require unique strategies to wear them down but once you do you will be able to pull off a finishing move like for the regular mobs. The difference however is that these moves are even more spectacular since it will generally be a larger creature you are fighting with.

There are a few ways you make Kratos better as you progress. Since he is working for the Gods they will sometimes throw him a bone in the form of a new weapon or combat tactic. I won’t spoil it for you by giving an example because I enjoyed being surprised by these but let me just state that they are rad. In fact let me digress a little and express how satisfying it was to buy this game without knowing much about it except that it got high scores. For some reason it wasn’t hyped much beforehand, at least it went below my radar.

Another thing is collecting magical items from chests that are all around the world and when combined they boost up your health and magic. These chests can also contain a health or a magic boost. They can also contain orbs which are the currency of GoW and you use them to boost your skills and weapons. Orbs also drop from enemies and items you smash up.

Mythical

Let me cut to the chase; the graphics are simply amazing. I hate to rip on PoP: WW again but I can’t help it since I reviewed that game. Don’t get me wrong; WW is a great game and I gave it a high score but it’s almost like the designers of GoW were determined to blow WW out of the water and since the two games are similar in many respects; it does. Well duh, that is what progression is about anyway but this is great for action-adventure fans since I’m sure Ubisoft will go back to the drawing board and come back with a fantastic game. Competition is good.

Anyway, in terms of gameworld graphics GoW wins because WW lost sight of the Tomb Raider motto; constantly throw the player into a new setting. In Warrior Within you were in the same grey huge-rock-structure-with-lots-of-traps-and-levers-and-gears for most of the game while in GoW the balance is perfect between dungeon crawling and coming out in a big open space.

In fact I’ve never seen scale, both for the game world and for creatures, realised in quite the same way with games of this genre. You will see giants and they really are giants, you are just a speck. In fact, you will see a giant that makes you a speck from a distance that almost makes him human-sized.

The game runs very smoothly, the only things you notice are occasional two-second loading times when moving between areas. It’s surprising how smooth things run even with so many things happening on the screen and shows just how far the PS2 has come (just check out Tekken 5 for further proof). The details are excellent wherever you go and for those interested the program Maya was mainly used.

Choose your destiny

There are four difficulty levels; Mortal, Hero, Spartan and God. Hero is the normal mode and one which I picked. The game thrusts you straight into the action and although it doesn’t feel like a tutorial because you can die easily if you let down your guard, it does introduce all the main elements of the gameplay. The game is just seriously addictive and once you get started it’s hard to stop.

The learning curve is fast for those familiar with action adventure games, others might fare better by using the easiest setting. Your progress through the game is very well balanced between action and puzzles, it also never gets too difficult although some parts pose a challenge. Even though I haven’t finished the game I’m already looking forward to tackling the game at a more difficult setting. My main worry would be if it’s too short for some players but I can’t pass judgement on that yet, I still have a lot of things to do.

It can be said that the main challenges are the puzzles and although GoW lays more emphasis on action the puzzles become more and more devious in the latter stages of the game. You can push or pull items, such as blocks of rocks, and even kick them away from you. Be prepared to use anything when trying to solve puzzles and it certainly does help that Kratos is extremely strong. The monsters also become more challenging and you will have to modify your tactics for some of them.

In terms of camera, God of War decides not to let you control it and I’ve had no problems with that so far. I have yet to find myself cursing at the camera view because they set it up so that you can do what you have to do. In fact you can often use the camera view as a hint on how to solve a puzzle and in some cases the game marks a spot for you where you can view something in a first person view.

Omega

All in all God of War is a sure thing, and if you’re a fan of the genre you have to get it. Just bear in mind that it is an adult game so to speak.

Every factor is so well designed; the combat, graphics, animation, music (brooding symphonic score a la Wagner), sound effects, puzzles etc. Even the voiceover is fine, not great, but fine. The replayability is quite good also; if you finish it in normal mode you will unlock various things such as knowing more of the story that should appeal to the fan. You also unlock God mode which will obviously be very challenging and yields some rewards too if you finish GoW that way.