God Of War II
The first God of War game was an action gaming experience from start to finish. Its Greek mythology storyline, covered with larger-than-life set pieces and timeless characters and themes has provided the perfect backdrop to an intense and engaging action game. It has been seen by most people the best game that has been made. Even though Kratos ended up sitting on his throne as the God of War at the first game’s finale, his tale was not over. God of War II picks up where the original stopped and follows the anti-hero on his continued path of revenge.
When the sequel was first announced, fans were worrried that it would not measure up to the first one. After all, rather than making the leap to next-gen, the developer chose to keep the franchise on the PlayStation 2 for the time being. Citing matured technology that would allow them to focus on content rather than having to work through the growing pains associated with in-progress engine development, Santa Monica Studios took the road most traveled and wound up producing what amounts to a near-perfect sequel.
The second chapter of Kratos’ story, as before, revolves around revenge, and after being Metroided out of your godly status and powers, you head off to find the Sisters of Fate to make things right again. God of War II taps into Greek mythology for a vast assortment of characters, settings and, more importantly this time, purpose, power and greed much as the other game did. God of War II’s story certainly doesn’t disappoint anyone. It’s likely that some folks may be a little disappointed in the ending as it’s obvious Kratos’ journey is far from over, but it’s been known for some time that a third game has been planned all along so none of this should come as a shocking surprise to most people.
While it seemed that nothing could be wrong with it, God of War was had its imperfectios, though fortunately many of its problems were tied directly to individual segments of the game rather than commonly-used mechanics. God of War II is practically devoid of these fallacies and even improves on the original’s fantastic mechanics in a number of small and subtle ways. For example, you can now drop down walls while scaling them so that you have quick movement in all four directions. Kicking boxes or statues pushes them much farther than before, cutting down on the tedium of moving objects, and the repeated tapping of R1 to open doors has been moved to the much more repetition-friendly Circle button. All of this works to create an experience that is perfectly paced. If you’re not in the middle of a fight, you’re almost certainly working on one of the game’s intriguing puzzles.
The environments have been expanded and you’ll also find that they vary more than what was seen in the first game. In addition to areas based on marble and stone or fire and metal, you’ll find lush gardens flanked by rows of trees, massive wooden structures, mountainsides covered in snow and underground caverns cloaked in organic stuff. The art direction is once again absolutely outstanding, and the guys holding digital pens over in Santa Monica deserve a congratulations. The combat mechanics are pretty much the same to the original title, because it was already perfect the first time out. Kratos does have a few new moves up his sleeve however, some of which are just cooler versions of previous moves while some are totally brand-new and replace some existing techniques. But mechanically, if you’ve played the first game you’ll be able to jump right in and slice the living hell out of everything around you. Instant gratification in the palm of your hands, just the way we like it.
Combat wouldn’t be of much use without someone or something to kill, but luckily ancient Greece was filled with all sorts of crazy eemies with their guts hanging out, just begging to be sliced in half. There’s a larger pallet of minions to kill this time, some of which have come back for a second helping. Medusas are back, more decayed in form than before, and some of which are able to flash-freeze you if aren’t careful. Cyclops are here in full effect, usually showing up when called out by little dwarfish-demons that tend to climb atop a nearby Cyclops and steer it like a wrecking machine. Boars, Cerberi, skeletons, hulking green beasts and more stand in your way to the Sisters of Fate.
One thing that is missing is the amout of boss battles that was incorporated into the game. God of War II features roughly double the number that we saw in the original, though they’re not all gigantic, screen-filling beasts. While it means that some battles don’t necessarily feel quite as classic as what we’ve seen in the past, it does allow for more variety. Part of the reason for the downscaled size of some of the battles is because you actually fight mortal men this time out, others who have ventured to seek the Sisters of Fate for their own causes. While, again, this means that some of them aren’t quite as epic as we would have hoped, they’re still fantastic fun and actually work into the story really, really well.
One brand-new element of the game can be seen in the first trailer as well as some of the latest footage, the flight sections. At two points in the game (if memory serves us correctly) you jump atop the back of a Pegasus, wings aflame with the fires of Olympus. Taking to the skies, you have rudimentary control over your carrier while you mainly focus on fighting airborne enemies and dodging their oncoming fire. These sections don’t last long, but they’re fun and work well, if mostly because they help the story and look really cool, especially when you see the Isle of Fates creeping up in the distance below the clouds.