God of War II - On the Rhodes again

God of War II was originally released for the PS2 March 2007. It was then compiled together with the original God of War and released on the PS3 as the God of War Collection.

Seeing as I just beat God of War, God of War II seemed like the natural choice, especially since it is on the same disc. Now I have never played God of War II so this one will be very fresh for me. I'll be playing the game on Normal difficulty.

When we last left Kratos he had killed Ares and taken over as the God of War for Greek Mythology. Apparently Kratos is being snubbed by the other Gods and since the Gods didn't erase Kratos' memory of his family's death by his hands, Kratos is making their life miserable by constantly waging war. Kratos favors the Spartan armies and so he seems to be directly commanding them. Kratos often helps the Spartan army by getting directly involved, just like Ares did in the last game.

At the start of the game the Spartan army is attacking the city of Rhodes and Kratos is getting ready to go join them when we finally meet Athena in the flesh. Last game Athena was always a statue, now we get to see a real person. And boy does she have some creepy eyelids. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they really bother me. Anyways, Athena is begging Kratos to stop, Kratos basically tells her to screw off and he then joins the attack on the city. Just like Ares in the last game, Kratos is shown as a giant destroying the city.

That's when the bird appears and zap Kratos. The bird steals Kratos' god powers and then dumps them into the Colossus of Rhodes. That makes the basis for the tutorial level. Kratos spends a lot of time running from the statue through the level. In the beginning Kratos is battling human soldiers instead of demons or mythological creatures. It's all good stuff. Kratos' new move set is more fleshed out then the first game. At the start of the game Kratos is using the Athena's Blades, very similar weapons to the Blades of Chaos from the last game. Kratos also has the magic ability Poseidon's Rage, an AOE lightning attack which is pretty crucial versus the Colossus.

Kratos will fight the Colossus three times, even though he will encounter it more often then that. It makes for a pretty fun first level which has NO BACKTRACKING! Maybe they've learned from the last game? During the third encounter with the Colossus Kratos is given the Blade of Olympus by Zeus. It's a sword that Kratos must drain all of his Godly power into in order to slay the Colossus. The includes a fun little section running around inside the Colossus draining the God power that is currently controlling it.

After the Colossus is down, a broken and battered Kratos is confronted by Zeus, who was in disguise as the bird. This was a great bit of misdirection on the game's part as it is assumed that the bird was Athena. Zeus tricked Kratos into draining his Godly power into the sword so that Zeus could prevent Kratos from becoming another Ares. When Kratos still defies Zeus, Zeus kills Kratos with the Blade of Olympus.

Kratos' decent back into Hades is halted by Gaia, a Titan and series narrator. It's funny, because during the first game I never wondered who was narrating it. Apparently all the Titans are alive, which is great since the first game told us quite clearly that Cronos was the last Titan left. In fact, I believe that Gaia was the one narrating that scene. Anyways the Titans want to use Kratos to help them get revenge on the Gods of Olympus. So Kratos is brought back to life and that's as far as I got.

Game is off to a great start. Hopefully the development team learned from the last game and there will be no backtracking this time. Backtracking has it's place in certain games, sandbox games for instance, but it can really distract from action games. Especially when half of the action is back behind the area you just came from.

Next time: Kratos will continue is quest for revenge with a lot of rage.

God of War - The Final Battle

So there I am standing just outside of my grave and the destroyed Temple of the Oracle and I know I'm on my way to the final battle with Ares. But before I  talk about that lets discuss the storyline of the game.

Kratos was the youngest General of the Spartan army. He killed for glory and thought his army was unstoppable. His wife begged him to stop asking when "Enough would be enough?" Kratos didn't care, he left his wife and daughter at home and just kept on killing. He was thought invincible, at least until he ran into an army of barbarians.

The army of barbarians decimated Kratos' troops and in a final desperate act to save his life Kratos pledged his soul to Ares if Ares would defeat Kratos' enemies. Ares attached the Blades of Chaos to Kratos' arms and gave Kratos the power to kill anything.

Kratos went on an even more violent killing spree with the God of War at his back. Eventually Kratos came upon a small village which had a Temple of Athena in it. Kratos declared the Temple an affront to Ares and the village was to be destroyed. Kratos' army destroyed the village, but Kratos had hesitations about the Temple. The village Oracle warned Kratos not to enter, but Kratos' pride got in the way. Kratos burst into the Temple and killed everyone. Horrifyingly two of the people he killed turned out to be his wife and daughter. Kratos had been tricked by Ares. Kratos swore revenge on Ares. For punishment, the village Oracle attached the ashes of Kratos' family to his flesh. This is why Kratos is pale. He would carry the memory of what he did on his flesh. To get his revenge Kratos teamed up with Athena and eventually many other Greek gods.

This is actually a pretty good backstory for Kratos. I still find it hard to believe Kratos had a family, but that his rage and pride would cause him to kill his family actually works. It really helps to flesh Kratos out as a character. He wants to rid himself of the memory of how he killed his wife and daughter.

Now back to the gameplay. You have to run a through the ruined temple, but all of the enemies in it are incredibly weak and should not pose a problem. Eventually you will reach Ares as he yells at Zeus. Apparently Ares wants recognition from Zeus and that's why he kills everything. Kratos easily recovers Pandora's Box from Ares (I mean this was stupidly easy. He basically just walks up and takes it). Kratos opens the Box and grows really tall. Apparently Pandora's Box is a major growth hormone. Now that Kratos is tall he can kill Ares. I do find it funny that Kratos is still significantly shorter than Ares.

The battle takes place over three parts. First is a basic fight against Ares. I made liberal use of the Blades of Chaos and the Army of Hades. A lot of dodging and a lot of striking. It's a fun fight and it can really test your skills.

After you deplete Ares health bar he sucks you into a small pocket dimension where Ares tries to make Kratos suffer by forcing Kratos to watch his wife and daughter killed before his eyes again. Kratos tries to save them. This is a fantastic fight. You fight an army of Bizarro Kratos (there must be at least one hundred of them) and you must keep Kratos and his family from dying. It is not easy, not by a long shot. I had to use the Wrath of the Gods ability with it's infinite magic boost and very liberal use of the Army of Hades to survive this fight. And I died quite a few times during the battle. It's a very emotional fight watching Kratos try to save his family. In the end though, Ares rips off the Blades of Chaos and uses them to slaughter Kratos'  family. Ares then seals Kratos' magic.

You are returned to battle Ares once more and in a desperate attempt Kratos steals the sword that the large statue of Athena is holding. This is why I mentioned learning to use the Blade of Artemis. This sword, The Sword of the Gods, uses the same moveset. There is only one health bar between the two of you and your job is to fill you health bar all the way to max while draining Ares'. This is actually a dumb fight. I don't like the last minute change in weapons and Ares has some cheap moves that can break your guard. Also if you time it carefully the fight can be over in about 60 seconds. I know, because when I finally killed Ares that's about how long it took.

So Kratos kills Ares and he finally learns the truth about the Gods. They forgive Kratos of his sins, but they never promised to wipe his memory. In despair Kratos tries to kill himself by throwing himself off of Mount Olympus, you know, the scene at the start of the game. The Gods let Kratos smash into the water unharmed and then they levitate him all the way to the top of Olympus. Athena informs Kratos that gods will reward him by making him the new God of War. Kratos accepts.

Game Over.

Final thoughts: God of War is a very fun game. It has a fantastic combat system and it shows that the design team worked hard to polish it. The team deserves all of the praise they get for the combat system.

The graphics are gorgeous, especially for a PS2 game. It's very obvious that the design team pushed the limits of the PS2's hardware to show this level of graphics. The games ability to show size, scale is amazing. Many times I felt small while battling something enormous.

The game's biggest flaw really falls into it's level design. Backtracking through every level is very poor design. It got to the point that it was easy to get lost because your first thought is not that you should be going back the way you game. And it's a glaring problem in an otherwise enjoyable game.

Next time: God of War II. Kratos is now the God of War and that can only mean bad things for mortal men and the Gods themselves.

God of War - To Hell and Back to Hell

So we left off with Kratos entering the Challenge of Hades. Overall this is one of the more straight forward challenges and even though it has some backtracking, figuring out where to go isn't that complicated. There's a neat little maze puzzle where you have to defeat all of the enemies to continue and you have to figure out how to turn the light on for a giant statue. The worst part of this Challenge is the rafters. You have to cross these rafters while blades of death spin in your path. Not the worst thing in the world normally, but if you remember I mentioned that God of War is a fixed camera game and you're given some pretty horrible angles at times. Trying to judge the timing of the blades is obnoxious, especially when you have to jump over them. Eventually you find yourself back in the room with the two large double doors. Prepare for a boss fight.

You are attacked by a giant Zombie Minotaur wearing steampunk armor. You must first destroy his armor (a long process) and then kill him (also a long process). I highly recommend Poseidon's Rage here. It can really speed things up and you can get magic refills from the Zombie. Once the Zombie is dead you can go through the double doors to find Pathos Verdes the 3rd's second son, who is also dead. Apparently Pathos is losing his faith in the Gods with the death of his second son. Steal the second son's skull and back to the pool in the inner ring.

Swim down to the bottom of the statue, place the skull and pull the lever. The pool drains. You now have to line up a series of openings with the hub room. The coolest part about this section is the draw distance (how far you can see). You can see from the statue to the hub room. Normally there would be a "fog of war" blocking the view and that would save rendering power. But God of War doesn't deal with a fog of war. It is completely awesome that way. You get to see some amazing background visuals because of this.

When everything is lined up you push to statues together to cause a beam of light to appear and you end up at THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!!! Which only a giant can climb! But this is God of War not the Princess Bride so you're actually at the Cliff of Madness, not quite as impressive sounding. There's a note from Pathos Verde the third claiming he's created a challenge that no man can complete. This. Is. A. Lie. The challenge is not that hard, but it is cheap, lame and has the worst amount of backtracking the game. It is incredibly easy to get lost here since you actually have to back past the beginning of the area to complete this section. You also have to do an annoying challenge where you have to kick a box around a corner before spikes in the floor kill you. I did not complete the challenge by kicking the box, that was not working for me so I just dragged the box, which made it very funny when I unlocked the trophy "Kickboxer" afterwards.

The Cliffs of Madness also introduce you to a knew enemy, the satyr. When I first saw them I though they were jackals and I thought they were wearing Egyptian armor. I literally thought they had put Egyptian enemies in this game. It was thoroughly confused. Eventually I figured out what they were and I killed them.

From the Cliffs I reached the Architect's Tomb. This area has an obnoxious platforming-puzzle section since there are sawblades zipping back and forth between moving platforms. You must press a switch jump across the platforms and run through the door before time runs out. Sadly this takes an otherwise fun puzzle and makes it obnoxious. You actually have to jump across the platforms before you press the switch, solve some other puzzles that open other parts of the door and then jump back across and press the first switch. This puzzle was actually really close to being great.

After you make it through the door you encounter the Architect, dead thankfully, and his wife, also dead. The Architect killed his wife when she tried to convince him to stop building the Temple. Even though he had lost faith in the Gods he still believed that he was the Chosen One to build the Temple. So he killed her then shortly after I assume he killed himself, but not before he incorporated her skull into the Temple as another key for a door. Steal her head and prepare for the final fight.

The final fight is more annoying then hard, and after the Zombie Minotaur, very disappointing. You must battle harpies and archers while you're on moving conveyor belts. Weak sauce.

You now reach Pandora's Box. It's a very impressive box that's for sure, very large. Athena appears and tells Kratos that he must get the Box back to Athens immediately, but she offers no help and that's where these Gods suck. In the next cutscene you see, Kratos is pushing this heavy box incredibly slowly. Considering where he had to travel to get here, Kratos will probably get the Box back Athens in three months time with how fast he's moving.

But not to worry. Ares realizes that Kratos has the box and he decides to do something about it. He lobs a broken column at Kratos all the way from Athens and succesfully kills him. Yes Kratos is now dead. Ares claims the Box for himself and has it brought to him at Athens. Oh brother, it's pretty easy to see where this is going.

Kratos' spirit is cast into Hades. In a very amusing scene Kratos avoids falling into the river Styx by grabbing hold of the ship captain from the first level, who just happens to be holding onto a ledge. Kratos climbs up the captain and kicks him into the river Styx.

Hades is a very small level of platforming hell, literally. There are spinning logs with blades attached to them that Kratos needs to cross. Giant pillars of death that spin and have blades attached to them that Kratos needs to climb and many cheaply placed Archers that Kratos needs to kill. What fun. It's actually not a bad level, the platforming can be challenging, but it's still enjoyable. The worst part is the cheaply placed Archers. These guys can make the level a nightmare. But if you just plow ahead you'll beat the level.

Remember the old man who was digging your grave in Athens? Well it turns out he was actually digging Kratos a path out of Hades. Apparently digging through the center of the Earth will not put you in China. It will actually place you in Hades. Go figure.

Next time, the final battle and talking about the backstory.

God of War - Temple on a Titan

And here we are at Pandora's Temple. This is one of those points where God of War gives you a true sense of scale. The temple seems huge and Kratos seems small. It's very well handled. Apparently Kratos spends three days scaling the temple.

Upon arriving at the Temple I quickly encountered who I will refer to as Caretaker. Caretaker is burning the bodies of the MANY people who have tried to conquer the Temple and failed. He has Harpies bringing him a body about every thirty seconds or so, you do the math. Caretaker whines about the number of people who come to the Temple and throw away their lives. ATTENTION GODS OF ANCIENT GREECE: Pandora's Temple is the worst kept secret ever! Caretaker half-heartedly opens the way for Kratos to enter Pandora's Temple proper.

Pandora's Temple is broken up into 6 parts. This is also the section with some of the slowest, most aggravating gameplay in the entire game. God of War is mainly an action game, that is it's strength. The combat system is loads of fun. The over the top moveset, gore and Kratos' personality re-enforce this. So when you suddenly run into one of the many puzzles that you have to solve in this section the game really starts to drag. Pandora's Temple also has the worst sections for backtracking. You are forced to do so repeatedly, often with no clue that going backwards will help you continue forward. Kratos' full backstory is also revealed while exploring the temple.

So you start off in the Rings of Pandora. First you find a note from the architect of Pandora's Temple, Pathos Verde the 3rd. He's very proud to be working on the temple. The Rings is a very small section that you eventually follow to a small room, but the room you enter becomes a central hub for most of the level. You have to run past some smashers, clear some bad guys and secure the room. You pull a switch and for all your effort you are rewarded with a turnstyle back in the main ring. This turnstyle is actually a lever that you use to rotate the ENTIRE RING! This is pretty amazing considering the size of the ring.

Turning the lever will eventually reveal your next path. This is where you acquire your second weapon, the Blade of Artemis. It a giant curved blade with lots of power behind it. It lacks the reach of the Blades of Chaos, but makes up for that with it's strength. It's a fairly strong weapon that I recommend you learn how to use. It's also a far simpler weapon then the Blades of Chaos.

From here you enter the Challenge of Atlas. The Challenge of Atlas confirms how many people make it to the Temple of Pandora every year. At one point you cross a rope bridge and on both sides of the screen are epic battles between normal people and various demon thingies. It really makes you wonder why no one has found the Box before now. There are plenty of people here. You think one of them might have accomplished the task by now.

The Challenge of Atlas isn't too complicated, but there is backtracking, but that happens everywhere around here. You eventually find your way to the coffin of the architects first son. The architect is very sad is son is dead, but he died in service to the Gods. Know you have to do? You have to violate the son's coffin and steal his head. Keep in mind the Temple is around a thousand years old, but the architect's son's head is in pretty good condition. With the head in hand you are taken back to the little hub room I mentioned earlier. With the head you can access the inner ring.

The inner ring has this giant barrel rolling around in the middle of it. You actually have to get on top of the barrel and ride it to a ladder. Climb that ladder and run down a hall to enter The Challenge of Poseidon.

I HATE the Challenge of Poseidon. This area has some of the lamest traps and introduces one of the most annoying enemies in the game, the Cerberus. You encounter these enemies at the very start of the Challenge. It's an amusing scene where a cute little dog appears and threatens Kratos. Kratos gives it this, "Wha...?" look. The dog then poke'-evolves into a three headed Cerberus. The little dogs aren't that bad, the problem is that lots of little dogs appear and each one them has the ability to evolve. At one point I had 5 Cerberus running around. It was a nightmare. I finally unleashed the Wrath of the Gods! Wrath of the Gods is Kratos' super form. He's covered in electrical looking armor, he now causes major damage, and cannot suffer knockback. You can also upgrade it so you get infinite magic. Spamming Poseidon's Rage is awesome fun.

Since this is the Challenge of Poseidon and Poseidon is God of the Seas this challenge naturally deals with water and Kratos gets the ability to breath underwater indefinitely. That's where things get annoying. There is this underwater section where there are moving walls, Kratos has to avoid these walls by quickly swimming past them. If you get caught by a wall, the wall proceeds to smash you into another wall and it's auto game over. I died enough times here to be offered EASY MODE! (which only affects COMBAT!) and I was awarded a trophy for sucking so much. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OK? This section is not fun, it's a  "throw down the control aggravating and never come back" section, that's what it is!

Your main goal in this Challenge is to acquire the diving ability. With this ability you make your way back to the hub room, and then back to the inner ring and into this giant pool of water with a giant statue in it. You can now reach a hole in the bottom of the pool and swim to your next destination.

Alright, that's enough typing for now. Next time, the Challenge of Hades, the Cliffs of Madness and how much Greek Gods suck!

God of War - Catching up and moving on

Now before I move on to the sewers and the desert there are a few points in Athens I would like to cover.

The first two are related. First off I got my third God power, the Lightning Bolt of Zeus. It's a quick little projectile lightning bolt that's good against archers and that's pretty much it. Nothing else in the game really gives you time to use it against them. I did upgrade it to level 2, but that's probably as far as it will go.

The second is the climbing rope-ways this game uses. At certain sections Kratos will grab a rope and climb along it. Enemies will spawn and try to knock Kratos off the rope sending him to his doom. I can discern no noticeable enemy pattern while on the ropes, they seem to come at you from all angles all the time. Often I have found it easiest just to let enemies grab hold of Kratos and then just shake them off instead of actually fighting them. This gets even worse when archers are involved. There are points during the Rooftops of Athens that you're climbing ropes and being shot by archers. Prepare to lose health and probably die! It's aggravating, it's frustrating, it's uncalled for and it's just bad design. And do you know how you're supposed to beat these archers? With the Lightning Bolts of Zeus, which I didn't at the time. *sigh*

Third thing is story related so SPOILER ALERT if for some reason you don't already know the story for God of War. The first part of the backstory is revealed when the Oracle reads Kratos' mind after he rescues her. Kratos is revealed to be a general of the Spartan army and a very bloodthirsty beast. The Oracle is shocked by this, but I don't know how a person who wears that out fit can be shocked by anything. Kratos being a general isn't that surprising and being bloodthirsty for conquest also isn't that surprising. That he married an ugly woman and they had an ugly little girl a little surprising. Kratos doesn't seem like the type to settle down.

Now  on to the sewers. After you leave the Temple of the Oracle you reach a giant statue of Athena, inside the statue is a very long spiral staircase that leads to the sewers. I find it funny that the largest statue of Athena in the city has a direct path to the sewers, at least the Greeks are being efficient.

The sewers are pretty straight forward which is nice. Plenty of minotaurs and plenty of archers so Zeus's Lightning Bolt gets plenty of use (the only reason I upgraded it). Keep running through the sewers and eventually you come out at the staircase that leads to Athens. This is the same staircase that has that annoying save point that sent me the wrong direction when I first got here. This time you are supposed to follow the path next to the save point.

Continue to follow the path until you reach the desert, once there Athena explains that to cross the desert you must kill the Sirens. I thought the Sirens were out at sea and bugged Odysseus or something like that. I'm no expert on Greek mythology. So you run around the desert until you start to hear a song. Run towards the sound until you find a Siren. Kill it. Do this three times and the path is opened to you.

Following the path leads you to a raging sandstorm that you split like the Red Sea by blowing a horn. After passing through the sand storm you fight more Sirens. Sirens are not fun to fight, they're quick and they zap you with lightning. After beating the Sirens a second horn appears and you're able to call the Titan Cronos. Cronos is carrying the Temple of Pandora on it's back and you're goal is to find Pandora's Box for it is the only weapon that can kill a God.

First Cronos looks stupid. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a Titan, a being far greater then the Gods themselves, would look like that. I just don't buy it. Cronos has that giant man-baby look that makes him look like a being of lower intelligence. And what is with the Temple of Pandora. It rides on top of a Titan, that is hidden in a sandstorm that is protected by Sirens, that is across a desert that is protected by more Sirens, so, naturally, hundreds of people find it annually! It really must not be all that well hidden. Athena should have just used one of the many people there to find the Box and kill Ares. It probably would have been faster.

Next time, more complaints about the number of people in Pandora's Temple and commentary on the trials of the Gods that are in the temple.

Oh, I forgot to mention the crazy old man. When Kratos first reached the Temple of the Oracle there was this crazy old man with potato roots growing out of his head. He's apparently digging Kratos' grave. Sounds like foreshadowing to me!

God of War - Off to Athens

So trying to type while playing doesn't really work for me. Instead I'll just give my thoughts on what I played, maybe take some notes and relay them or something. I also hope this avoid the "Wall-of-Text" syndrome that my last post had.

After the tutorial level we find our self at the gates of Athens. Athena has requested that you save her beloved city, so off goes Kratos hoping to earn his redemption.

Pretty early on here we run into some minotaurs. The minotaurs in this game make me laugh every single time. Minotaurs are one of the enemies in this game that has a specific QTE. When they have low enough health Kratos throws them to the ground and attempts to shove one of his Blades of Chaos down the minotaurs throat. If you push the Circle button fast enough and succeed you are rewarded with health orbs. Now God of War is a fixed camera game, meaning that you have no control over the camera. The game presents every angle in a specific way. Killing minotaurs must also happen at a specific angle and if the two don't match, the minotaur will magically rotate to the correct angle. It's something that is just so silly and pointless that I have to laugh. Plus it breaks the immersion the game is going for.

Early on in Athens you receive your second God power. You have to kill the Gorgon Medusa and rip off her head. This gives you the ability to turn enemies to stone and then shatter them. It's a fun little ability, but I don't use it that often. It's really useful against minotaurs, but I would rather QTE them for the health. Now why does Medusa's character model have her boobs hanging out? Is it really necessary?

Running through Athens really shows you how compacted God of War's levels are. You revisit previous areas on a regular basis. The levels love to run you around in circles often without any pointers on where to go. I don't want a big arrow saying you're going the wrong way, but good level design will subconsciously lead you where you need to go. Often times I found myself lost because I didn't realize I had to go backwards to go forward again. It's aggravating and it's a problem that God of War suffers from on a regular basis. Level progression needs to feel natural.

Now on the good side of things, one of the things God of War is great at is scale. When you finally reach Athens proper you're greeted with the awesome scene of Ares (the God of War) destroying Athens. Ares is enormous and you know it. He towers over everything else and it's very easy to be in awe of the sight. It's also easy to lost right here since the savepoint says go to the right instead of to the left. But as you wander through Athens you encounter Ares at various points and he's always feels huge. You have got to love the sense of scale in this game.

Final comment on Athens. Apparently Athena told her Oracle that you were coming. And when you meet the Oracle all you see is boobs. Basically all the Oracle is wearing is a piece of cloth the size of a hand towel. The thing is so sheer that she might as well not be wearing a top at all. It's ridiculous and I find it hard to believe that anyone in ancient Greece would actually wearing anything like that. She also has one of the worst puzzles to solve in the early part of the game. You have to save her from this rope she's dangling on, to reach her you apparently have to stack two statues on top of each other. There is no hint, clue, sign, or any indicator that this is how it works. It's a brand new concept and it's really annoying. God of War's initial impression is not one of a thinking man's game.

Oh and the people of Athens live in the smallest houses I have ever seen. Much smaller then my first apartment.

Next time I'll talk about the sewers and the desert, maybe some more. Still want to do a small rant about cover art for game collections.

God of War - Now for the game

Here's the actual meat of my posts that I've been promising. Me, playing video games. My thoughts and my opinions as I wander through the game.

God of War collection is in the PS3, system is booted, and I'm at the main menu. I'll select God of War, leaving God of War II for later. Oh look you can see a giant wall of flames and half of Kratos' face. He looks fairly solemn with his head bowed and eyes closed. Selecting new game. We'll do this on normal difficulty. Here we go, opening cutscene.

Solemn looking Kratos is talking. "The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me." Well duh! Don't you know anything about Greek mythology. The Gods abandoned people on a regular basis. It was pretty cool to have solemn looking Kratos suddenly talk to us.

Cutscene is over, Kratos threw himself from Olympus hoping to end it all. There was a voice over ranting about Kratos feeling abandoned. On to actual gameplay now.  Kratos is standing on a boat. Demon looking things are appearing so I'm going to kill them. Square for light attack, Triangle for heavy attack. Seems pretty simple. Lots of flashy attacks. So I had killed about 4 enemies by the time the tutorial appeared telling me how to attack. That seems kind of late.

I forgot to mention, Kratos wields to swords that are attached to chains. The chains are wrapped around his arms. This allows him to fling the blades away from his body and quickly snatch them back, kind of like a deadly yo-yo. The Blades of Chaos they are called. Lots of fun with these. 

Enemies cleared, into the trap door. I have to mash the R2 button to open it. Down the hatch, there's a chest. Apparently I hold the R2 button to open it. I tried mashing it first, that didn't work. Holding R2 works. I wonder why they are done differently?

Continuing down the hall. Break objects you get red orbs. Red orbs act as currency that you can use to upgrade your gear. Miniboss attack! A large hydra head just smashed through the bottom of the ship. I need to defend a lot so this thing doesn't kill me. L1 is defend. When it rears its head it's going to attack by snapping at you.

Square, square, triangle combo seems the best option, dumb thing take forever. Stop doing the slamming attack! Finally got a circle to appear above it's head, that means I can kill it the only way Kratos knows how, brutally. Press the buttons as they appear on screen in order to defeat the miniboss. This is called a Quick Time Event (QTE), Hydra is violently dead. Now where do I go?

Walk across the plank. There's a guy in a cage. He calls me the "Ghost of Sparda" (Kratos is pretty pale) and he doesn't want my help. I can't kill him either so I'm moving on.

Another chest of red orbs, stuff to smash, where do I go? Hmmm....ah, apparently I can smash this wooden barricade. Continuing on then. Harpies, I hate harpies. And normal people, apparently if I kill them I get health sweet! Innocents will die by my hand today. Killing hapries. Hydra attack! It smashed through the bottom of the boat! It snaps at you, it will also slam it's head onto the deck, once to the left, once to the right and once down the middle. And it swings its head in a giant circle. 3/4's of Hydra health bar gone, QTE time. Hydra is "dead". I mean it's a hydra, you have to kill the main head or more smaller heads will just reappear.

Now where do I go? Found two hidden red orb chests. Still lost. I'll try the hole where the hydra appeared. There we go, Kratos can swim. I can never remember which video game characters can swim. Now to figure out where to go in the water. Found it, apparently I can climb some cargo netting. I now know that I can launch an enemy into the air by holding triangle. Now go away tutorial screen!

Crossing planks again. I come to a fork in the road. Let's head up, I find a chest with red orbs, nice. I slip and Kratos grabs a hold of the plank, drag myself back up with the X button. Continuing on. I made it back to the fork in the road. I slip again. Kratos didn't grab hold?! I died....my first death was by falling off the plank in the tutorial level. That's sad.

Last waypoint puts me at the start of the plank so I start crossing again.. Do I dare get the red orb chest again? Yeah, I dare. I make it back to the fork and then I continue crossing, I made it this time. That was a really cheap death falling off like that. 

Found a save point, that was nice of them. I now have to push this box across part of the deck while being assaulted by archers. Press X to kick the box. Stupid archers are annoying, box can only take so much damage then I'll have to try again. Sweet I made it across without losing a box. Using the box I jump up and pressing Circle I grap the archers. I now have choices. If I press Square I can swing them in a large circle using them as a weapon, Triangle I just rip them in half, Circle I throw them on the ground and brutally stab them. Triangle doesn't seem to give me orbs, I'll use Cirlce.

Kratos really is hard core.

I just found a Gorgon's Eye, collecting six will net me more health. Must find more Gorgon Eyes. I just met Poseidon, he gave me an electrical Area of Effect (AOE) attack. I get to use it now to defeat enemies, sounds like fun. Going through the door Poseidon was blocking, and climbing the net. The captain was just eaten by a giant hydra. It's boss fight time.

There are three hydras. Two small and one enormous. I can't reach the big one until I've killed the small one. I start with the one on the left, the one on the right keeps trying to suck me over. The small ones have the same attacks from earlier, except they will now try to suck you over if you ignore them. They might have done that earlier, I never gave them the chance though.

Left one is down, I jump up the crates on the far left and I find some odd harpoon thingy. I jump on top of the harpoon thingy and SLAM, it goes right through the small hydra's head. Rinse, and repeat to the hydra on the right. Climbing the netting to fight the big one. He roared at me and pushed me off the platform, I have to climb all the way back up. Now fighting the giant Hydra, he keeps trying to bite be. I roll out of the way by using the right analog stick. He roared again, knocked me off the platform and then KNOCKED ME OFF THE SECOND PLATFORM! That was not cool. I now have a long climb ahead of me. We continue fighting, he roars some more, sometimes I stay up, sometimes I grab the ledge, sometimes I get knocked down one platform, sometimes I get knocked down two platforms. Finally got a Circle to appear above the Hydra's head. I slam the Hydra into the mast. Fight continues. I slam the head into the mast three more times before the mast breaks off. I think I see where this is going. I keep fighting the hydra and another circle appears. QTE, I smash the giant hydra's head onto the broken mast ending the fight.

That was a stupidly long fight, mainly from being blown off two platforms! Why was that allowed? It just dragged the fight out and eventually made me very, very bored. *sigh* Someone is calling for help from inside of the hydra. Yep, it's the captain. I take his key and let him fall into the hydra's stomach. Kratos is a jerk. Need to find my way back to the captain's quarters and that locked door with the women. Wasn't bad to luck to have women on board a ship? Even in ancient Greece?

The nice camera shows me where to go. I slide down a rope and I'm at the box kicking area again. More archers. At least I can save. I make it past the archers to the box I was kicking earlier. If I remember it sounded like a slaughter was happening when I left the door 20 minutes ago. Everyone should be dead. I open the door and there's a hallway. So how did I hear people screaming like they were right next to the door? Run down the hallway. Cutscene of women being slaughtered. Guess they were bad luck to have on board. Surprised they weren't dead already though.

Kratos is having bad dreams. Bewbs. I really don't get that. Kratos is now on a different ship, he apparently had a threesome. Kratos goes up on deck and yells at Athena. He wants to forget his past. Athena says that if Kratos saves Athens he will earn his redemption. NOT THE SAME THING. Pay attention Kratos.

Back to gameplay. Naked ladies in Kratos' bed. They want Kratos to come back to bed, Kratos says "go away". Which is funny since if you jump on the bed you can activate a QTE where Kratos apparently has a quickie threesome. On to the next save point.

And I'm done for this round of play. This will be a huge post, I'll have to see if there's some way to shorten these.

God of War - All hail the Spartan!

God of War is an action adventure game that was originally release for the PS2 back in March of 2005. In November of 2009 God of War and God of War II were packaged together for a PS3 re-release titled God of War Collection. Both games were given a slight graphic overall so the games could be played in HD. That's great for people who have that capability. I am not one of them.

In God of War we are introduced to Kratos, an incredibly angry Spartan who is fueled by rage to brutally kill everything that stands in his way. The initial story setup seems pretty simple, Kratos is looking for redemption. At the start of the game we have no idea what he needs redemption for of course and this will be slowly revealed during gameplay.

The game quickly sets itself up as a T&A festival with mass amounts of gore thrown in for good measure. Everything Kratos kills will spew forth buckets of blood like it's going out of style. This is purely aesthetic and doesn't actually help or hinder gameplay. I've always found the choice to over sexualize the game odd. For me it's a distraction that immediately takes me out of the action and causes me to roll my eyes in bewilderment. Do I really need to be fighting Gorgons with their boobs hanging out? It doesn't add anything and overall it's just silly. The blood is a personal choice for each gamer. I play plenty of games were gallons of blood doesn't spew forth from every minor hit, but the blood actually feels appropriate for this game. Kratos is so ridiculously bloodthirsty, and so unmercilessly savage that the blood just fits right in with the combat. Heck, I think it would look silly if Kratos was ripping a guy in half and there was no blood.

So we have our protagonist in place and we're ready to get under way. Next time: the tutorial level. And at some point a rant about the box art for these PS3 collections that are coming out.

Let's get this started

Greetings one and all! I'm MrJustice and this is my gaming blog. I'll be discussing the various games that I play from my perspective. I'll get this out of the way right now, I am not a rich man and I don't have all day to play so the gaming may be slow at times and what I'm playing has a high possibility of being old. Don't expect the most recent releases.

I have a Playstation 3 and a Wii. 99% of what I'll write about will come from the PS3. I hardly ever touch the Wii and my PS3 collection dominates my Wii collection by nearly 5 to 1. I am currently playing God of War from the God of War Collection. I did play God of War many years ago on the Playstation 2.My first post covering the game will be posted tomorrow.