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!