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.
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