God of War

FOR MATURE GAMERS ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Despite all it's flaws, control issues, and frustrations regarding battles and puzzles, the game play is overall very pleasant. This is a must have game.

Get this game... but prepare to be frustrated as well as challenged.

God of War is from Sony's own development team. It was released back in 2005 and got a sequel a few months ago. God of War is pretty excellent. It looks superb, sounds excellent and is a hell of a lot of fun to play, even if it isn't that long as I finished the game in about 10 hours of play. Still, if you're over the age of 18+ and have a PS2 then this is a must have.

God of War follows Kratos, a angry anti-hero after the god of war, Ares, who tricked Kratos into killing his own family. So now, he's doing the gods bidding, who now want him to kill Ares, in order to be freed of his nightmares. One cool thing with the plot is that they tell you things as you progress the game, so it makes the game much more compelling.

The gameplay in God of war is excellent. You have a light and heavy attack, as well as a grapple move, at your disposal. You can mix these moves into combos to do more damage. You also get magic moves, which are moves given to you by the gods. These include an attack which does a big smash of lightening which damages enemies at a far distance, a move which lets you throw thunder bolts at people and even a move which lets you summon the dead to do damage for you.

You'll get two weapons, which are the Blades of Chaos and the Blade of Atemis. The blades of chaos are two blades which are attached to a chain which are seared into Kratos' skin. This is the quicker weapon of the two, as you can perform combos much quicker. Then there's the blade of atemis, which is a giant blade which does more damage but is slower.

You'll come across puzzles in the game, but these are a bit uninspired, as it usually involves you moving crates around to do something. It was really boring and felt like something thrown in at the last minute.

You'll meet many Greek beasts in God of War. These include Minotours, Cyclops, Hydra, Undead Soldiers and much more. These all look incredible and are a treat to fight. Greece is also a treat to look at. The sheer size is astonishing, as you travel through the Mountains of Olympus, Rings Of Pandora, Athens and even Hades, in other words hell.

The graphics are stunning. The whole size of the games levels is incredible, as they are absolutely massive. The character models look excellent with a great amount of detail. The thing is that some of the things looked a little ugly in the game, and playing the second game made this look less amazing, as the second one looked better.

The sound is still excellent though. Particularly the orchestral score in the game, which is excellent for this type of game. If you're in combat the music is high pitched, but when exploring Athens its much more relaxing. The voice acting was also brilliant, particularly Kratos who was gruff and anti-heroish. The effects are good too, with blood splatter and blade slashes.

The sad thing is that the games over too soon. I finished this in about 10 hours without getting stuck. But there's good extras as well, like a really hard mode called God Mode, lots of videos about the game and the challenge of the gods mode, which are these insanely hard challenges.

So overall, God of War is an excellent game. Love games like Devil May Cry, Onimusha and Prince of Persia then you'll love this. And go with this before the sequel as it will be hard to follow the plot of the sequel if you haven't finished the original.

This game is rated 18+ for blood and gore and some partial nudity (mostly from the sex mini-game near the beginning)

For those of you who enjoyed games such as Devil May Cry, I highly recommend you play God of War. In such a short game, you become very attached to the main character, Kratos, and will find yourself playing until the end (despite some frustrating moments) to unveil the story of the God of War.

God of War is pretty awsome. The combat is extremely fluid and easy to master. The way kratos acts is some times disturbingly cool. The creator of G.O.W shows that he loves his job by making a cohesive and overall fun game. The opening level is a tutorial of sorts but actually helpful and entertaining. Each boss does go by the standard cycle of moves that games of old have done to death... but, and this is a big but, the way Kratos finishes them off is extremely brutal and always entertaing. For a single player game it is fairly long (about 15-20 hours). The level designs are done fairly well. The framerate is consitent and rarely bogs down if at all.

Their are no loading screens save for a few 3 second instances during gameplay, but don't worry it's only during running down short hallways, never in a fight.

Overall this game is a game of the year contender.