God of War PS2

[willie]

this computer is being a biatch w/ the search function, so i decided to start a thread

I saw a few commercials and thought it was pretty weak, but after reading a few stellar reviews i decided to pick it up, and *poof* there went my weekend.


this game is absolutely freakin awesome. I think it's probably the best game i've played in the last 2 or 3 years in terms of creativity and innovation. (gta series is fun and all but is kind of getting repetitive- nahmean)

think prince of persia- with WAY better fighting, excessive amounts of blood, supreme brutality, good storytelling, awesome cutscenes, etc etc

highly recommended. i beat it in about 9 hours or so, so you may just want to rent it and burn a weekend on it, but i plan on playing through it again


anyone else played this game yet?

[bd8802]

i have seen some reveiws, the game does look awesome. Too bad my PS2 is broken. I hate console specific games as a result.

[willie]

i am not a fan of shameless bumping, but this one dropped fast.....

ummmmm yeah.

[pshreck]

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i am not a fan of shameless bumping, but this one dropped fast.....

ummmmm yeah.

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Game is too new, not many people have played it yet.

But yeah, from all reviews, it looks awesome.

9.8 on ign.com puts it on the top 15 games of all time I believe.

[trying2learn]

the south park last night with the whole spoof on terri schaivo (kenny), god of war (heaven vs hell), the last starfighter, constantine, etc...was freakin hilarious...this thread reminded me of it.

'goddamn it' ended every scene to commercial...genius.

[ilya]

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9.8 on ign.com puts it on the top 15 games of all time I believe.

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dude ign & gamespot are a joke. they're little more than the VG industry's 2nd marketing division. VG companies get kid-glove reviews, IGN & Gamespot get junkets and exclusive preview-type crap to lure people into their subscription services.

[ilya]

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think prince of persia- with WAY better fighting, excessive amounts of blood, supreme brutality, good storytelling, awesome cutscenes, etc etc

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so basically prince of persia, but gored up and dumbed down to appeal more to 13 yo boys?

[pshreck]

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9.8 on ign.com puts it on the top 15 games of all time I believe.

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dude ign & gamespot are a joke. they're little more than the VG industry's 2nd marketing division. VG companies get kid-glove reviews, IGN & Gamespot get junkets and exclusive preview-type crap to lure people into their subscription services.

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Ive gamed for the past 10 years, even competitively gamed for 2 years in my late teens. I think for the most part, ign.com is very good for its reviews. If they make a positive review, they back it up with very specific reasons, they tell us about the game play aspects that most will probably like, and they are usually right on a large scale. Compare their reviews to reviews of the everyday gamer on gamefaqs.com, and you will see they are highly correlated.

If you are in the crew of people that think most video games suck, then I can understand why you dont like ign. I dont really use gamespot, so I cant defend that.

[Jack of Arcades]

Basically, God of War is what the Warrior Within TRIED to be. Ubisoft put so much work into the personality of the Prince and so much into the fighting, but it all kinda fell flat. The platforming was still great, and the Puzzles were nice, if obscure.

God of War is a lot more straightforward. The fighting is amazing. It doesn't get old. It's simple and straightforward, switching between two weapons (chainblades, heavy sword), and 4 spells.

Plus, just about each enemy has a special brutal way to kill them, especially the bosses. For example, when fighting a gorgon, you wear her down sufficiently, press a button, and then you have to rotate the analog stick in the right direction to rip her head off. Even though you don't have to kill them this way, it's a nice brutal touch, and it always yields blue orbs to fill up your meter. As the enemies get bigger, the sequences get more complex and more brutal.

Aside from that, the only significant way in which God of War differs from other action titles is art direction. It's unprecedentedly beautiful - the whole game is stunning and never lets down. Also, it has very little loading times. I'm talking maybe one minute of loading throughout the whole game (not counting saving/loading games). It all adds up to a very seamless, stunning experience that makes it hard to put the controller down.

A nice addition to the game is behind the scene extras that you can unlock as you beat the game. There're clips of deleted levels, concept art, even teasers as to a possible next game and a look into the backstory of Kratos. It's about 30 minutes of extra stuff that gives the game an even more cinematic feel.

I mentioned the fighting, but what about the other two elements? The platforming is decent, likely the weakest element of the game. Don't expect a lot of flips or pole swingning such as Dante or the Prince, but some of the best sequences are wall climbing spots where you have to battle a barrage of enemies. Platforming also makes up for the most annoying deaths ever, which is, of course, a flaw in every game.

The puzzles are nice, akin to Devil May Cry 3's. They're pretty straightforward, even if you don't always know that what you're doing is toward a puzzle. You just progress, and you find that you come across the solutions to puzzles automatically. They're nice and clever, but don't require a the huge amount of thinking of something like Onimusha (which the game is a good bit like, as well).

The best way to sum up what God of War does is that it's not overly innovative - and this is explained by David Jaffe (game's director) in the game's extras - but that it tries to take every element of action games and improve on it. Does it succeed? What God of War manages to do is take familiar elements of gameplay and make them into a brutal, violent, fresh, accessible package of fun. You don't care that you've been collecting red orbs, green orbs, and blue orbs since the PS2's inception - and why should you? It's as good as ever.

If you're a fan of action games you probably already have it. If somehow you don't, get it.

If you're not a fan, give it a try anyway. Find a friend who has it, or rent it somewhere. It's less frustrating than Persia, less cheap than DMC3, and less methodical than Onimusha - all the while preserving or improving on the elements of those games that make them worthwhile to play.

[Jack of Arcades]

Gamespot tends to give lower reviews than IGN. They both have reader averages, and IGN also offers an average of press scores. I tend to give slightly more weight to press/reader averages than IGN but also take the review into consideration.

[ilya]

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9.8 on ign.com puts it on the top 15 games of all time I believe.

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dude ign & gamespot are a joke. they're little more than the VG industry's 2nd marketing division. VG companies get kid-glove reviews, IGN & Gamespot get junkets and exclusive preview-type crap to lure people into their subscription services.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ive gamed for the past 10 years, even competitively gamed for 2 years in my late teens. I think for the most part, ign.com is very good for its reviews. If they make a positive review, they back it up with very specific reasons, they tell us about the game play aspects that most will probably like, and they are usually right on a large scale. Compare their reviews to reviews of the everyday gamer on gamefaqs.com, and you will see they are highly correlated.

If you are in the crew of people that think most video games suck, then I can understand why you dont like ign. I dont really use gamespot, so I cant defend that.

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I've been a gamer for a long time, too. I have eclectic tastes in games but I'm not a gaming snob. Many of my all-time favorite games are very mainstream, e.g. SSX Tricky, Tony Hawk 2, Final Fantasy X, etc...
I think you and I are reading different IGNs though. The IGN I read often leaves me wondering how a reviewer with so many reservations about a game could have arrived at such a high score. Their scores may not be far off from the GameFaq reader concensus, but is there any place on the internet with a a higher density of half-literate teenage fanboys than the GameFaq forums?
So I guess I agree that the reviews are often alright. The scores, though, are inflated quite a bit above the game-review-site average. You can see it quite plainly by looking at a few dozen listings on Metacritic or Gamerankings. And the score is what sells the game, isn't it.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
Basically, God of War is what the Warrior Within TRIED to be. Ubisoft put so much work into the personality of the Prince and so much into the fighting, but it all kinda fell flat. The platforming was still great, and the Puzzles were nice, if obscure.


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You probably realize this but I was talking about the original Prince of Persia, before the mall-metal focus-group coating.
If you haven't played the original, it's well worth the $20.

[ilya]

Thanks for the detailed review Jack.

One thing though, doesn't the juxtaposition between the infantile, innocent fun of blue-orb collecting and the sick, baroque brutality of ripping off heads creep anyone else out even a *little* bit?

[Jack of Arcades]

Well, it isn't much like the original prince of persia, which is one of my favorite games ever. It's much more action than platform based.

[willie]

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Thanks for the detailed review Jack.

One thing though, doesn't the juxtaposition between the infantile, innocent fun of blue-orb collecting and the sick, baroque brutality of ripping off heads creep anyone else out even a *little* bit?

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not yet, but how many times do you play through a game?

had to add some things

the sound- great soundtrack. very good mood music for the game as it progresses

the artwork- the city looks amazing, the bosses are huge and brutal, and all in all it's a very impressive game visually.

[wonderwes]

I sold my non working ps2 on ebay (disc read error, problem with the laser) and got $50. That and I also found a site called redzuco.com that will knock $25 off a new ps2. So if you wanted another one you could sell your ps2 for $50, get the redzuco one ($25 discount)

New ps2: $150 - 50ebay -25 discount= new slim ps2 $75