God of War I & II were very popular genre-defining games on the PS2 platform. I’d heard of them in passing but never played or seen one in action before. The excitement and anticipation surrounding the upcoming release of God of War III for PS3, however, encouraged me to look into it further.
For the same reasons, the developers had recently re-released the first two games for PS3 with new high-quality artwork. This was a perfect opportunity for me to get into the series and see what all the fuss was about before the third instalment hit the streets.
Perhaps due to the influence it has had over so many games since its introduction, God of War feels familiar. And, to follow along the implied theme of this website, it really is a game that’s all about mashing buttons. The majority of my time in the first couple of chapters of the game saw success through that precise activity. What feels different from similar games, though, is this one’s rich (though relatively simple) story and how it develops. The storytelling is generally slow but epic.
Although not quite as exciting, I don’t find myself enjoying the weapon upgrades. It feels, well, clumsy to me. But it, too, is obviously the predecessor to far superior implementations in contemporary games. At the time, I suspect this was probably quite refreshing. Many games were developing more complex reward structures – God of War goes in the opposite direction.
The Titan, Cronos, from God of War
The epic scale the game presents seems to be the major reward for playing. The sight of Ares crushing a city underfoot is soon followed by the most amazing imagery of a spiralling city perched on the back of a crawling giant. This forms the backdrop to all those old characters I remember from reading ancient myths in my childhood: the gods of Olympus, the Minotaur, sirens, harpies and even Cerberus. I cannot deny that participating in all of it is at least a little bit exciting.
But then Cerberus is as far as I have managed up to this point. Its ability to constantly reproduce is really getting the better of me. When I get a moment, though, I’ll be sure to go back and make further progress through Kratos’s quest.
I'm really tossing up whether I bother playing these again, they were perfectly fun on the native PS2 (actually they were more than perfectly fun) and it wasn't THAT long ago that I played them, in reverse order I might add.
I think they were easily amongst my favourite games on the PS2.
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