dpodblood
Diamond Member
First off I have to say the whole concept of HD remakes is awesome. As some one who didn't own a PS2 back in the day it's great to be able to play all the games I missed enhanced for current gen systems. Now on to the actual games. The God of War collection includes both GOW 1 and 2.
God of war is one of very few straight up action games I have had the opportunity to play. It took me a little while to get used to the controls (moves, QTE's, etc). Luckily GOW does a very good job of introducing different moves and weapons slowly throughout the game so that you have time to get comfortable with it. The controls are very responsive, and intuitive. That said one of the things I had difficulty getting used to is that there is no move cancelling. For this reason you must be very good at knowing the enemies attack patterns. Once you have started an attack you cannot stop giving enemies to opportunity to beat on you even when you see an attack coming from a mile away.
Level design is great. The levels are well laid out and for the most part I didn't have too much difficulty knowing where to go. The style, the variety, and the amount of detail in the environments (even for a PS2 era game) is fantastic. The different areas do sort of fall into the typical action/adventure tropes, but with a bit of a unique, Greek mythology spin. The scale of the arenas and the set pieces can't be described as anything less than epic. The fixed camera works really well in these games. It does a good job of making the game more dramatic and pointing out the path forward. The camera very rarely gets in the way of game-play.
The puzzles are honestly one thing I could have done without. Too me they aren't to valuable for anything other that breaking up the action a bit. I did find the puzzles to be a bit obtuse at times. In most games you walk into a given scenario, figure out your objective, and then figure out how to use the tools at your disposal to reach that objective. In GOW I didn't always find this clear. I would walk into an area and think "what exactly am I trying to do here?" Particularly in the first game I found I would get stuck on some puzzles and then check an FAQ. Most of the time it would be a case of "I didn't know I could move that" or "I didn't know I could smash that." Overall, not bad, but puzzles are defiantly not GOW's strong suit.
Where the game truly shines is in it's combat. The amount of different types of enemies, and the different tactics you need to defeat enemies is great. Not too mention the complete and absolute brutality in combat. They really did not hold back. From the visceral use of your blades, to the decapitations, to the shear amount blood in this game; the violence is absolutely over the top, in a good way!
I would definitely call this game challenging. I played though on the normal difficulty. Now keeping in mind I am not by any means a veteran of action games I did get my ass handed to me on more than a few occasions. That said there were very few times when I would call the game unfair. The times I did get owned were mostly out of my own incompetence or lack of strategy. The one BIG exception to this is the "knife tower" towards the end of the first game. This sequence just about made me toss my controller through the TV.
Overall I would say both GOW 1 and 2 are fantastic games that deserve the praise they get. I do regret not taking a bit of a break between the 2 games, as I did start to get a bit burnt out towards the second half of game 2.
It has it's flaws like every game, certain sections can be frustrating, and the story gets a bit convoluted in the second game, but overall well worth the time and money invested. I look forward to playing GOW3 (which I've already bought), but for now I need a little rest. 🙂
9/10 - Highly recommended.
God of war is one of very few straight up action games I have had the opportunity to play. It took me a little while to get used to the controls (moves, QTE's, etc). Luckily GOW does a very good job of introducing different moves and weapons slowly throughout the game so that you have time to get comfortable with it. The controls are very responsive, and intuitive. That said one of the things I had difficulty getting used to is that there is no move cancelling. For this reason you must be very good at knowing the enemies attack patterns. Once you have started an attack you cannot stop giving enemies to opportunity to beat on you even when you see an attack coming from a mile away.
Level design is great. The levels are well laid out and for the most part I didn't have too much difficulty knowing where to go. The style, the variety, and the amount of detail in the environments (even for a PS2 era game) is fantastic. The different areas do sort of fall into the typical action/adventure tropes, but with a bit of a unique, Greek mythology spin. The scale of the arenas and the set pieces can't be described as anything less than epic. The fixed camera works really well in these games. It does a good job of making the game more dramatic and pointing out the path forward. The camera very rarely gets in the way of game-play.
The puzzles are honestly one thing I could have done without. Too me they aren't to valuable for anything other that breaking up the action a bit. I did find the puzzles to be a bit obtuse at times. In most games you walk into a given scenario, figure out your objective, and then figure out how to use the tools at your disposal to reach that objective. In GOW I didn't always find this clear. I would walk into an area and think "what exactly am I trying to do here?" Particularly in the first game I found I would get stuck on some puzzles and then check an FAQ. Most of the time it would be a case of "I didn't know I could move that" or "I didn't know I could smash that." Overall, not bad, but puzzles are defiantly not GOW's strong suit.
Where the game truly shines is in it's combat. The amount of different types of enemies, and the different tactics you need to defeat enemies is great. Not too mention the complete and absolute brutality in combat. They really did not hold back. From the visceral use of your blades, to the decapitations, to the shear amount blood in this game; the violence is absolutely over the top, in a good way!
I would definitely call this game challenging. I played though on the normal difficulty. Now keeping in mind I am not by any means a veteran of action games I did get my ass handed to me on more than a few occasions. That said there were very few times when I would call the game unfair. The times I did get owned were mostly out of my own incompetence or lack of strategy. The one BIG exception to this is the "knife tower" towards the end of the first game. This sequence just about made me toss my controller through the TV.
Overall I would say both GOW 1 and 2 are fantastic games that deserve the praise they get. I do regret not taking a bit of a break between the 2 games, as I did start to get a bit burnt out towards the second half of game 2.
It has it's flaws like every game, certain sections can be frustrating, and the story gets a bit convoluted in the second game, but overall well worth the time and money invested. I look forward to playing GOW3 (which I've already bought), but for now I need a little rest. 🙂
9/10 - Highly recommended.
