Reviewed by: Belshy
Developer: Sony SCEA
Publisher: Sony SCEA

Oh come now, don't be coy. You must already know that this is going to get a high score from me. If not where have you been the last few weeks? Everyone with a pulse is giving GoW between 90% and 100%, and guess what...it thoroughly deserves it!

I've been a bit spoilled by my PS2 the last few months. First of all the bloody savagery of Shadow of Rome, quite epic in its own gory way. Then Devil May Cry 3, the best combat available on the system bar none, and also a heady adventure of gargantuan proportions. But neither of these could prepare me for the sheer grandeur and scope of GoW's Greek mythology romp. Or for its eye and ear candy.

Mmmmm, eye candy.....I'll get this bit out of the way, the bit where I risk being ridiculed for being a shallow graphics whore and nerdy audiophile. Where I'd normally shoe-horn this bit in near the end, to 'prove' that I'm more mindful of gameplay, I'm afraid I'm going to ram it down your throats right here and now:

God of War is the best looking, best sounding game on PS2. It really is the game that everyone programming for Sony's problematic little box of tricks should be aiming to at least match. Yet again my USB captured screen shots, darker, blurrier and grainier than the genuine article running through my Upscan Converter, really can't get this across, though I'd say that GoW's visuals are so good it's actually very hard to get a bad screenie, even via my cheapo TV card. Whether you like the art style or not (and personally I think it's inspired throughout) the sheer smoothness and solidity of the detailed characters/ structures, the richness of the colour, the atmosphere of the lighting, and incredible vastness of the world of GoW is unparalleled on PS2. Water swirls and glimmers, metal shines, polished floors reflect, sand blows around in ultra real storms, the plentiful blood jets wetly. It's more like a high end PC game at times. And what's even more staggering is that it all loads on the fly, with barely a judder or interruption to the action/ story. The occasional discreet 'loading' legend flickers and then you're back. How they've managed this on PS2 is something that all other game developers now owe it to themselves to find out, and soon! God knows what this must look like running in progressive scan. Yep it has a widescreen progressive option too..../drools.

So, dry technical blather out of the way, what is God of War about, and how does it play? Kratos, Spartan warrior and out-and-out homicidal brute, has sold his soul to Ares to reverse the fortunes of a battle that is all but lost. In doing so he finds his life is in ruins. To get his life back, and to avenge the pesky god that buggered it all up for him, Kratos must find Pandora's Box, and use it to slay Ares, the God of War. In a lovely little twist, right at the beginning of GoW, we see Kratos throwing himself to his death, being totally at the end of his tether. Then we're taken back 3 weeks previous to his apparent suicide, straight into the action on board a ship sailing to Athens through wildly storm ravaged seas.

The storm is the least of Kratos' worries, as the mighty Hydra has taken it upon itself to attack the ship and its crew, thus dropping you straight in at the deep end, with your first level being a gargantuan and spectacular boss battle. There are many influences on GoW that are quite easy to spot. Not that it's in any way a generic game, or derivative in a bad way. For example the combat, with Kratos' twin blades chained to his arms smacks of Rygar: The Legendary Adventure, with Rygar's tethered Diskarmor shield, and Rygar's wont to chain together massive combos, block attacks, and barge/ stomp from above. It has the orb/ soul/ gathering and weapon/ magic upgrade system of Onimusha. Devastaing elemental and supernatural attacks, every bit as impressive as Onimusha's, add variety to your arsenal. It has the Devil Trigger of Devil May Cry, in Kratos' own transformation known as Rage of the Gods, where his every attack is enhanced while the rage is upon him. There's also certain similarities to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, with rope swinging, backward leaps and ledge-shimmying moves being very close in style to PoP: SoT, even if Kratos is no twinkle-toed ballerina a la Prince. Plus I mustn't forget lots of lever pulling, and some beautiful swimming sequences, just like our Lara. These comparisons are the obvious ones, because they're from similar genre examples.

However, the comparison that I'd make, which strikes me as being one of the main reasons why I love GoW so much as an adventuring experience, is between GoW and the first Half Life. Woah there! Has Belshy taken leave of his senses? Mais non...allow me to explain. Half Life was the first and last first person shooter to exemplify the 'day in the life of' ethos in fps gameplay, and also the 'hub based boss'. The action took you from one end of a brilliantly paced story to another, without a single cut scene, and ran you ragged around a variety of satellite scenarios until you finally got to defeat the boss creature in a final splendid set piece. GoW does precisely these things, bar the exclusion of the 3rd person cut scene which are part and parcel of 3rd person action games. Even these it segues in and out of seamlessly, and they're never overly long. Because of this you find yourself following Kratos every step of the way, as he battles the Hydra, docks at Athens, fights his way to its roof tops and then through it, into the desert, climbs a titan and invades Pandora's temple, shimmies vertiginously above the striding titan to the next mountain-top temple, etc etc. In much the same way you 'become' Gordon Freeman in HL, with nothing bar a few short loads to remind you that you're playing a game. Nothing can beat playing a single player game that's 95% real time. Nothing.

Though boss battles aren't as plentiful as the excellent boss collection of DMC 3 each one is a stunning set piece; an epic and meaningful 'hub-based' or multi-tiered chapter of its own. The Hydra for example, has you facing it 3 times before its final spectacular defeat, with lengthy underling battles, platforming, puzzles and storyline all integrated seamlessly into resolving this particular chapter. The first level typifies GoW's entire gameplay agenda. While its combat may not be as deep as DMC 3, or its platforming as developed as PoP: SoT's, the complex chemistry of GoW's rich gameplay mix is unmatched by any other 3rd person adventure. Combat is very robust and great fun. Kratos uses the Blades of Chaos to chain together long/ short attacks with combos potentially numbering into the hundreds. This is the challenge, rather than filling a 'style metre' or learning 6 disciplines and bettering your grade with each through each level. God of War isn't a virtual dojo, like the Dante game. It's an adventure where the combat model aids the fun, and yields a captivating challenge in its own right. Similarly GoW isn't about being shown a 3D precis of the next game grid which needs wall-running around, and then being left with gamedoms finest platforming to wrestle with time and time again a la PoP:SoT. However you'll leave a recently solved puzzle or freshly won battle and have to climb across or up to the next section, using deft well developed platforming skills unique to Kratos, and while doing so fend off similarly agile opponents trying to dislodge you from your hand hold to your death. All these styles of gameplay serve the adventure, and yet have a level of polish often the equal of games which specialise in each, in isolation.

The puzzles, the fighting, and the platforming often have a very physical 'hands-on' approach that goes way beyond most game's mastery of a few default key strokes and then subsequent various combinations of the same. SCEA have implemented Sony's dual shock in a really clever way. The 'mini game' which I previously enjoyed in SCEE's 'Sly Racoon', where certain buttons on the right of the pad have to be pressed in a certain order, and in a certain time frame, is brought up to a new level in GoW. Certain doors or levers need the R2 button pressed at a certain intensity just to budge them, meaning you have to put in a little 'effort', just as Kratos is. Some enemies, when weakened sufficiently, can be brought down with extreme violence and swiftness by pressing the Triangle button once in the nick of time, but only if you then follow it up with a quick stab on Square, or Cross, depending on what you see being flashed up. If your reflexes are slow you then get picked up and dealt massive damage. So often you have to choose, depending on your health / courage/ reflexes between playing the mini game way (which yields truly cinematic scripted death sequences as a reward, if successful!) or the more drawn out orthodox combat method. The button stabbing workouts similar to those ancient Olympics games on the C64 sometimes come about, with the player being required to press Circle fast enough to force the Kratos' blades into the Minotaur's mouth as it struggles to hold you off. Normally that's the time where I'd swap hands around in order to get more speed on the Circle button. Great fun, and a wonderful way to get the most out of the console and also glorify its unique control methods.

One game of this nature stuck in my mind in particular. The one where you have to...how can I put it...pleasure two slave girls to...erm...conclusion....by pressing...ahem...all the right buttons! All tastefully off screen, of course. End result? A Grecian urn gets knocked off the bedside table. LOL! Yes, GoW covers some pretty strong and adult themes. Both in its sexual (jubbly) content and depiction of horror and gore. But it does this in a way that is sometimes humorous and, when serious, always thoughtful and thought provoking.

I guess I should attempt to say something bad about this game, before someone accuses me of taking bribes from Sony of America! Bloody hell, it's actually quite tough....

Okay, possible (and this is me really reaching here) flaw # 1: Well maybe it's not the most challenging of games in its combat, unless sometimes through sheer numbers of the underlings. Remember though that I've just played DMC 3 which is designed to reduce casual gamers to tears. My biggest challenge came from some of the platforming, especially in the last section of GoW. As far as death-by-fighting goes though, on normal mode I died on numerous occasions, sure, but was never held up for days at a time while I levelled up sufficiently to vanquish the sadistic boss in question. At the longest stretch it was the next day and I was back on my merry way. However, GoW isn't really about that at all. As I said before, it's a game about flowing seamless non-loading adventuring. It's about the telling of an epic story via a variety of gameplay styles, without ever fixating on one style in particular. But there will be people wanting more of a butt-kicking from the enemies, and guess what, Spartan (Hard) and the unlockable God (Lunatic) modes will give you masochists that exact thing! Minotaurs (the boss version knocks the excellent Rygar Minotaur into touch!), Gorgons, Harpies, Sirens, Cerebus dogs, Cyclops, etc...all become a lot harder to take down. And you'll want to play through it again, no doubt about it. The initial lack of challenge does make the game seem short compared to games like DMC 3 or Ninja Gaiden which most people seem to say are 20+ hour games first time around. However, these are the masochist-friendly 'dojo' games. Compared to similarly rounded, initially less demanding and combat-obsessed adventures such as Rygar, Castlevania or Onimusha, GoW presents great value for money, lasting about 12-15 hours first time around. Not bad at all. 12 -15 hours of utter Heaven as well...even better! Oh, and talking of value, use the code on the back of your GoW box to download the entire (amazing) soundtrack to your PC, free!

Possible gripe # 2: I had a freeze occur on an early level, and then later (on a much later level) a memory card load that never fully executed. I don't know whether this game has a reputation for being a bit twitchy. Judging by the obscene amounts of polish lavished on every aspect of its production, and the universally high scores, I'd say probably not. Also it is a game of such staggering complexity that two crashes (two more than Castlevania, DMC or Rygar though!) which were never repeated on replay, seems pretty negligible compared to some of the stuff PCs throw up on far less compex games. But I have to mention them, because GoW can't be patched, and I'm performing a service with this review...LOL! Seriously though, you want 'buggy'? Play Ghosthunter. GoW is immaculate in every way other than these two 'glitches' which, more than likely, may be unique to me.

Clutching at straws attempt # 3: The sections of GoW that gave me the most trouble were the platforming bits, leading to numerous falls. As I said, these caused me more trouble than the combat. Now, I'm not the most patient platformer, and it's lucky that GoW does it so well and kept me coming back for more. But, similar to a Capcom game, after every 3 bungled attempts it offers you an Easy option....but only for the combat! Not that I'd take that option if they somehow managed to make it apply to platforming/ puzzles etc. It's just that the constant offer of an Easy mode that doesn't really apply to your situation can get a bit irksome! Minor quibble, but in a game that's verging on perfection these things stand out. A bit more 'context specific' next time, please!

If you're a UK gamer you probably haven't really been touched by any hype concerning GoW. A criminal shame in my opinion. Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo, two canons of PS2 have been pushed like mad. And that's cool. Two lovely games on PS2 with past triumphs to aid their sales, that consistently rake in the dough. But this is the best action adventure on the system, perhaps of them all. A brand new franchise (hopefully a sequel will come) that as far as 99% of Limeys are concerned, has come out of nowhere. To ignore it due to lack of hype (the Americans have hyped it alot more healthily.....kudos to them) would be gaming heresy. FFS, an early Official Playstation 2 Magazine (UK edition) preview had GoW on its 'avoid' list. No wonder the UK games chart is in the state it is today! I am telling you to buy this game come June, and finally unleash the power of Playstation that you're not meant to underestimate! Finally a game that delivers on all the potential of 'Emotion Engine' and delivers stellar gameplay as well. An absolute stunner of a title, and a must have for any action fan or anyone with a love of Greek mythology.

Buy 'God of War' from GAME!

Available for	Reviewed on
PlayStation 2	PlayStation 2